Without reservations

When I was a kid, I took a lot of summer car trips with my parents. Since we had relatives in Montana, and since I was a big fan of the region’s natural splendors - Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon, Bryce National Park - our trips usually took us west.

When it was time to turn in for the night, my folks often chose a Best Western hotel. With its ubiquitous yellow sign and dependably modest facilities (which to my young eyes always seemed to be run by the same friendly husband and wife) the chain was our home away from home.

I haven’t stayed in a Best Western since those halcyon days, so my impression of the company is still firmly rooted in the ’70s. Apparently, as Best Western’s research has found, I’m not alone. “Some consumers perceive Best Western as kind of a tired, older hotel chain from the ’70s, when in reality we have gone through a massive system-wide change,” says Elaine Hendricks, formerly Best Western’s director of strategic planning, now an independent consultant.

Several years ago the Phoenix-based hotel chain, the world’s largest at nearly 3,500 locations (2,100 in North America alone), began a program to upgrade the appearance and quality of its properties. But somehow that message just wasn’t reaching consumers. So in 1993 the company turned to advertising, calling on the Rogge Effler & Partners agency to create a TV campaign that would show current and future Best Western customers that the chain had changed. “The goal of the ad campaign was to reposition Best Western as a modern, contemporary chain, the best choice in the mid-priced category, that could meet the traveling needs of the public whether they be on leisure or business travel,” Hendricks says.

Given consumer perceptions of its properties, Best Western wanted to make sure that the commercials, which show a sparkling array of Best Western locations all over the world, were believable. “There was an internal concern that the commercials looked more upscale than the product could deliver in the consumer’s actual experience. It’s not that we didn’t believe that our product could meet expectations. We’ve renovated all of the properties and added many other high quality locations. But we were afraid the person who remembers Best Western as a small Mom and Pop operation along the roadside in the ’70s might reject the commercials,” Hendricks says.

To test the commercials, Best Western conducted interactive large-group interviews in 1995 using the Rapid Analysis Measurement System (RAMS), from Aragon Consulting Group, St. Louis. With RAMS, respondents use hand-held remote control devices with dials on them to answer questions and express their opinions about the stimulus - in this case, TV commercials - they are shown. “After meeting with Aragon Consulting and getting a sense of what their technology could accomplish, I decided, in conjunction with the director of advertising, that we would use it to get a better sense of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual commercials as well as the overall campaign so that we could better strategically position the evolution of the campaign,” Hendricks says.

In the beginning of a research session using RAMS, respondents familiarize themselves with the dial units by answering simple categorical questions (Are you male or female? Dial 1 for male, 2 for female.) before moving on to questions requiring them to use a Likert scale, paired comparison and other measures.

With the RAMS system, backroom observers can watch real-time responses to the commercials on TV monitors, represented by a line on a graph superimposed over the commercial that moves as audience reactions change. “The computer transceiver sweeps the audience every half-second then it locks out so that a person can’t change their response. Then it calculates the adjusted mean score based on the weighting variables we have entered. It gives you the score as it moves in real time,” says Gary Miller, president of Aragon Consulting Group, Inc.

The RAMS methodology also allows clients and/or the moderator to insert questions as needed. If, for example, an issue arises, respondents can be queried about it in seconds. “In the Best Western research, if the respondents didn’t like something, we could ask a new series of questions because we were smarter after we asked the question than before. So then we could insert new questions to find out why they responded the way they did,” Miller says.

Testing advertising with a methodology like RAMS was a first for Best Western. “Historically we had never used this kind of technology for our advertising testing, usually because we were limited by a lack of funds. It does tend to be more expensive than the traditional means but we decided that we would give it a shot, and we’re very glad that we did. I think we reaped much more back in terms of value than the expenditure,” Hendricks says.

Tough audience

The groups were conducted in two phases in Atlanta and Beverly Hills with 100 respondents. In the first phase, Best Western customers and non-customers watched the Best Western commercials and those of competitors. In the second phase, customers and non-customers were separated into concurrent diagnostic groups to probe their reactions to the commercials in more detail.

“We went to Beverly Hills because respondents there tend to be the most critical of the of kind of commercials Best Western was doing,” says Miller. “We really tried to subject the commercials to the toughest audience we could find, knowing that if they passed muster there they would pass muster in other markets.”

The groups were split, Hendricks says, to get a keener understanding of the attitudinal differences between potential and current customers and also to determine how to make the advertising more appealing to potential customers. “This methodology allowed us to understand the elements that were compelling and why they were compelling. For a research team and an ad team, that’s critically important because as the campaign evolves (the research findings) give us a keen understanding of what’s driving consumer perceptions. That’s something that we really haven’t been able to get out of other kinds of research. We’ve gotten at in broad strokes but we’ve never isolated it down to a particular image and been able to ask consumers what it was about an image that was either compelling or caused them to reject it,” Hendricks says.

Because the research measured consumer reaction to the commercials second by second, Best Western could identify the portions of the commercial during which interest dipped and then go back to the respondents in the second group and probe for more information. “It was really great to be able to see the real-time responses to the commercials. In addition to the Best Western management team we had the creative staff from the ad agency as well as a few hotel owners, so it was a fun process for everybody involved,” Hendricks says.

Accomplished the impossible

Much to the delight of all concerned, the research showed that the Best Western ads accomplished the impossible: they were persuasive without straining credibility.

Originally the plan was to change the campaign over time, using the research findings to determine which elements worked and which didn’t. There was also a feeling within the company that the campaign was no longer fresh, Hendricks says. “It turns out that the public still found the campaign fresh and it was only internally that we were burnt out on its theme. So the results guided us to retain and enhance the campaign rather than make some substantive changes.”

With a strong campaign on its hands, Best Western took the money it had earmarked for production of additional commercials and used it to buy more airtime this summer. “The summer campaign carries the traditional tactical message of appealing to vacation travelers but reinforces the findings from the research for those particular elements that were compelling in getting across our updated image,” Hendricks says.

“Based on the previous exposure, the wear index was extremely low,” Miller adds. “That drove the decision to keep the campaign running during a year when media costs were climbing due to the upcoming presidential election and the Olympics.”

While advertising agencies usually are loath to have their work analyzed by consumers, Miller says that in this case, the people from Rogge Effler & Partners were extremely cooperative. “It was a wonderful opportunity to work side by side, where you had strategic planning, marketing and advertising working along with market research in a very productive and synergistic manner.”

“We were able to give the creative team guidance on how to refine and maximize the entire commercial, adjusting in the spots that had weaknesses,” Hendricks says. “And in this case it wasn’t just a matter of knowing that audience reaction went down in a certain spot and having to guess what they didn’t like. We knew exactly what they were reacting negatively to. There’s no stronger guidance that could be given to the creative team and I think that gave us a huge benefit.”