Tip O'Neill
The “Celebrity-in-a-Suitcase” advertising campaign was conceived in 1984 by Michael Diliberto and produced through 1996. It is the longest running hospitality campaign and has achieved pop culture status by being included in the popular Trivial Pursuit board game.
Over 40 TV spots were created with celebrities from Sonny Bono, Vanna White and Evel Knievel to George Foreman, Ed McMahon, Tim Conway, Dennis Rodman, Ivana Trump, Dion Sanders, James Garner and Tip O’Neill to name a few.
Originally created to drive calls to its central reservation system, the campaign had so many “legs” it was used to drive business for senior discounts, coupon book promotions, movie tie-ins, government/military discounts and kids stay free promos.
When the campaign started, central reservation bookings represented 32% of total franchise sales. After the first three years, bookings rose to 40% of total sales and remained at that level for the duration of the campaign.
The advertising campaign also won a Gold Effie for Advertising Effectiveness Worldwide and came in 2nd for the entire show finishing behind Apple Computer’s introductory TV spot for the Macintosh.
For the past 50 years, Best Western Hotels grew steadily from a small roadside motel to a mid-priced worldwide lodging chain of over 3000 hotels primarily because they had the lowest franchise fees in lodging. And surprisingly without much brand awareness. Simply stated, Best Western was the world’s largest hotel chain but the problem was that
no one knew it.
That all changed in 2001 when “The World’s Largest Hotel Chain” creative strategy was designed and executed by Michael Diliberto.
To raise awareness of the Best Western “world’s largest hotel chain” brand positioning.
Best Western's awareness grew from 5% to 21% in just three years.
They achieved the highest sales results in the company’s history in all key areas:
• # of bookings to the central reservation system
• # of room nights sold
• Highest Average Daily Rate
• Highest net revenue in BW history
• Highest ad awareness scores in BW history
By 2003, Best Western held a huge $4.20 lead in Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) over their competitors. They also became the #1 brand in mid-priced lodging for hotel developers for “reflagging.”
It’s one of the smallest of the islands in the Bahamas yet one of the busiest. In the past three years, Nassau Paradise Island has made an investment of over $2 billion in world-class accommodations and service facilities making it not only ideal as a vacation destination, but it’s a place that understands business as well.
Provide meeting planners and vacationers with beautifully designed and information rich meeting and facilities guide books and vacation destination brochures plus dynamic online versions for the website.
Because Nassau Paradise Island has seen explosive growth in the last several years, the need for printed collateral materials is more important than ever. Diliberto Inc has designed the B2B Meeting and Facilities Guide for the last three years and it’s into a fourth printing run. The Visitor’s Guide is into its eighth printing.