Eulogy!

• Consumers
• Businesses
• Everyone

Hard Days Night Hotel

With a little help from PR

Objective

Eulogy! was asked to launch the hotel using PR as the only marketing activity. The communications and business objectives were to get the regional, national and international media to write about the hotel, drive traffic to the website and achieve room bookings.

Description

Eulogy! advised the launch should fully capitalise on Liverpool’s tenure as European Capital of Culture in 2008. It was important to emphasise that the hotel was characterised by Beatles artwork and completely different to tacky themed hotels.

The PR campaign began in September 2007 to create buzz around the new hotel – which opened in February 2008 – working closely with government agencies such as Visit Britain to ensure key travel, consumer, lifestyle and arts journalists visiting the city were aware of the hotel as a place to go or stay.

Creative story angles included big feature ideas such as 'celebrity suites in hotels around the world'. The team also built relationships with key Beatles bloggers and websites by conducting special preview tours. Key hotel staff also received media training. Some 600 of Liverpool’s great and good were invited to the launch party.

Results

• Over 275 pieces of press coverage achieved
• Extensive broadcast coverage, including BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4 and ITV News in the UK, as well as French, Spanish, Australian and American coverage – including CNN globally
• Over 98% positive reviews with 80% adhering to the PR messages
• Hits to the hotel website rose from 80,000 per week pre-launch to 1.4 million in the four days after it opened its doors
• The day after launch, the hotel took 184 room bookings – up from 40 per day the week before the launch 
• Hotel occupancy target of 28% smashed, with 42% occupancy by the end of the first month of opening.