The economy chain has entered a partnership with The 4th Floor (Sony UK brand), Spotify and the Sziget festival to organize concerts at its properties in 17 countries.

Music: pivotal to becoming an inspirational brand 

What could be more unifying and identifying than music? Accor has understood this well and is accompanying the new positioning of its brand ibis with a program of events and services focusing on music. In a study commissioned from Ipsos by the red brand, 84% of respondents said that music was a vehicle for social bonding and sharing emotions. A majority of them also mentioned music as an activity they did during their trip. This "inspirational" aspect has already been exploited in the Food & Beverage sector by Starbucks, which offers a connection to Spotify's catalogue and regularly publishes its playlists, as well as by Hard Rock Café. ibis Music wanted to distinguish itself by physically anchoring this new component of the brand.

We are going to use music as a platform. The ambition is to position ibis as beacons of live music in their locations.

Steven Taylor, Global Chief Brand Officer at Accor

The Accor group's oldest brand (Outside the USA, it is ahead of Hilton in terms of spontaneous awareness) and largest (one quarter of the total number of rooms in the group) received a complete overhaul in 2012 as part of the ibis Megabrand project and was repositioned in 2018. A few months ago, Steven Taylor, Global Chief Brand Officer, said: "We are going to use music as a platform. The ambition is to position ibis as beacons of live music in their locations. Social media play a critical part in developing our brands.  We are willing to use music to forge deeper relationships with customers, add better value to our brand and to encourage them to share. It will have much stronger impact than if we shared ourselves." 

Also read: [In images] "What was ibis red in the end? Now we know" Franck Gervais, CEO AccorHotels Europe

ibis music... live music!

In the coming weeks, ibis music will launch a competition with 44 concerts in hotels in 17 countries. 9 groups or artists will then be selected to participate in the Sziget Festival in August 2019 (festival in Budapest attracting 500,000 people of more than 100 nationalities each year and elected Best European Festival in 2014 by the European Festival Awards). A jury will elect the "ibis Music's best up-and-coming artist" who will be awarded a collaboration with the label The 4th Floor (Sony UK). The partnership with the UK label and Spotify will identify new talent to participate in this and other upcoming concerts. In France, 5 hotels will participate in this operation: the ibis Paris Montmartre which will open the event with a concert on Friday March 29, the ibis Bordeaux Bastide, the ibis Lille Centre Gares, the ibis Lyon Part Dieu Centre Halles and the ibis Marseille La Timone.

ACCOR does not wish to limit this to a one-time operation unique but rather continue holding concerts in these hotels to differentiate the brand. The next two collaborations with the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) and the Dot to Dot Festival (United Kingdom) have already been announced. Other expressions of this new approach include the placement of musical instruments in hotel lobbies and new equipment for enjoying music in bedrooms and in the shower.