Skift Take

Choice Hotels is launching a year-long U.S. marketing campaign to raise awareness for its 22 brands. Here's why it decided to leverage digital platforms like Spotify and to hire Emmy winner Keegan-Michael Key as a brand ambassador.

Sean O'Neill

Choice Hotels is about to begin a year-long U.S. marketing campaign to raise awareness for its brands. Ads will air on linear and streaming TV and platforms like Spotify as part of a multi-million dollar effort.

Choice Hotels, founded in 1939, has for decades used traditional broadcast and outdoor billboard advertising to raise brand awareness.

But the company's chief marketing officer, Noha Abdalla, has been refining the company's operational model to more efficiently raise brand awareness with new digital tools and platforms. Besides TV, the group is experimenting with digital-video ads and podcast placements, which are cheaper than traditional TV spots and aim to be more efficient at targeting relevant demographic groups.

https://youtu.be/yj0xaRgRGaU?feature=shared Complex Pitch

Choice Hotels faces a challenge as it seeks to pitch four major brands — Radisson, Cambria Hotels, Comfort, and Quality Inn — while also alluding to 18 other brands. That's a lot of information to convey concisely.

The hotel franchisor in 2019 hired McKinney as its lead creative agency. McKinney faced a decision of telling a story about the brands or about the hotel guests.

It chose to spotlight the guests with an "Our Business Is You" campaign that showed ordinary people picking Choice brands for vario