BEST WESTERN, the UK’s most unique portfolio of independent hotels, is advertising on television this April for the first time in its 30 year history as the group relaunches with new positioning ‘Hotels with Personality’.

The new strapline was developed to highlight Best Western’s character and independence. It will differentiate the group from the formulaic chains offering generic hotel stays in the UK. 

The new positioning is part of a broader marketing campaign including direct mail, PR, social media, experiential activity, online and press advertising and a total relaunch of www.bestwestern.co.uk along with small but all important changes to the hotel experience.  The 30 second adverts will be run on all terrestrial channels plus the multi channels across digital and satellite.  The intensive campaign will run for three weeks, breaking on 15 April during Coronation Street.

The TV adverts will feature a number of hotels and will celebrate Best Western staff in the beautiful and varied setting in which each of the hotels is found. Best Western is the largest group of independently owned hotels in the UK and the whole campaign is focussed on celebrating this independence and the unique, individual elements of the group.

David Clarke, chief executive of Best Western hotels said: “Best Western is the second most recognised mid market hotel brand in Great Britain but, we want to be number one.  We have an iconic brand and we’re building on this with a twist. Our hotels are all independently owned and operated and the personality each property has is our key strength, and this is the focus of our major new campaign.  The TV ad campaign is the first in our history but we’re also using social media in a fun way to engage people in the whole idea of ‘Personality’.

We believe that 2010 will be another year of more people staying in the UK for their holidays and we’re targeting growth in the leisure sector, but with over 15,000 bedrooms and 1200 meeting rooms in the market, there is certainly scope to capture more of the corporate market too.

David continued: “We also expect to see more hotels becoming Best Western hotels as we attract owners of hotels who see that we are a brand that makes good business sense. We have removed poor quality hotels and we have opportunities in key destinations for good sized quality hotels.”

Tim Wade, head of marketing at Best Western, added: “The positioning is not just about marketing strategy it is about the whole experience offered by Best Western from booking your hotel to the stay itself and our campaign aims to reflect all of the unique qualities and personalities that make a stay in an independent hotel special.

“We believe that all Best Western customers are as independent as the hotels they stay in and they look for much more in a great stay than a generic room with OK service, for them it’s about the whole experience, a real sense of occasion. What’s more at Best Western we don’t believe that this quality of stay should cost our customers any more.

“A Best Western experience is about the passionate people who work in the hotel, the local produce and knowledge on tap, the unbeatable views and history and that feeling that you are at the very heart of a community.”

The campaign will also see a partnership with Visit England to communicate the rebrand message to the 600, 000 people interested in travel on their database. 

Experiential activity to celebrate the personalities and talent of the people of Britain will also take place with the Britain’s Got Personality roadshow.  A talent portal, http://www.hotelswithpersonality.com, has been launched to harness talent related conversation and drive entries to the UK-wide talent roadshow.

The Britain’s Got Personality roadshow will visit five UK cities – York (17 April), Edinburgh (18 April), Cardiff (24 April), Birmingham (25 April) – and culminate in London’s Covent Garden on May 1.  It aims to find members of the public in each area with big personalities.  They will be invited on stage to show off their unique talent with a mini performance.

The social media campaign will build on the recent success of Best Western’s Facebook and Twitter (http://twitter.com/Best Western GB) campaign to give away a weekend break every half hour for 24 hours.

Finally, a new website has been launched to reflect the new branding, www.bestwestern.co.uk which will sit alongside the talent portal for the experiential activity, www.hotelswithpersonality.com