4th April 2012
With
Easter fast approaching a four star hotel in London has opened up one of its rooms complete with furniture made out of chocolate.
The Cavendish Hotel used nearly 100 kilograms of Callebaut chocolate to create the experience for two competition winners, but we ask what the point is?
Well stunts like this are certainly headline grabbing and this one has been timed to fit in with a seasonal event, but what practical purpose does it serve?
Creating a buzz around your hotel, restaurant or bar with such a stunt does interesting things to both your customers and your competitors. Even those who did not win the competition will still associate the hotel with the chocolate fantasy world and it is a clever idea as chocolate has connotations of luxury and indulgence.
Customer feedback is a good way to find out whether your publicity stunt has worked and to find out what those who patronise your establishment are actually saying. Creating a hotel room entirely out of chocolate can be an expensive business, but if it provides the hotel with a higher profile then such measures can be cost effective.
Actual returns can be measured through a number of ways including surveys making it easy to evaluate the effectiveness and whether to carry out such stunts again in the future.
Remember not to hide your light under a bushel either, after all there is no point in having a chocolate hotel room and nobody knowing about it. Sowing a few seeds will see the germ take root and word will spread, which is why the idea must be something which catches the imagination of the customers who are being targeted.
Neil Braude, hotel manager at the Cavendish, said: "Easter's not Easter without chocolate and we wanted to create an eggstra special Easter treat for chocolate lovers. The room will choc-up for one night only, melting away in the morning."
Making it a competition helps to get the message out there and the Cavendish campaign was run in Time Out magazine.
So the chocolate hotel room has been done, but what could be your business' unique publicity stunt which gets everyone talking about your hospitality venue?
