Premier Inn’s new ‘Rest Easy’ brand platform, integrated campaigns from creative agency Leo Burnett​​​​​​​.

Issue
After three-and-a-half years off TV screens (and seven years without seeing our brand ambassador, Sir Lenny Henry, on our TVs), we needed a significant TTL campaign to mark Premier Inn's primary return to advertising and reignite our brand to the nation.

Insight
Our challenge was to shift from being well-known to being well-loved. In doing so, we had to find a way to emotionally reconnect with the people of the UK, especially after a tumultuous and unprecedented couple of years.

Idea
As the public prepares for the UK summer staycation boom, the 'Rest Easy' campaign focuses on choice, comfort and consistency – found throughout our locations, in our flexible booking rates, comfy kingsize beds and famous Premier Inn Breakfast.

The first TV ad, 'From booking to bed', taps into relatable hotel search insights. Like pressure-selling tactics used when booking on aggregator sites, or the uncertainty when plans are forced to change. But when you choose to book with Premier Inn, you know exactly what you’re getting, every time, whether you’re a leisure or business guest.

The 60-second spot, shot in a COVID-secure environment in between lockdowns, was directed by LA-based Canadian director Ally Pankiw. With a talented cast (and a few very well-behaved animals!), the ad also highlighted some of the real-life Premier Inn team members.

Our second TV ad, 'Same feeling, whatever the trip', celebrates the consistency we’re famous for and all the different kinds of trips enjoyed by our guests. Whoever you are and wherever you’re going, you can always count on the same comfort across our Premier Inn hotels. From booking to bed, Premier Inn is here to help the nation rest easy!
The integrated campaigns also include OOH, social, print and radio. Both the TV and radio ads were narrated by Sir Lenny Henry CBE. While the print, social and out-of-home elements build on the character stories, moments and occasions from the TV ad, showcasing how Premier Inn is here to help the nation rest easy.

Leo Burnett worked with Premier Inn’s in-house design studio on a full revamp of the Premier Inn visual identity. This ranged from the ‘Rest Easy’ sign-off, designed by world-renowned typographer, Alison Carmichael, to the bold, new expressive type principles running across the campaign. Focusing in on our brand personality and calling attention to its very human element, across every customer interaction.

Impact
The first campaign ran for 12 months. It marked major investment and signified confidence at a time when many were looking at ways to cut spending post-pandemic. The second campaign is currently live. Its message of reliability and consistency is a reminder why we’re the UK’s best-loved budget hotel. Offering hassle-free bookings, value for money and that same feeling of reassurance, whatever the trip.

Restoring trust and comfort in a competitive market.

Issue
Despite being the UK's most significant budget hotel business, Premier Inn had become increasingly silent in the market and lost its emotional connection with consumers by 2021. As guests' expectations shifted toward more personalised, experience-driven, and tech-savvy stays, the brand was at risk of fading into irrelevance. To stay competitive and maintain relevance, Premier Inn needed a bold repositioning and refreshed brand identity that could re-establish an emotional connection with modern travellers while standing out in an increasingly crowded and dynamic market.

Insight
We recognised that the hotel category had become anxiety-inducing for many. The rise of unreliable aggregator websites and lingering travel concerns brought on by the pandemic created an opportunity for Premier Inn to carve out a space of trust and reassurance – something simple and comforting for travellers seeking peace of mind.

Idea
In collaboration with our creative agency, Leo Burnett, we redefined Premier Inn’s offering – not just as a provider of comfortable beds but as a true sanctuary of comfort. The new brand platform, ‘Rest easy,’ became more than just a tagline; it was the heartbeat of the brand's identity. To reinforce this shift, we reintroduced Lenny Henry as the brand's voice, evoking a sense of familiarity and trust that resonated deeply with audiences.

Internally, we led a complete overhaul of Premier Inn’s visual identity, including creating the ‘Rest easy’ sign-off by world-renowned typographer Alison Carmichael. Bold, expressive typography was introduced across the campaign to humanise the brand and emphasise its distinct personality. These elements ensured every customer interaction – digital or in-person – felt consistent, approachable and unmistakably Premier Inn.

Impact
The ‘Rest easy’ campaign ran successfully for twelve months and its core messaging continued to resonate indefinitely. We developed a comprehensive brand style guide, which became the foundation of the new, established Premier Inn identity. The campaign strengthened brand perception and reaffirmed Premier Inn’s position as the number one budget and business hotel. The brand earned numerous awards for its revitalised identity and refreshed offering, maintaining its leadership in a highly competitive market.

Our visual identity​​​​​​​​.

Issue
After launching our new brand platform Rest easy, our brand guidelines, visual identity and TOV needed an overhaul to mirror this new direction and campaign.  

Insight
A brand book or brand style guide acts as a key document to help create a strong brand identity which then allows content creators to communicate consistent messages and design standards to our audiences. It offers a cohesive understanding of the Premier Inn design world and how it’s used and rolled out across the business in a variety of platforms.  

Idea
We created this brand book to give everyone a better understanding of the Premier Inn brand, what we mean when we say ‘Rest easy’ and how our personality comes to life. It includes everything from basic principles, logo lockups and sign-offs, approach to typography and brand colour palettes to tone of voice, iconography, how we use photography and more. 

