HOSPITALITY
RLH CORPORATION
Developing a tight-knit family of brands
Brand Strategy & Branding • Naming • Logo Design • Brand Creation • Tagline Creation • Style Guide • OS&E • Signage • Sales Collateral • Single and Multi-Branded Consumer Marketing • B2B Marketing • Print Brand Videos • Trade Show Materials • Developer Materials
RLH Corporation is a hospitality company known for their hotels around the Pacific Northwest. Looking to grow their footprint nationwide, they undertook an aggressive expansion plan that included acquiring hotel brands, launching new concepts and spreading their existing brands across North America. To ensure the success of the plan, RDA was tasked with all branding duties—everything from developing new hotel concepts to rebranding and refreshing new acquisitions.
STARTING AT THE CORE
With 11 hotel brands, a rewards program and a line of bath amenities, the RLH Corp. portfolio is quite large. To maintain cohesion and make sure that all the brands felt like they belong together, we started by uncovering the core of RLH Corporation. Inspired by their Pacific Northwest roots, we landed on two key characteristics: innovation and a love for experiences. Innovation because of the area’s trendsetting and pioneering reputation; love of experiences because of the region’s appreciation of nature and culture. From there, we created brands that shared common traits, but felt distinct and served different types of travelers.
DIFFERENTIATING THE FLAVORS
While RLH Corporation’s family of brands span from economy to upscale, several of their hotels exist within the same category. Creating distinct identities for each brand was crucial. To that end, we developed comprehensive style guides and brand snapshots to guarantee each hotel had its own unique appeal that catered to different guests. From the guidelines we then created experiences to bring out the personality of each hotel. For example, Hotel RL, which is all about authenticity and community, features a coffeeshop-inspired lobby area with a performance stage where local artists and community leaders are given a platform to share their message. Signature, which is inspired by ’50s automobile travel, features mid-century modern fixtures and retro-chic music and décor throughout.
EXTENDING RLH CORP. BENEFITS ACROSS THE PORTFOLIO
To round out the experience, we created a rewards program to integrate the personality and benefits of the parent brand into each hotel. The challenge here was to brand it in such a way that made it stand on its own while also feeling like an extension of RLH Corp. and playing nicely with all the hotels in the portfolio. We answered the challenge by positioning the rewards program in a way that mirrors the sensibilities of the Pacific Northwest—one that rewards members with experiences instead of objects.
PITCH PERFECT
From trade shows to presentations, we developed everything RLH Corp. needed to pitch their brands to prospective franchisees. As one of the fastest growing hospitality companies in the nation, it’s safe to say the work has been a success. In three years, we’ve helped them grow from a regional hotel group with two brands and a handful of properties spread out around the west coast to a major player in hospitality with 11 brands and an international footprint.
