Worldwide Hospitality Awards

« Réveillez le héros qui sommeille en vous » (Awaken the hero inside you) est une campagne de publicité originale à destination – uniquement – du digital qui a été réalisée en fin d’année 2016 dans le but de promouvoir de manière originale les activités proposées à l’hôtel ibis de la Roche sur Yon en Vendée.

By following two slogans, "Relax we take care of everything" and "More than just a hotel night", the establishment, after a joint reflection amongst all employees, decided to invest in 2016 on facilities that would improve the customer experience within the hotel such as:
- A movie theater
- A gym club of 500 square meters
- A bowling alley
- A basketball court
- A putting green
- Table tennis

However, in order to make these investments profitable, it was necessary to promote them both to the existing hotel customers but also to the prospects. This is why the hotel management decided to create a promotional video and call on a local filmmaker (from La Roche sur Yon), Gabriel Mercier, to highlight all these activities.

The aim of this video was to create an original story that resonates with the public and brings Internet users to want to share and talk about it on the web. To ensure maximum impact, it was decided that the main character would be a super hero, modelling the Marvel and DC Comics productions. The purpose of this idea was for this campaign to reach the emotions through ‘spectacular and a touch of humor.’
Gabriel Mercier decided to call upon the help of Jérome Mettling, a special effects specialist, who worked for several internationally known brands, who is also from Vendee, to give an even more professional and qualitative feel to the video.

The video was filmed during two days at the end of August 2016 at the Ibis hotel in La Roche sur Yon in the presence of twenty actors, all volunteers and staff of the hotel. The editing and reviewing of the 95-seconds clip took more than two months before its release on YouTube and Facebook on October 21st, 2016.

To this date, the video has been viewed more than 48,000 times on the various platforms on which it is present (YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo), a dozen of press releases (local or specialized) have been dedicated to it, as well as a one-hour television program on a local channel: TV Vendee (with an estimated audience of approximately 30,000 viewers).

The video has reached many business leaders and prospects around the hotel and throughout the region of Vendee. This video has helped increase the reputation of the establishment and introduce our facilities to many new customers in the catering, bar, seminar and also residential sectors:
- Increase of the bar revenue (+ 30%): the cinema room invites to share a drink
- Increase in seminar sales (+ 20%): Ouest France and TV Vendée read by local business leaders
- Increase in restaurant sales (+ 10%)
- Increase of the number of Fans on Facebook by 300%

This video was well awarded … last January it was nominated in Cannes at the e-tourism expo ‘travel in Multimedia # VEM8’ and won the first prize as the "Best tourist and cultural video of the year" in the category "Tourist service provider." Amongst other nominees were Accorhotels and Icelandair. More recently, it won the second prize at the Riga International Film Festival in Latvia "Tourfilm Riga" in the "Tourism Services" category.

The image of the superhero has become a must in the hotel to such an extent that now the mascot of the establishment is a superhero pillow! Further shorter videos are in the tracks in order to highlight the other strengths of the hotel.