Impact
Our brand style guide continues to clarify what our business stands for, our purpose, personality, and our values. Most importantly, it facilitates us to connect with our audiences in the most authentic way possible. 

A flexible framework for enhanced efficiency and engagement across our email programmes.

Issue
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, email marketing in the UK saw rapid growth fuelled by increased digital engagement and the expansion of e-commerce. With more consumers relying on digital platforms, email became a vital and cost-effective channel for businesses to connect with and retain customers. For Premier Inn, email served as a primary means of communication with its customers, especially during these uncertain economic times. However, the growing demand for impactful campaigns exposed inefficiencies in existing processes and highlighted the need for a more scalable and consistent approach.

Insight
Premier Inn faced significant challenges in managing its email marketing operations. One of the key issues was balancing brand consistency with the need for creativity. While maintaining a cohesive brand identity across campaigns was essential, each email also needed to stand out and cater to specific customer needs. We needed a solution that would streamline operations while enhancing creativity and brand alignment.

Idea
We introduced our 'Email Flexible Framework'. This innovative solution revolved around a modular design system, which featured a library of pre-built and rigorously tested email modules. These modules could be combined in various configurations to create engaging and visually appealing emails, ensuring flexibility without compromising on brand consistency. The framework was designed to adapt to the unique needs of each campaign while maintaining a unified visual identity across all communications.

The system’s flexibility enabled us to mix and match modules, significantly reducing the time to produce diverse email designs. To further enhance collaboration, we developed a new workflow system that streamlined task management and improved communication between our cross-functional teams. This system transformed how we interacted and organised our activities, addressing bottlenecks in the approval process and ensuring smoother execution of campaigns.

More than 60% of emails are now opened on mobile devices. One of the biggest benefits of the framework is the 'baked in' mobile design. Every module has been designed, built and tested to display perfectly on desktop and mobile devices (mobile responsive). This greatly reduced the amount of testing required for each email campaign.

Impact
The introduction of the 'Email Flexible Framework' and the improved workflow system brought numerous advantages to our email marketing operations. The modular design approach offered unparalleled flexibility, allowing us to quickly adapt to market needs without starting from scratch for each campaign. By creating a standardised design framework, the brand achieved consistency across emails, fostering familiarity and trust among customers. It was also a successful collaborative project between both our Brand and eCRM teams where both departments were able to showcase their expertise.

Reaching new audiences and ripping up the playbook of social media – from the roots.

Issue
As of January 2022, TikTok had 1 billion monthly users. Its powerful marketing influence is changing the way we consume social media at an unprecedented rate. Cue, the exciting idea of opening our very own account to reach wider audiences like Millennials and Generation Z – TikTok’s biggest advocates. As ambassadors for diversity and inclusion, we also want to challenge oh-so-perfect perceptions of reality that other social media platforms can sometimes distort. We champion self-assurance and know that TikTok is the best platform for voices of all nature to be heard.

Insight
TikTok’s content-first approach means that anybody can become a digital entertainer overnight. Regardless of where they live, their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or body shape. The app’s ‘For You’ functionality opens a world of diverse content creators. Where former social pioneers could narrow content discovery extensively, the beauty of TikTok is that it spotlights diversity and inclusivity in a way that has never happened on social media before. TikTok also promotes honest expression and emotions – often through humour – resonating deep in the hearts and minds of users.

Idea
TikTok was a no-brainer for us. We had to join the party. So, we decided to partner with The Social Shepherd, to be loud, heard and social on TikTok. We opened a window to who we are, behind the brand, sharing our funny and authentic selves for the world to see and follow. Empowering audiences to piece together the puzzle of our human identity and develop personal connections with us along the way. 

Always a crowd-pleaser and one that warms us with pride, we love sharing staff stories that go on behind-the-scenes at our hotels. Their talent and creativity have made them brand ambassadors – whilst also elevating difference.

Impact
In one month, we hit a whopping 239k video views and 16.2k engagements. We received healthy account growth, gaining 2.5k followers organically.  

We’re ever so proud to join the TikTok movement – the space where difference is heard, embraced and given power.

Turning everyday moments into memorable stays.

Issue
One of the most profitable months in business, we were assigned the task of creating a campaign that would complement our TV ads and expand our ‘A Great Place to Start’ communications across various channels. When the market is favorable, we aim to intensify our efforts to increase demand. Our goal is to demonstrate that we are functionally relevant to people, regardless of their needs or interests.

Insight
From hiking and surfing to romantic weekends away and family events, Premier Inn is a facilitator. In order to relate to everyone possible, touching on a human truth creates something memorable and, when delivered in the right way, a potential ‘smile in the mind’.

Idea
Creating a multi-layered campaign across OOH, programmatic, eCRM, social and PR, a large part of this work included a series of repeatable formats. Representing a range of exciting leisure and business experiences, they showcased Premier Inn as a great place to start – as well as highlighting the breadth of our location offering. The creative focused on relatable, human truths. Communicated through funny, witty and engaging copy that’s coupled with emotive, people-centric imagery. ​​​​

Impact
The integrated comms approach helped to improve key YouGov brand health scores for quality, value and purchase intent vs the previous 12-week average, whilst allowing us to maintain our number-one status in the hotel sector.

Our visual identity​​​​​​​​.

Issue
After launching our new brand platform Rest easy, our brand guidelines, visual identity and TOV needed an overhaul to mirror this new direction and campaign.  

