Holiday Inn Unveils New Marketing Campaign

Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts launched its M.B.A. (Masters in Business Accommodations) marketing campaign. The campaign, which features professional athletes Cal Ripken Jr. and Jeff Burton as guest lecturers, teaches business travelers the value of their Priority Club Rewards points, while reinforcing the strengths of today’s Holiday Inn.

Developed by Fallon Minneapolis, the broadcast advertisements star a seemingly hard-nosed professor played by character actor Philip Baker Hall. Hall brings his signature deadpan delivery to the spots as the professor who schools his graduate students on how to successfully choose a business hotel.

The students test the professor’s patience with antics that include text messaging during class, asking Burton why he doesn’t have a mullet, and getting a little too comfortable in the Holiday Inn guest room simulator.

Each TV spot features key business amenities that are available at all Holiday Inn hotels –like free high speed Internet- coupled with news of two Priority Club Rewards promotions that will run concurrently from May 12 through Aug. 31, 2008.

The second promotion enables guests who stay eight nights to earn a $40 credit on MLB.com that can be used to purchase official merchandise or tickets to a Major League Baseball game.

The eight nights can be accumulated consecutively or non-consecutively at any combination of Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express hotels in the Americas, and there is no limit on the amount that can be earned.

The broadcast advertisements are scheduled to drop May 5 and will run through the end of September on networks like ESPN, Fox, CNN, Comedy Central, Fox News, MSNBC and Turner.