Motel 6, a brand whose name reflects its original room price, has long been noted mainly for low prices, and for Tom Bodett’s radio ads, promising that “we’ll leave the light on for you.”
Now, facing increasing demands for comfort and increasing competition from other budget chains, they’ve kicked off a multi-million marketing effort to highlight both a major upgrade going on across the chain and a peppier image. It’s a major effort by the chain, owned since 2012 by Blackstone Group, to kick it up a bit higher on consumer preference lists, while still promising travelers they’ll “save more for what they travel for.”
The ad campaign, called “Room to Room” features the updated facilities, which are expected to be in place at 75% of the company’s 1100+ North American properties by the end of 2015. The ads debuting on TV show the transformation of a Motel 6 in Carson California over a 3-day cycle and feature the familiar voice of Tom Bodett. MORE
I used to stay at Motel 6 when I was a poor starving medical student. But I abandoned the chain because of how inconsistent the different sites were. Some a offered a decent room. Others were dives. Hopefully along with the face lift there will be an greater effort to standardize their properties.
For example, when I’m I stay at a Courtyard, I know exactly what to expect and am never disappointed.
The French AccorHotels owned them for a time and really made some great improvements, updating rooms and making new hotels. And those prices were the same price as their old rooms. I wonder what happened to Accors plans that they sold