Insight
A brand book or brand style guide acts as a key document to help create a strong brand identity which then allows content creators to communicate consistent messages and design standards to our audiences. It offers a cohesive understanding of the Premier Inn design world and how it’s used and rolled out across the business in a variety of platforms.  

Idea
We created this brand book to give everyone a better understanding of the Premier Inn brand, what we mean when we say ‘Rest easy’ and how our personality comes to life. It includes everything from basic principles, logo lockups and sign-offs, approach to typography and brand colour palettes to tone of voice, iconography, how we use photography and more. 

Impact
Our brand style guide continues to clarify what our business stands for, our purpose, personality, and our values. Most importantly, it facilitates us to connect with our audiences in the most authentic way possible. 

Using natural light and coloured panels, we reimagined the link bridge between our airport hotel and London Heathrow T4 with an immersive guest walkway.

Issue
Premier Inn London Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 can only be accessed via a featureless, airport walkway. We wanted to change that with a low-cost, high-impact solution that provides our guests with a positive and memorable end-to-end experience.

Insight
Part of Premier Inn’s bigger purpose is to facilitate great experiences. We’ve also pledged to reduce our carbon footprint and be as environmentally friendly as possible. With this in mind, we wanted to bring something uplifting to our new space, by drawing on the scientific effect that lighting has on mood.

Idea
What would happen if we reimagined the walkway as an environmentally friendly, welcoming experience? To find out, we filtered natural light through 34 pairs of coloured propylene panels. Utilising our brand palette, warm colours soothe guests on their way to the hotel, while cooler colours energise them as they approach the airport. A harmonious, weather-responsive spectrum of light now illuminates the space, providing a truly immersive experience.

Impact
Overwhelmingly, our guests have been telling us how much they love the Link Bridge Experience. From relaxing and calm to helpful and inviting, the reactions to our light-filled installation have been incredible.

Reigniting engagement and conversation on our social media channels.

Issue
Our social channels had unidentified roles. Without a content plan and any relevant insight-driven content, we lacked consistency in our posts. As a result, we were unable to create engagement and gain followers.

Insight
Some of the best brands in social are abandoning broad content strategies in favour of tailored campaigns with content that’s native to the platform it’s on. Not only is this approach likely to drive higher engagement, but it creates a ‘destination’ moment across a brand’s ecosystem – which a brand can draw the attention of audiences to.

Idea
Social is as much a listening tool as a broadcast platform. After investing in listening tools, we were able to spend as much time on listening as on posting. Through insight, research and listening tools, we identified the roles of what each channel should take. For example, our Twitter would be for news sharing, Facebook for building engagement with light-hearted posts, competitions and polls, LinkedIn for all our business news and Instagram for UGC content.

We supplied our Guest Relations team with scripts, phrases and a TOV guide on how to reply and respond to comments so we understand what our customers want – delivering customer care, not just customer service.

Impact
Reactivation of the four social channels, igniting conversations through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Through solid research, planning, open discussions and effective collaboration, we’ve been able to run a successful programme in-house across all four channels, accelerating our followers, likes, shares and engagement.

From Welsh vineyards to the oldest pub in England, we’ve partnered with Time Out to inspire readers to discover great things to do in the UK with Premier Inn.

Issue
Building the brand beyond TV adverts. Our challenge was to reach audiences who were considered a younger, lightweight TV viewer. We needed to drive brand engagement whilst delivering credibility with content. We were tasked with finding a new medium to inspire booking breaks by highlighting Premier Inn as a great place to start.

Insight
As one of the most popular and successful publications, Time Out caters to many passion points for the younger audience we want to attract. What’s more, Time Out readers are five times more likely to go on more than four short UK breaks per year.  

Idea
By aligning our huge estate with the power of Time Out’s equally huge roster of things to do across the UK, we will be able to create the ‘One Great Thing’ guide. User-generated content was created by their readers by sending in their favourite things to do, see and visit. Along with further Time Out editorial and content, the ultimate guide was made.

Partnership features included four promotional DPS advertorials including links to nearby Premier Inn hotels, a competition to win a UK weekend getaway, an integrated microsite for digital housed on Time Out, roadblock high-impact digital banners, native digital traffic drivers, email newsletters, 60,000 printed guides distributed across Premier Inn hotels nationally and a cover wrap in May’s Time Out London.

Impact
Time Out reaches 3.7 million in the UK across both print and digital platforms. Creating opportune exposure to help our hotels get customers close to the heart of the action in no time. 

DripDrop brolly-for-hire trial donates a percentage of rental and sales proceeds to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.

Issue
Umbrellas are one of the nation’s most lost items. In a survey of 2,000 UK adults, 28% admit having turned up to a work meeting absolutely soaking because they didn’t have a brolly. Despite almost a fifth of Brits owning three umbrellas, one in ten confirm having spent up to £50 on replacements.

Insight
Survey results showed that people never learn when it comes to safeguarding their umbrellas. Although over 60% of Brits own two or more umbrellas, it seems that they can’t help but lose, forget or break them – causing spur-of-the-moment brolly purchases.

Idea
As umbrellas are among the most requested items from our reception team, we decided to team up with a brolly sharing company called DripDrop. Offering sustainable brolly rental, we aimed to utilise and roll out their service in 30 of our Premier Inn hotels. In turn, helping our guests to avoid the woes of turning up to events like weddings and job interviews soaked to the bone!

