Posted by Bill Alpert on Dec. 11, 2007

December’s my month for traveling; it’s a road trip through the deep south with a long promised family destination of Disney World. It’s vacation, and part of the fun is (at least for me) has been tracking the good, bad and ugly of marketing and graphics across the USA.

Marketing 101 preaches placing consistent and persistent impressions in the target market, carrying through on “the brand” in every way possible. A good example of that is Hampton Inn, a national operation(part of the Hilton family) that caters to the mid-price market, including a good number of business travelers. It’s an organization that knows its customer, and has created a consistently high quality niche product to match.

Coffee at “The Hamptons”

Hampton’s marketing is a bit non-conventional, at least by motor-inn standards. Its a clean visual approach, with a touch of humor. Highlights include great black and white photography, offset by a no-frills approach to typography. The effect sells on the theme of quality, in a decidedly non-snooty way. IMO it’s a perfect fit for the road weary, and price conscious business traveler.

But back to the brand, you’ll see this image and text combo throughout the property, from elevator doors to shampoo holders, to room coffee caddy (see photos). “Some like it hot” sells the brand more than just the beverage, and the close-up cropped images on the coffee pouches whisper the quality and comfort message to the customer.

The real beauty here is the simplicity factor. There aren’t any color hexachrome color seps, no gold foil and embossing here, just some well chosen stock photography and a clean visual approach that (with the requisite skills) could easily be adapted to any business. Kudos!