Mövenpick highlights heritage

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Elaine Nettleton.

Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts director of communications - Middle East Elaine Nettleton talks Hotelier Middle East through the brand's new marketing campaign and the concept of 'Swissness'.

What is the new campaign for Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts?

We have a new corporate identity, which consists of new images in what will be an image campaign. We previously had an image campaign that lasted for four years, and has now done its time - you can probably remember the ads of sleeping people, for example.

It is time to move on and do something a bit new, so we wanted to modernise Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts and that's what we have done with this.

The image campaign is basically an advertising campaign that comes with all of its own collateral - the posters, the flyers, the ads and that type of thing.

And on top of that we have a new claim as well. Previously the claim was ‘True Excellence in Swiss Hospitality', which is a heck of a mouthful. So now we are ‘Passionately Swiss'.

Is that the focus of the new identity now - the Swiss factor?

Everything centres around being Passionately Swiss, and ‘Swissness' - we have invented this word. It is focusing on our values and everything that Switzerland stands for, which is integrity, reliability, precision and quality.

We are not trying to take Switzerland and put it into the Middle East, in terms of the Swiss Chalet, for example. When we say Passionately Swiss, the Swiss are passionate about quality.

So when we are talking about Swissness we are talking about the values of the country. It is really a powerful brand and we want to be aligned with that.

We did a lot of research before we launched this campaign, and in 2006 consumers actually said that we need to highlight the Swissness more - they felt that it was one of our core strengths. This is what they want to see.

The new look differentiates us, because we are not the only Swiss hotel brand; there is also Swissotel which is the only other brand that could produce this Swissness. But they have chosen to go completely the other way from it.

There's another thing about the campaign which is really cool. We did a survey asking consumers what they thought represented Switzerland, and they all said the Swiss flag - it wasn't cheese or chocolate.

So we are using that very cleverly in our headlines, where we have two thoughts which are joined by the Swiss flag acting as an ‘and'. We can't use that in Saudi Arabia, because it is a cross, so we are just using the word ‘and' in there. But the first thing you see when you look at our campaigns is the Swiss flag, which really comes across.

What changes will the consumer notice? Will guests see a change as well?

The guests are going to notice the new photography first of all, which is more lifestyle [focused], with very clean modern images. The guests are predominantly going to see this new claim, Passionately Swiss, everywhere - on all the marketing materials for example.

And the whole theme of this campaign comes back to the Swissness, so there is going to be a look and feel associated with that so that everything the guest comes into contact with will come across as a quality brand associated with Switzerland.

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