The best part, 15% from each hire went to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.

We also designed a brain teaser to introduce our new umbrellas, where you must try and spot a single, concealed umbrella in a crowded street scene. Forget Where's Wally... how about Where's Brolly?

Impact
Our umbrellas are currently being trialled in 30 hotels, in locations that include London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and York.

BASICALLY BRILLIANT.

Issue
Premier Inn’s owner, Whitbread, believed that it was important to refocus its business after the sale of its cafe chain Costa Coffee to Coca-Cola. This realignment led us to believe in an excellent opportunity for a hotel chain to fill a gap in the super-budget customer market. For stayers who would otherwise sleep in poor-quality independents, hostels, on a friend’s couch or the back of their vehicles.

Insight
Premier Inn’s Managing Director, Simon Jones, said: “It’s clear through the research that people want the basics done brilliantly, such as a comfy bed and a power shower, but they are happy to compromise on location or some extras if they are paying a fantastic price for their room”.

Idea
‘Basically Brilliant’. Only what you need, at a price that’s unbeatable. A visionary innovation of a modern, no-frills, super-value hotel chain. Taking all the essential parts of a hotel – making sure they are really good – and getting rid of everything else.
 
The ZIP rooms were designed by PriestmanGoode, the design consultancy behind first-class cabins for Air France, Lufthansa and Swiss International Air Lines. The small pod-style spaces feature lightboxes, en suite power showers, 24-inch televisions and twin single beds that can push together to create a double. We partnered up with Wolff Olins to craft a unique brand and a TOV that was upbeat and straight-talking, with zero faff. ZIP’s identity used pared-down language, casting a fresh take on budget hotels. Our communications are striking and typographically led, achieving maximum impact through the beauty of simplicity.

Impact
Leveraging the Premier Inn brand, ZIP by Premier Inn continues to offer the cheapest rooms for guests that don’t want any bells and whistles. Just pure convenience and comfort when away from home. Niftily packed into 8.5 square metres, ZIP Cardiff boasts an 85+% occupancy.

Boosting B2B sign-ups with an exclusive 10% discount for Business Booker.

Issue
Our B2B division sought to increase sign-ups for Business Booker, a platform tailored for business travellers. To accomplish this, we introduced a 10% guaranteed discount – a first-ever offer for B2B customers. The challenge was to leverage paid media effectively to amplify awareness and drive conversions. The campaign was designed to run across both owned and paid channels, with a clear goal: maximise impact and boost sign-ups.

Insight
Discount-based campaigns are powerful because they tap into core psychological triggers like urgency, perceived value, and exclusivity. When executed strategically, discounts not only drive immediate sales but also foster long-term loyalty and enhance brand recognition. By positioning the 10% discount as a limited-time offer, we created a strong sense of urgency and exclusivity, motivating potential customers to act swiftly while reinforcing Premier Inn's value proposition.

Idea
We developed a confident and compelling visual strategy designed to captivate attention and inspire action across diverse channels. Central to our design was the transformative use of typography. By leveraging bold, striking fonts and depth-of-field treatments, we created an engaging and unforgettable campaign experience.

Enhancing the Premier Inn Sans typeface further amplified the campaign's impact. The result? A clear and visually striking message that resonated deeply with audiences, prompting swift and decisive action.

Impact
By combining an irresistible offer with precision targeting, we successfully engaged our B2B audience and significantly increased sign-ups for Business Booker during the campaign. This multi-channel, tactical approach not only boosted platform visibility but also delivered tangible results in customer engagement exceeded expectations and provided an opportunity to creatively engage our German audience. It laid the groundwork for continued growth within the B2B travel market, strengthening both awareness and loyalty.

Finding a way to unlock the true marketing potential of our B2B proposition.

Issue
Our B2B channels weren’t getting the cut through they deserved. Messaging hadn’t been refreshed for some time, and synergy was lacking between visuals and copy. We needed to find a way to boost engagement… and boost it BIG.

Insight
We decided to find out exactly what our customers thought about our communications. What mattered to them, what didn’t, and everything else in-between. What we found paved the way for an all-new B2B marketing strategy. A new look and feel, with a clear vision. We had a fresh roadmap built on insight. Insight that showed we weren’t effectively bridging the connection between our products and how they can meet customer needs. As a result, this caused a lack of product understanding, and relatability. Especially for SMEs. So, with this information we quickly got to work.

Idea
Energised with a new B2B marketing toolkit, we launched a paid September campaign and a fresh B2B site. Equipped with a revised strategy for copy, messages became more relatable for every customer. From independents to large corporates, we replaced complexity with powerful transparency. From flexibility to value, we reimagined the way we communicate our USP segments. We listened, learnt, and launched messages that truly align to customer needs and wants.

Visually, we sought realness and humanity in every moment, avoiding contrived poses that felt forced. We created a portfolio of inclusive personas, that embody the energy and authenticity of business moments – while highlighting the environments that support them.

Impact
Data results were beyond our wildest dreams. For LinkedIn, performance v budget was up 1443%. Meta up 59% and display up 92%.

BASICALLY BRILLIANT.
A bold yet friendly, no-frills font for ZIP.

