04 Jun This Swiss Luxury Hotel Got Creative With A Quarantine Experience
The hotel industry is currently facing a situation unlike ever before, and it’s an unpleasant position I wouldn’t want to see inflicted on anyone or industry. Due to the far and reaching travel bans in play, it has forced a lot of luxury hotels to close up shop and lay off droves of great people that make this industry tick.
Other hotels have shifted gears and gone on to offer unique MediTourism experiences, help local health workers and donate to the fight against Covid-19 during these trying times. I wanted to take a look at a certain luxury hotel doing their part and keeping their business afloat even when the odds are literally life and death.
I’m always quite interested in examining news cycles of viral topics because there is always something to learn from it. A good viral marketing campaign comes with a multitude of benefits including brand recognition, SEO value and social media growth to name a few.
Swiss Luxury Hotel Isolation Suite W/ Covid-19 Test Included
I wasn’t sure what to make of this at first. Travelling to another country to self-isolate is not the recommended advice, as well air traffic has come grinding to a halt due to border closings globally. For those in Switzerland and perhaps in need of the utmost clean and no contact isolation might want to consider the “Quarantine Apartments” from Le Bijou in Zurich, Lucerne and Zug. This offering has definitely gone a bit viral and drawn both praise and criticism for reasons I mentioned above.
Newsjacking
One of our favorite strategies to play around with for our luxury PR campaigns is to inject a brand into a trending news cycle. This is called newsjacking, and it can be very effective and often done for a small marketing budget. Even getting one or two news stories is a success knowing the costs involved in buying sponsored content and other forms of paid media. A lot of luxury publications charge well over $10,000 USD for a single article, so this is where you have to see the inherent value in an operation like this.
With that being said, Switzerland is has not shortage of local UHNW individuals that might be at high risk and better off with quality private care within reach. Our agency has no affiliation with this hotel, however this experience package is something within our pitch wheelhouse and know there’s a large market for something like this.
Risk For Reward
Politics aside and coming from a strictly marketing perspective, their quarantine package has certainly been the viral story of the week(at the time of writing). That’s why we’re here and starting with the sheer amount of backlinks obtained from high value domains through good PR. A lot of great sites picked up this story and you can see in the graph to the right that this would be a major success in my books.
The offer itself is a perfect fit for their clients and just quirky enough for journalists to run the story. They won’t say it, but they know a story like this will always cause a bit of controversy and bring in the clicks. I also think it’s a smart way to offer someone with the means an ultra safe isolation. Once you’re in the quarantine apartment your world becomes managed by technology and chef made meal deliveries.
The overall results are several dozen high profile media articles, most of which included a root domain backlink. That all combined with the thousands of social media mentions means that Le Bijou managed to scored at least a million eyeballs on their hotel brand within the past month and counting.
Updated Backlink Outlook 05/13/2020
Not a bad haul during a crisis and knowing a campaign like this, if you were to pay for it, would easily cost $30,000 USD+ so this is why we’re such strong advocates for smart PR ands injecting our clients into a news cycle. While this may get your marketing mind going for your brand, the first step is always reflecting on how it could negatively impact you and if the risk is worth the reward before pulling the trigger.
Want To Try Luxury Newsjacking?
If you’ve been intrigued with this idea and perhaps wanted to know what could be done within the realm of your luxury brand, then we’d love to hear from you. These types of PR campaigns are not overly expensive to create and execute, and they don’ have to be “controversial” either. Ask yourself this: How much press has your luxury brand got in the past year?
