Rosewood group of Hotels & and Resorts: Branding to increase customer profitability and lifetime value

Situational Analysis •Rosewood owns very highly valued properties and resorts •Customers fail to Recognize that these properties are of Rosewood•The advertisements of Rosewood were property specific•The Rosewood brand was not well promoted

Introduction•Headquartered in Dallas, Rosewood Hotels and Resorts is an International Private Hotel Management company•Caroline Rose Hunt founded Rosewood Hotels and Resorts in 1979•Rosewood has built an iconic reputation with Iconic Luxury Hotels

Company Background

•The First Rosewood Hotel managed was ‘The Mansion’ on the Turtle Creek opened in 1980•The hotel was an old mansion in Dallas rescued from demolition •After successful conversion of existing and newly built hotels, Rosewood became known for its ability to enhance a property’s value •Rosewood mainly competes with two groups of luxury hotels mainly the corporate branded RITZ – CARLTON and Four Seasons•The company had five executive officers till date and the present president and CEO is John Scott.

Company Profile

•Rosewood Hotels and Resorts is known for the reputation to transform a property into a world class luxury hotel •The brand name of Rosewood was mainly known to Hotel professionals as the brand name was muted and unmentioned in advertisements •The individual branding strategy of Rosewood was soft and complementary and not intrusive •The boost the company’s growth, the management was considering a new brand strategy

Branding strategy of Rosewood

• Rosewood followed a soft way of individual branding. The Rosewood Hotel marketed itself under its own brand•Rosewood sense of place philosophy differentiated the brand•Rosewood abstained from following the corporate model of Canned and Cookie approach•Due to lack of branding, Rosewood had very low brand awareness with its guests•Later Rosewood began advertising a feature list of all properties

Steps Rosewood could have taken up in its Individual Branding Individual or Collective Strategy ?

•Rosewood could have differentiated its brand from the product/ service offered•Rosewood could have used the ‘Sense of Place’ philosophy to differentiate its brand from the competitors•It could have promoted itself along with the brand names of hotels.

Why should Rosewood change its brand strategy ?

•Lack of awareness among guests with regards to Rosewood•The customers didn’t have return visits to other Rosewood properties

Goals of Rosewood

•To create Rosewood Junkies•To increase the awareness of the Brand in the market•Improve the level of Brand Equity

Perception of the guests

•Completely detached from the brand ‘Rosewood’•Guests never knew that the property belonged to Rosewood even after staying in it•Never knew that Rosewood as a brand owned so many different properties

Average Marketing Cost Per Guest

•For a guest without branding - $130•Average cost per guest with Branding -$138

= (Average cost without branding ($130) * Total guests (115,000) + Branding expense(1,000,000) / Total Number of Guests (115,000) = $138

Future Challenges

•Rosewood might lose out a chunk of customers or some site might be vulnerable of being empty•The managers might resist change and as well fear to loose autonomy

Solutions

•Corporate Branding Approach•Promoting the frequent stay program •Public Relations and Social corporate Initiatives can do wonders•Maintaining quality standards would help in increasing the brand equity.

Disclaimer:These slides were created by V. Ritvik Anand from Ethames Degree College during a Marketing Internship under Dr. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow