Client: IHG Hotels & Resorts (Holiday Inn Express)
Holiday Inn Express set out to reassert brand relevance in a commoditised hotel market, where “free breakfast” had become a background inclusion rather than a reason to choose. Instead of running a traditional brand campaign, we created a PR-led product innovation – the world’s first scent-powered alarm clock designed by a hotel brand. The Holiday Inn Express Breakfast Alarm Clock transformed free breakfast into a sensory wake-up experience, replacing alarm tones with the smell of coffee, bacon or baked goods. Originally developed for Australia and New Zealand, the idea resonated so strongly with the brand that it was adopted and expanded into Singapore, Thailand and Japan, with custom scents reflecting local breakfast preferences. This wasn’t a campaign that simply travelled. It scaled because of its impact – repositioning Holiday Inn Express as a brand that actively engineers better travel mornings, while reframing PR internally as a driver of product experience and innovation.
