Qbic Hotels

Today's blog comes from Amsterdam. I mention this only because I wanted to comment on the fact that Blogger has defaulted into Dutch based upon the location of my ip address. Sometimes Google over thinks itself. Yes, I'm in the Netherlands and most people here would probably prefer Dutch. However, not all of us would. Some of us need English. And, guess what? Google doesn't even give us an option for English.

Anyhow, today's blog isn't about Google. It was going to be about the Microsoft and Citibank case studies in the book but I'm going to change things up and write about a brand new hotel and a brand new brand - Qbic Hotels. Qbic just opened its first hotel two days ago, the hotel in Amsterdam at the World Trade Center. What's cool is that while killing time waiting for my check-in I had the chance to chat with Maxine Hofman, their Sales & Marketing manager, about Qbic, their brand and their marketing activities.

The thing about being brand new is that Qbic has several opportunities.

First, they have the opportunity to define themselves. How do they do this? In Amsterdam, a city of largely old run down and very overly priced hotels, Qbic's mission was to simply listen to guest demands. Guests want 5 star amenities but don't necessarily want to pay for the service. In Qbic's business traveler market, beds, bath and business functionality mean everything but prices are made to be affordable by trimming back the services and using automation. For instance, check in is done automatically through a kiosk.

In addition to positioning itself as an affordable yet amenity rich business traveler hotel, Qbic is also positioning itself as chic and cool design hotel. Central to this positioning is the Cubi, a cube shaped state of the art living space. Each Cubi features a designer bed and bath elements, LCD tv, internet connection and audio.

As for the indentity symbols, we talked a little bit about the logo and what it meant. The cicle is meant to encompass all visitor needs. The Qbic is comprised of the "Q" and "B". Together they are the backbone of the Qbic experience - the Cubi (pronounced "que-bee").

Otherwise, we also talked about how they were working to introduce and build the Qbic brand. As a relatively small company, they were leveraging two main mediums - the press and the internet. One of the biggest events for them to announce the new hotel came at a recent Milan press show. It was here that press from around the world were gathered and Qbic was introduced. The results were positive articles in local papers and papers as far as the New York Times. As for the interactive channel, Qbic has forged relationships with online booking agents like Booking.com and they've also used cross channel initiatives to drive visitors to their website.