
Holiday Inn Express | Melbourne
Cutting through the competition in busy Melbourne










COTA SA | The Plug-in

Mercedes College

Cutting through the competition in busy Melbourne
Holiday Inn Express is IHG’s fastest growing hotel brand. It has continued to expand in Australia since its launch in 2016.
Within three years, Pro-invest Group developed and launched four hotels – Sydney Macquarie Park and Brisbane and then Adelaide and Newcastle, which communikate et al executed.
The opening of the flagship property, Holiday Inn Express Melbourne Southbank, saw the hotel group take on the competitive Melbourne accommodation market. With this decision came a need for a strong integrated marketing strategy.
We needed to:
The ‘simple, smart travel’ brand was showcased for the first time to a Melbourne audience through a combination of:
Our team developed the campaign tagline “Less boring, more exploring”. This alludes to the endless opportunities to explore what Melbourne has to offer and also incorporates the brand premise of ‘simple, smart travel’ – we give you what you need so you can spend more time on what’s important to you!
The campaign included a public activation, held in Queensbridge Square in the Southbank precinct. We had a greenscreen photobooth which allowed people to select their favourite Melbourne event, grab some props and get snapping! The photos were then printed out, sent via text and broadcast on a digital billboard in the Melbourne CBD.
There were also free iced coffees, snacks and a live DJ, creating a fun atmosphere for everyone to enjoy while relaxing in the styled event space.
Other elements of our campaign included:
These activities resulted in a very effective opening campaign, with the hotel enjoying strong visibility in the market and experiencing strong bookings throughout its opening period.
The greenscreen booth was an absolute hit at the public activation, with:
The social media campaign was also a great success, leaving Holiday Inn Express Melbourne Southbank with powerful marketing assets. Some key stats include:
When commenting on the campaign, the client noted “we absolutely smashed it out of the park” and “we should all be really proud of the activation and the amount of positive traction we received.”
Following the successful development of our new website, communikate et al has maintained a proactive approach to the refinement and improvements of content and key messages in collaboration with our team. They embraced and supported us in all communication relating to the impact of COVID-19. They’re a friendly and responsive team with all requests being eagerly supported.
Working with the talented team at communikate we have the very best communication, marketing, design and digital expertise and resources at hand. Our brand is now integrated and seamless across everything we do.
We love the Daily Moves branding that communikate et al created. It is friendly, flexible for different applications, and our marketing collateral stands out from the rest. We have received a lot of compliments from participants and stakeholders who love it just as much as we do.
communikate were initially engaged to assist in rebranding and marketing. I was most impressed with the way they listened, interpreted our ideas and turned them into something the whole community took pride in…. Their strategy helped us to achieve strong enrolment numbers… I would highly recommend them if you are looking for a professional, innovative, talented and highly relational marketing (and more) agency.
We have been hugely impressed with the way communikate et al have immersed themselves in learning our brand and respecting our approach. It felt like they just ‘got us’ from the start! It has been such a pleasure working with their professional, smart and dynamic team.
communikate et al were an integral part of the King William Road upgrade team from the initial community consultation right through to completion. The brand they created fit the project perfectly. They took the time to understand the complexities and always delivered with strategic oversight, ensuring things were done with purpose and meaning. Having them on board was invaluable.
communikate et al has become an important and trusted partner... They share our passion. We greatly value their flexibility, their responsiveness, their turnaround times, their honest appraisal of projects and their collegiality. Most of all we love the fact that they have supported our focus on achieving outcomes for older people.
communikate et al understood our uniquely commercial and political landscape to quickly become a valued member of our team. They’ve supported our major events and activations with great results… and navigated and mitigated risk when needed. Put simply, they’re responsive, supportive and just as invested in Rundle Mall’s success as we are.
We've worked with the communikate et al team for 18 months and they've played a pivotal role launching the Mineral Swim brand. They have successfully driven our influencer programme, managed our social media programme and generated leads resulting in sales. They are dynamic and professional, and it’s been a pleasure working with them and seeing our brand flourish.
Bec, Henry and the team understood our brand from the get go and it showed from concept to delivery. During an intensely busy time for our team, they worked seamlessly with us to develop and manage an integrated campaign... The results were outstanding and put the hotel in an excellent position to launch into a competitive market, with strong occupancy experienced. We really value our partnership.
Head Office
Upstairs 200 The Parade,
Norwood SA 5067
Get in touch
Telephone +61 8 8331 1444hello@communikate.net.au