Issue
ZIP, our new budget hotel brand by Premier Inn, needed a typeface that reflected its straightforward and functional ethos. Typography would be crucial in shaping the brand’s identity and central to all its visual communications. The typeface had to be bold and flexible, adaptable to various contexts while capturing ZIP's essence: simplicity, affordability and a strong focus on doing the essentials brilliantly.

Insight
ZIP is designed around compact, functional rooms with no unnecessary extras. Each room measures just 8.5 sq. m and starts at only £19 per night, underscoring the brand’s emphasis on simplicity and value. Wolff Olins, our branding agency, was tasked with developing a visual identity to communicate these values. Our objective was to translate this ethos into a unique type design.

Idea
Wolff Olins’ brand identity for ZIP employs minimalist design principles and a typography-driven approach. Our challenge was to create a custom typeface that echoed ZIP's simplicity while remaining bold and approachable. Each font element was crafted with care to ensure both functionality and distinctiveness.

Impact
In collaboration with F37® Foundry, known for its unique fonts, we developed a custom typeface for ZIP that combines bold confidence with clarity. The circular forms of the typeface introduce warmth and friendliness, striking the perfect balance for a brand focused on simplicity without sacrificing approachability.

hub by Premier Inn is our new generation of compact, city-centre hotel with an ingenious, contemporary room design and excellent connectivity.

Issue
In 2014, Whitbread, owner and operator of Premier Inn, spotted a gap in the market for a new style of urban hotel chain. IM London were brought in to develop the concept, name, identity and branding after conducting extensive market research.

Insight
Aimed at well-travelled, tech-savvy customers, the brand stands out with a simple, playful and distinctive acid-green identity.

Idea
Comfort and style are assured thanks to an ingenious, contemporary room design and excellent electronic connectivity. Every centimetre of the 11.4 sq.m hub room is optimised thanks to clever design ideas, such as an extendable desk, luggage storage under the bed, free Wi-Fi, a 40” smart-screen TV and an en-suite bathroom with shower – complete with a Duschplan shower surface from Kaldewei. Control is at the fingertips of the hotel guests, who by means of the UK’s first dedicated budget-hotel app, can book, check in and pre-select the room temperature and lighting. Guests can pre-order breakfast using the app, stream content from their phone or tablet direct to the room’s TV and even choose which TV or radio channel they want playing in the room on arrival.

Impact
Simon Ewins, Chief Operating Officer for hub by Premier Inn, comments:

“We are enthusiastic about developing the brand with further investment into major cities. The design and build of the new hub hotels adhere to ever-changing technological and sustainability requirements, progressively competing at the forefront of our new technological age".

When you’re showcasing the hotel room of the future, you need to use the guide of the future. Enter Hubuddy, our little robot friend.

Issue
Hub by Premier Inn is redefining the concept of compact urban hotels. Targeting guests who prioritise design, connectivity and value over sheer room size, these hotels offer an innovative approach to urban stays. However, with so many sleek, space-saving features cleverly hidden throughout the rooms, new guests often miss out on their full potential.

How do we ensure first-time visitors experience all that Hub offers without overwhelming our guests or making them feel lost in the technology?

Insight
Guests at hub by Premier Inn are smart, tech-savvy and value efficiency. However, the compact nature of the rooms means that key features like hidden storage, smart lighting and the tech-enabled desk can easily go unnoticed. We needed a fun, engaging way to introduce guests to these hidden features while reflecting the brand's fresh, modern and accessible vibe.

Idea
Enter Hubuddy, your personal, interactive co-pilot for the hub room experience. We teamed up with Red Bee Creative to create an engaging Infomercial video that welcomes guests to their rooms, offering them a quick and easy rundown of everything they need to know. From lighting controls to the smart desk and in-room entertainment system, Hubuddy helps guests easily unlock their room's full potential.

In the video, Hubuddy greets guests with a warm, friendly demeanour, speaking in an upbeat and approachable tone because we know our guests are just as smart as they are savvy. We wanted the video's tone to reflect that same intelligence and approachability.

Impact
Hubuddy strikes the perfect balance between functionality and warmth, showing guests that Premier Inn isn't afraid to embrace innovation while keeping comfort and convenience at the forefront. By fusing thoughtful design with intuitive technology, Hubuddy enhances the guest experience and ensures visitors can maximise their stay – for a night or a week.

With Hubuddy, Premier Inn stays committed to providing a high-quality, seamless experience while integrating innovative design that reflects the evolving needs of today's travellers.

Premier Inn’s brand-new campaign ‘Do your thing’, from creative agency Leo Burnett.

Issue
In a world full of competition and OTAs as well as living through a cost-of-living crisis, it’s of paramount importance we can still offer our guest that reassurance they’re used to when staying with Premier Inn. However, with average room rates rising and customers being more price sensitive, people can feel overwhelmed. How do we get out guests to make us top of mind when faced with all these barriers?

Insight
Insights tell us that although budgets are smaller, people are still going to prioritise travel and experiences. They already use Premier Inn for location, reactive and functional trips but there’s opportunity to own travel-led trips where people want to travel for hobbies and passions.

Idea
Ultimately, we want to free up our guests’ mental load for those meaningful trips by becoming the antidote to accommodation overwhelm so the nation can rest easy and think of anything but the hotel. Emotionally connecting with our guests and providing that reassurance, they can concentrate on all the other things that matter.

