Diagnosis, challenge and objectives
In its first three years of life, Hotelbreak had focused on building a strong relationship with its B2B client, the hoteliers who supply the spaces they market and the investors who had supported them during this initial phase. In that sense, it was a solid and well developed brand.
However, in the midst of growth and international expansion, the need arose to generate and strengthen the relationship with the end customer, a relationship that until then had been tactical and performance-based. In this new phase, the brand needs to transmit its essence to a greater degree and with greater clarity, to promote its own identity and a structured and cohesive global definition, which can be understood in different markets and which, beyond the product and service, helps us to identify it, differentiate it and provide relevance in relation to its international competitors. It must be able to focus on the end customer (b2c) to increase its critical mass of penetration in the new markets it accesses, thus multiplying the value of the company in the eyes of investors, and all of this without leaving aside the hotel sector (b2b) and investors.
A value proposition that will also structure and unify the commercial discourse for the sales and marketing team, a discourse that until now was not univocally defined.
At Mandarina Brand Society we analysed the characteristics of Hotelbreak, the market and trends, in order to find a common thread that would help us to define a unique, solid and clear, relevant and credible brand, to discover why Hotelbreak exists, what it does and how it does it.
In most of the players we detected value propositions aimed at a “consumer of leisure products”, collections of unattractive and overwhelming offers due to the high number of references that even reached the point of saturation and generated rejection. There was an interesting window of opportunity to differentiate.
We decided to focus on and understand the concerns of their main customer, who is clearly female. They book them and they wanted to see themselves reflected: cool mothers, urban women, who want to attend to and cover all facets of their lives and stand out in them. They want to be trendy and be a reference in their environment. They are loyal users and generators of content for Instagram, they join the slow-life trend as a lifestyle, they choose a Boho chic style when it comes to dressing and they are trend lovers.
On the other hand, foreign residents (a growing client profile in big cities such as Madrid, Barcelona or Paris) with a trendy attitude, who want to integrate, socialise and discover rooftops, cool places where the locals have fun.
LGTBIQA+ groups, digital nomads, or people on business trips, with purchasing power, who have a link to the city and who seemed to us to be the most interesting in terms of encouraging the recurring purchase of the Hotelbreak product. Two types of more indulgent target profiles, “yosumers” who are looking for self-care and everyday whims.
Your time, enjoy what matters
In this context, we decided to give Hotelbreak a renewed aspirational capacity, to give the spotlight to consumers who want to take control of their own self-care and who see Hotelbreak experiences as an opportunity to take a break from daily stress. It is a unique concept and approach in its segment that makes them unique, differentiating them from the competition by offering experiences that are a break from the daily routine, an escape valve from daily stress, an exercise in awareness and freedom. A kind of empowerment that encourages you to make decisions about the quality of your time and how to enjoy it, in solitude, in company, with friends or discovering new people with similar tastes. A healing alternative to the ‘burnout’ of everyday life. A brand that understands leisure as a window to freedom, as that space in which we feel free and alive and in which we can express our true nature, being able to choose how we want to enjoy it at every moment.
We therefore propose the brand as a simple tool that makes it possible to execute those decisions taken from that desire for freedom, offering you the opportunity to network and discover the coolest places in the cities where you live, whether permanently or temporarily, with whomever you want and however you want. We change the axis since we narrate the product and we even change the voice that narrates it.
We also transfer this same attitude to the categorisation and segmentation of the offer, and we encourage action and direct booking through a clear identity and a segmentation of the offer focused on the desires and mood of the end customer. Thus, the search on the portal is defined by emotional impulses and connections (relaxation, family time, sports, self-care), rather than by the type of product.
The responsible friend who invites you to make choices
We worked on its visual system around an isotype that condenses Hotelbreak’s main message into a single element: “a break from everyday life”. A space of time dedicated to you alone or with those you enjoy the most. To leave obligations aside and enjoy your free time by getting out of the routine.
The chromatic selection of the visual identity clearly connects with the personality and values transmitted by the brand.
Yellow as the main colour and mauve as a secondary colour, applied with a soft and not overpowering tonality, evoke dynamism, happiness, energy and optimism in the consumer’s mind in a sweet and trendy tonality that speaks to us of the friendly side, of the inspiring friend who advises you and gives you the final push to make that decision that you have been putting off for so long, that “you deserve it”.
We add a green that speaks to us of freshness, health, wellbeing, it is the point of balance between mind and heart that we all need.
The determination, optimism, honesty, simplicity and that strength and resilience characteristic of a brand born in one of the most important crises in history are conveyed in the tone of voice. The copies transmit in very few words the essence of the brand and the product. Clear messages that invite you to put yourself first and take action, supported by a modern and casual typography such as Tobias and the play of weights in the fonts to emphasise words or phrases.
An extraordinary, vital, reliable, close and creative brand that faces an internationalisation process with the guarantee of a proposal that connects in a universal way, that transfers power to its community, and that prepares its evolution for possible future connections with socialisation platforms, friend plans, etc. that would exponentially increase the possibilities of reach, penetration and commercial results.
Because where there is a strong brand, there is a strong business.
