Life is not easy every day and a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd is to use humor. Read below the example of the Comfort Hotel group which uses humor at all levels as a marketing strategy for differentiation.
Creating a customer experience around humor requires however to be very well organized and to be skilled in terms of marketing. The experience has to be compelling and it would be a big mistake to think it’s an easy job. Besides finding to right tone to address all your customers, producing the collaterals (this is the word used to describe all documents resulting from a given strategy : flyers, posters, emails, clothes, …) requires also professionalism in the planning and in the execution.
Comfort Hotel uses humor at all levels
From the check-in desk up to your room, all possible touchpoints have been identified by Comfort Hotel LT to make the customer smile. The desk has those wonderful business cards that ask customers to post their feedback online, there is a rabbit (in a cage though) which has a fun weekly message for customers to reflect upon, a money box to pay Kung-Fu lessons to the employees to free their colleagues kidnapped by Ninjas, …
In the stairs and in the lift you’ll find also various funny messages (sometimes they are hidden well) about your health. And finally, in the rooms, several customized messages (they differ from room to room) can be found, for instance in the shower.
Advice for your marketing strategy
Not only do I find this positioning very attractive but I just love it. It’s not costly, it allows differentiation and curiously creates (at least for me) value. The value is intangible of course but what is sure is that people will talk about you (I’m doing this right now and have become an advocate of the brand). The comfort hotel has of course a big advantage: it has physical facilities that allow for scattering those various humoristic messages. But even if you do not welcome customers in your office you can identify the touchpoints that will make your customer experience unforgettable. I’ve thought about this for our small company and am about to start a first initiative for the next communication wave towards our customers. I’m eager to see how it will go …
Posted in Marketing.
