The first of its new strategic advertisements are out as Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, helmed by former Singapore Airlines executives, begins its brand building journey. Yeoh Siew Hoon reports.
Ever since Millennium & Copthorne Hotels took on former Singapore Airlines' marketing chief, Michael Tan, to drive its branding and image more than a year ago, all eyes have been on the hotel group, wondering about its next move.
Over the last year, a steady stream of SIA senior and middle-level executives have joined the M&C team based in Singapore. Gerry Oh, who was SIA's vice president-sales and distribution, joined as senior vice president-global sales and marketing, last October.
Executives from SIA's sales and Krisflyer departments are also in place. The latest recruit is Yeoh Teng Kwong, who was leading innovation and product development at SIA. Dr Yeoh is vice president, global product & service development.
The strong SIA legacy at M&C has led to industry watchers jesting that soon, M&C will be called MCA or that its rooms will start to look like airline cabins or that its performance will be measured in passenger loads rather than occupancies.
These quips don't sit well of course with the new management team which says that the new team being built up at M&C consists not only of professionals from aviation but also from credit card companies and hospitality.
But it's an association they will find hard to run from – and really, why should they anyway given that SIA is such a world class premium brand?
Thus, when Millennium & Copthorne Hotels launched its new strategic advertisement – the first of which appeared as a cover wrap on Forbes magazine – the first remarks made were, it resembled SIA's advertising.
The ad shows a father and son against a deep blue night sky sprinkled with stars – it does look like an airline ad except, instead of route network, the stars show M&C hotel locations.
When asked to comment on the perceived similarity to SIA's advertisements, Oh said, "Well, the background of the network creative is a father and son amidst the a beautiful star sprinkled night sky with the warm soothing glow of the setting sun below the horizon. It's an inspirational heart-warming picture. Its very different to any other ads I have seen."
He explained the rationale for the creative.
"M&C is one of the world's largest owned and managed hotel groups with over 88 properties in 16 countries. Across all our hotels, we have people with solid hospitality experience and we want to leverage this across our network of hotels to provide our guests with the kind of personal hospitality that will create memorable experiences.
"Our first strategic advertisement as a cover wrap on Forbes magazine is aimed at informing the world about the scale and scope of our hotel network and the creative should convey the memorable experience we want to offer."
The advertisements are only one of the few steps the hotel group is taking as it builds on its brand. At its Singapore office, it is beefing up on and rationalising product development, service delivery and sales and marketing distribution.
Oh said that M&C's chairman, Kwek Leng Beng, has long held aspirations to build the M&C hotel group into one of the strongest hospitality brands.
"As such, he has brought together the necessary group of people from the airlines to credit card companies and other top hotel chains to achieve this. While the backgrounds of the newer people in M&C are different, all are connected with travel and tourism which helps us leverage each other's strengths and network to achieve the objectives for the group."
He added, "Brand building, as you know, is a relatively long journey. It is a
necessary journey because it builds brand equity, financial worth and goodwill, and a strong customer base. It is a customer centric strategy and the tasks ahead are focused on providing for our customers and meeting their insatiable needs, efficiently and universally. So there will be emphasis on product innovation, service enhancements, providing consistently high quality deliverables and more. The support systems and processes must also be in place or upgraded where necessary and all these are being pursued."
Oh said that "the brand building journey we have embarked on involves many facets and the challenge is to make it happen well and cost effectively. What we are trying to do is actually encapsulated in the copy in our strategic network ad: ‘At Millennium Hotels & Resorts, we realise that we may never be able to recreate those special moments when all everybody ever wanted was to please you. But we'd like to try and help you discover new experiences that will be just as memorable'."
He added, "It won't be easy but who said that trying to please someone when building a relationship was always easy. But that's the beauty of it all, to go on trying to please so in the end the relationship thrives on meeting each other's needs."
The SHY Report
A regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry by one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, Yeoh Siew Hoon.
Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her company's mission is "Content, Communication, Connection". She is a writer, speaker, facilitator, trainer and events producer. She is also an author, having published "Around Asia In 1 Hr: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries". Her motto is ‘free to do, and be'. Contacts: Tel: 65-63424934, Mobile: 65-96801460Check out Siew Hoon's new website, www.shy-connection.com, which features a newly-launched e-zine with a difference. 
