We think big. When we ask, “what if,” we mean it. When our clients ask, “when,” we love it. We accept no limits and know no fear. Here’s what that’s gotten us into lately.
Some properties are impossible to pigeonhole, and like it that way. After all, when you’re in the business of redefining historic landmarks as hip, upscale destination resorts, you don’t want to carry anyone’s preconceptions of what a hotel should be.
Sometimes the fame of a property overwhelms its parent brand to the extent that even the operator ceases to think about the big picture being painted for potential guests. Multiply that by 11 properties and you get a sense of how deeply the identity of Noble House Hotels & Resorts was buried beneath its superstar properties. The key challenge was to create a new center of gravity, around which the "planets" or properties would wish to rotate – enthusiasm was a must.
More than one million visitors a year love everything about Colonial Williamsburg, the nation’s premier colonial theme park, where the 17th and 18th centuries come to life. But single visits might tend to reinforce the idea that history is static and uninteresting once one has learned what one can. So how best to keep thousands of potential return visitors apprised of this ever-changing source of living history?
When MetroPCS, the nation’s fastest-growing prepaid wireless service provider, needed to open 1,087 new retail locations in New York and 720 in Boston in an “impossible” two-month time frame, they turned to trusted partner USFI to handle the logistics and supply chain management for all the collateral, signage and point-of-purchase inventory, from design to printing and delivery.
When a high-end resort hospitality chain has as much guest loyalty in the bank as RockResorts, it can seem distracting to focus on “minor” issues like whether or not all properties are using the same logo, brand-compliant colors, "green" papers and printing. Without these things, though, a brand’s credibility with consumers suffers, making it appear haphazard and environmentally careless in its public persona. Lack of focus can cost the brand a lot of money too, not just in lost engagements, but in printing and production inefficiencies.
One of the nation's biggest telecom companies wanted to grow its fiber optic-based home entertainment business with a new trial offer – a free DVR and HBO service for one month. With a relatively small budget, little to no major advertising support and the need to build traffic quickly, the brand had its work cut out for it.
Sometimes, a client’s brand just doesn’t reflect what the company is really about. When USFI undertook a total rebranding of BuyEfficient, the nation’s fastest-growing purchasing consortium serving the hospitality industry, we discovered a brand that wasn’t reaching its target audience, much less presenting a compelling reason to choose the client’s services.
There was trouble on the “Ranch,” a new residential resort on a beautiful lake just west of Fort Worth. The development appeared to be on its way to becoming an “all plans, no construction” sort of non-development. Everything was in place to create a wonderful community, except actual houses and residents. How to sell the Ranch but avoid the expense of building model homes on spec?
Having recently acquired an underperforming luxury hotel in Orange County, Calif., Fairmont Hotels & Resorts needed an immediate shot in the arm in the form of increased traffic and publicity for its grand opening. With the vast untapped potential of Los Angeles and San Diego within an hour’s drive, a key challenge faced by the client was the general assumption that Orange County was homogenous and uninteresting.
Very rarely does a client ask for a total branding makeover. More often, our partners have some components of their brand in place, but lack a compelling visual context for them. Johnson Properties, a major resort realtor, had invested in a strong logo design, but placed it in contexts such as “pub-set” ads, co-op brochures and rudimentary outdoor. Strategy, mission, even tactical direction seemed lacking.