In our brand-new campaign and TV ad ‘Do your thing’, we’re celebrating not only the great value Premier Inn is famous for but also the many reasons why our guests stay with us. From fun days at cos play conventions and memorable nights out for gig goers to all-important business trips and exciting family getaways, we believe that wherever you're going, whatever you're doing - do your thing and we'll sort the rest.

But it’s not just about a TV ad. From radio, cinema and social to email, website and programmatic, ‘Do your thing’ is an integrated, multi-channel campaign.

Impact
According to recent data from YouGov BrandIndex which monitors consumer perceptions toward brands daily – Premier Inn is winning Ad Awareness in 2024.

Little Black
Book Marketing Beat
Publicis
Creative Boom

Check out our latest TV ad featuring our cycling superheroes, Pedal Squad, as they prepare to take it up a gear – with some help along the way from Premier Inn…

Issue
Our challenge was to create a TTL campaign that supported our ATL advertisement, ‘Pedal Squad’, to drive landings to our hub of cycling pages. From there, we could steer bookings to cycling breaks, starting and finishing, at one of our bike-friendly Premier Inn hotels.

Insight
January and the new year represent looking ahead, beating the winter gloom, plus all the usuals of getting fit, healthy and looking after yourself. But sometimes it’s hard to actually put your foot to the pedal. Knowing all our hotels are bike friendly, we could create inspiration for cycling breaks and adventures, all beginning at our hotels, found in some of the best locations across the UK.

Idea
'Take it up a gear'. Integrated channels drove traffic to a content-fuelled cycling hub page. Jam-packed full of info on our bike-friendly hotels, cycling routes for all ages, abilities and ambitions, tips from the experts, breakfast ideas to fuel up and everything else you need to make your cycling break a winner. The campaign was wrapped up with a competition in collaboration with Halfords to win a bike, bike goodies and a family stay at Premier Inn.

Impact
A hugely successful campaign, results showed a sizable increase in brand engagement – amplifying our core TTL concept and bike policy.

Creation of branded, high-impact, low-cost outdoor advertising hoardings to maximise impact on a transient audience.

Issue
When a new Premier Inn hotel is being built, it’s wrapped in a temporary protective cover. This fascia provides a unique opportunity to deliver brand messages and create buzz long before the hotel opens.

Insight
The building site is visible to thousands of passers-by, whether walking or driving. This means each person is a potential guest. But with only a brief moment to capture their attention, we needed a strategy that would make an instant, lasting impact.

Idea
We transformed the construction fascia into a dynamic, eye-catching billboard by using short, punchy headlines paired with a simple but striking graphic treatment. Our goal was to communicate quick, impactful benefits that would resonate with a wide range of potential guests – from families looking for a fun getaway to business travellers seeking comfort and convenience.

Impact
The local community responded enthusiastically to the temporary fascia. It sparked conversations and generated excitement, with residents and passers-by sharing their anticipation on social media. Families and business travellers alike connected with the messaging and the design fostered community pride as people felt involved in the hotel’s development. The project gained local media attention, and word-of-mouth spread quickly, helping position Premier Inn as a welcoming, accessible choice for all guests even before the hotel opened.

We don’t have a pool. But you can still go for a swim.

Issue
Premier Inn hotels don’t have pools, or gyms, or spas. So, anyone looking to stay in a hotel with those facilities might consider going elsewhere. If they regularly visit the gym or spa, staying with us means they possibly won’t be able to continue their fitness and well-being routines. Studies show that Brits waste up to £558m a year on unused gym memberships. Hussle are a pay-as-you-go gym solution with an added flexibility. To raise awareness of their unique offering, partnerships are a beneficial model.

Insight
Premier Inn are renowned for being a practical, functional hotel. When guests visit, often they are left without much to do in their downtime. Instead of heading down to the bar or flicking through the TV channels, Hussle can provide a much more holistic opportunity for guests to fill their time with.

Idea
To create awareness of our new partnership, we created a series of ‘soft launch’ posts for our social media channels, drum rolling up to January 2020. These posts had simple communications that introduced the partnership and the holistic/well-being activities available to our guests whilst spending time at a Premier Inn. A partnership ancillary page was also created and we offered Premier Inn guests a two-day free pass to let our guests experience Hussle for themselves. As January is a time when we all make promises to ourselves regarding fitness and well-being, our January campaign embraced these human truths as we introduced a series of influencer posts on our social channels that emotionally connected with these insights. Creatively and strategically, we built out these ‘stories’ to contextualise our products and services into everyday life, everyday interactions and experiences. We propose to repeat influencer posts throughout 2020 as insights tells us that post-Christmas, pre-summer and post-summer are times when people look to start making well-being improvements. Repeat influencer posts are proven to be more impactful when repeated throughout the year, as the ‘real’ stories unfold.

Impact
Our soft launch saw a 17.6% uplift conversion rate from our partnership ancillary page.

Next evolution style rooms.

Issue
If a hotel becomes dated and the room furnishing and prodcuts become tired this can have a negative impact on our brand loyalty and our overall reputation.

Insight
Our guests are at the heart of everything we do, which means we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to enhance your experience. We pride ourselves on continually innovating, refining and enhancing our designs and ideas so that as a business, we’re constantly evolving.

Idea
Check out our Next Evolution Style rooms! We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to give our rooms an enhanced, re-imagined look and feel to provide our guests with even more.

With all that said, we believe that no matter which of our 800+ hotels you choose to stay at, you’ll always experience that consistent level of Premier Inn comfort you know and love, from our warm welcome to our comfy beds.

Impact
Our upgraded rooms have improved our brand image. Our guests have a more luxurious experience, which has had a positive impact. It has increased our brand loyalty and our reputation for excellent customer service and accommodation.

Mirror
Express

We’ve partnered with Project Art Works, a visual arts organisation working with people with complex needs, to showcase a collection of their unique artworks in a selection of our hotels.

Issue
To play our part in aligning with Force for Good, our corporate responsibility programme, we chose to focus on the ‘community’ pillar. Partnering with Project Art Works has allowed us to make a meaningful contribution to the customers and communities we serve by showcasing their artwork stories in our hotels.

Insight
Premier Inn has no barrier to entry and no limits to growth. By igniting the conversation between our team members and guests about Local Art Stories, we can demonstrate our passion for embracing inclusivity and diversity. Everyone and anyone can stay with us – it’s what we pride ourselves on.

Idea
Sharing eight pieces of original artwork across our East Sussex hotels and headquarters, we provided a national platform for Project Art Works by telling their stories to our guests, creating meaningful connections, engagement and empathy. We held a private viewing event to showcase the artists’ works, shared the pieces and artist bios across our social media channels, created a subtitled film for our content page and educated our team members on how they could become Local Art Stories ambassadors.

Impact
A successful campaign that ignited conversations between our guests, team members and Project Art Works, that demonstrated our passion for making meaningful contributions to local communities. Pieces from Project Art Works now hang in our new, upgraded Ultimate Rooms.

A bedtime story to help our little guests get off to sleep. 

Issue
Premier Inn has been proudly supporting the incredible Great Ormond Street Hospital charity (GOSH) since 2012. Since then, we pledged to raise £7.5 million towards a brand-new medical facility at the hospital. Officially opened by HRH, The Princess of Wales in January 2018 and named in honour of partnership, the Premier Inn Clinical Building has meant children have been able to move out of old facilities into new. Plus, parents can stay comfortably with their child overnight.

Insight
There are many benefits to bedtime stories. Not just limited to creating magical memories and forming part of a routine to help children nod off, bedtime stories are proven to help foster a bond between parents and children, lower kids’ stress levels and reinforce their literacy skills and mastery of language.

Idea
In collaboration with GOSH, we created a bedtime story to help get our smaller guests off to sleep at night. We wrote, illustrated and published our very own Premier Inn digital and print storybook – ‘Wishing on a Star’ – that tells the story of a little girl named Mona who dreams of going to space.

The book also came with a bespoke ‘Wishing on a Star’ torch, that worked alongside the story page by page.

Impact
250,000 books were published and distributed across our 800+ hotels. We were also able to give some of the books to schools across the UK.

12 months, six key influencers. See our blogger’s seasonal content that helped more people across the UK indulge in their passions – from walking breaks and cycling tours, to golf weekends.

Issue
Quality content that can be frequently updated, such as blog or article postings, plays a vital part in our interaction with customers and ranks us highly in search. Through SEO, we can attract visitors to our site, keep them informed and drive them to book.

Insight
Each seasonal change in the UK brings new potential for refreshed Premier Inn content. In our Summer Campaign, we harnessed the insight that the summer months bring people out into the great outdoors. Which gave us opportunity for new content about walking breaks, cycling tours and golf weekends.

Idea
We invited six of the UK’s top influencers to blog about their summer passions – walking, cycling, golfing, live music, food and mindfulness – sharing their tips, secrets and of course, their favourite locations.

Impact
A total reach of over 25m, with 28,000 video views on influencer channels, 10.2m Facebook impressions (KPI: 13.8m) and 14k Facebook clicks to site (KPI: 60.1k) plus 8.61m Programmatic impressions (KPI: 40m) – driving an 8% uplift in traffic to premierinn.com

Redefining brand engagement through demographic targeting and collaboration.

Issue
Despite having growing Facebook, Instagram and X accounts, our TikTok account needed some help in growing its following. It also required a deep dive into our content offering for maximum engagement across our range of demographics and audiences.

Insight
TikTok boasts over 1 billion monthly active users offering an unparalleled opportunity to showcase brands to a global audience. It’s algorithm favour content discovery too meaning even small accounts can experience viral success if the content is engaging and compelling enough.

In relation to Premier Inn, TikTok is popular among Gen Z and Millenials, both of which are frequent travellers. In addition, as hospitality is all about creating memorable experiences, TikTok thrives on visual storytelling.

Idea
Starting our TikTok channel is an opportunity to show our followers who we are not just as a brand but behind our brand too. Sharing our funny, relatable and authentic content allows us to really connect with our guests and highlights our brand values to their core. In addition, we can use the channel to push our most beloved products and services such as our famous beds, breakfast, choice of locations, new hotel openings and more using trending music, voiceovers and layouts to reach our wide range of audiences.

Alongside behind-the-scenes and UGC content to help inspire viewers to book direct, we’re also working with Content Creators to amplify our reach and showcase our offering in unique and aspirational ways.

Impact
Since we launched our channel in April 2022, we have amassed over 82k followers with over 429.1k likes. With viral moments like our Gavin & Stacey inspired ‘What’s Occur-inn’ video, we’re continuing to make relatable, fun and potentially viral content. We’ll be continuing to work with Content Creators to help maximise relatability and further build upon the community of brand fans.

Through implementation of strong, price-focused messages and the development of a consistent tone of voice, we increased email click-through rates and Premier Inn’s hotel bookings by 35%.

Issue
The hotel sector is very competitive with most brands focussing purely on price. Low-cost messaging alone doesn’t differentiate or help build a brand, so we needed to find a more powerful approach. 

Insight
We don’t just provide great value hotel rooms, we provide guests with the means to create great travel experiences. And, ultimately, that’s what makes an unforgettable holiday.

Idea
Through evocative imagery and provocative messaging, we developed a weekly series of emails that didn’t just focus on price, but also told a sensory story; appealing to the recipients’ hearts and minds.
 
The word 'start' is a word that instantly ignites activity. And where there is activity, there is an experience. Whether it’s needing Wi-Fi for work purposes, needing somewhere to store your bike or you just need to be as close to where you need to be as possible, we can help. Giving our guests even more reasons to book with us, these emails can be sent out anytime of the year to reinforce our messaging.

Impact
Since launch at the start of 2017, both strategy and creative are working hard – with a 10% increase in revenue and a 15.5% increase in engagement.

Our campaign to encourage employees to share their personal data so that the business can make more positive, people-centric decisions. 

Issue
Shared data with our employees such as sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status and ethnicity are voluntary. However, it’s highly valuable to us as an organisation to implement positive change within the business. We needed a compelling campaign to explain to our teams why we’re asking for this data, who can see it, what we’ll use it for and how their data will be kept safe. Ultimately, it needed to answer the question of “What’s in it for me?”

Insight
Employees feel vulnerable and potentially sceptical about sharing their information with their employer, whether it’s for fear of discrimination or feeling the sentiment of ‘why does my employer need to know’? Additionally, we’re living in a world where we’re told about the importance of data privacy and protection, GDPR and a Google’s ‘cookieless’ future.
With this in mind, employees will therefore need to feel reassured that there is a 100% level of trust when sharing their personal data.

Idea
We created an image-led campaign that celebrates individuality and acknowledges the weight of capturing the idea that “We all need to be seen”. Positive, smiling photos of people appear to be emerging from the background or coming out from the wall behind them after being camouflaged in wallpaper. It highlights the idea that by being seen fully by your organisation means they can recognise your unique identity and in turn make more people-centred decisions.

Getting lost in the background should be a concept of the past and becoming your true self at work needs to be for the present. 

Impact
After seeing the campaign internally, around 2000 employees have already shared their data.

Transforming on-demand dining with convenient, quality eats.

Issue
We were tasked with developing creative positioning and collateral for a bowl food and pizza menu trial at PI London Angel Islington. This F&B proposition has been developed with reducing cost and service requirements in mind, but also to offer our guests a faster, simpler, easier, cheaper and more flexible dining option to the standard Thyme menu. It will go hand-in-hand with an improved ground-floor design that will accommodate food being served throughout our guests’ stay.

Insight
This proposition is first and foremost about offering food at great convenience. Better in quality and taste – and more reliable than fast food. Quicker, easier and more flexible than dining in a restaurant.

Idea
Ready when you are – whenever (and wherever) hunger strikes, we’ve got it covered. When it comes to serving up great food, we say ‘anytime, anywhere’. Fancy pizza in bed at 2am? Be our guest. Want a tasty, hot pasta lunch to take on the road – just take it! And let’s not forget the who’d-be-serving-curry-at-this-time curry. Tuck in at our wonderful new café/bar area.

Impact
The campaign was a huge success and was consequently implemented across all our integrated floor estate hotels and bars.

Crafting visual stories to elevate brand appeal and drive conversion.

Issue
Product imagery is a key part of our brand messaging. Not only for improving conversion on our website, but also to fully represent the reason why we should be the front-of-mind choice over our competitors.

Insight
Imagery is used to seduce, engage, inspire and sell. When people find something attractive or aspirational, they want to buy into that style, product or way of life. We want our imagery to be not only a true and honest representation of our products, but to also attract guests and engage with them.

Idea
To showcase our Ultimate Rooms, which bring the ‘premium economy’ concept to the UK’s budget-hotel market, we worked with Julian Abrams – a true craftsman with a fantastic mastery of light and architecture. He captured the overall vision and the intricate details in a beautiful, graphical way.

Impact
Julian’s photography has been instrumental in increasing our brand profile, helping to reach and resonate with a wider audience and produce a consistent and stylised approach that mirrors the essence of our brand.

Premier Inn’s new lifestyle photography. 

Issue
Lifestyle imagery is a key part of our brand messaging. Not only does it need to help increase conversion on our website, but it also needs to act as an accurate representation of what guests can expect when they stay with us.

Insight
Imagery is used to seduce, engage, inspire and sell. Aside from location, price and amenities, seeing what you can expect from a hotel stay with us, is just as important to guests when booking. Through captivating imagery, we’re able to showcase our products, services and the overall look and feel of Premier Inn – the UK’s most loved hotel.  

Idea
From booking to bed, our photography tells the important visual narrative on the whole Premier Inn experience, featuring guests and team members front and centre in the story. Our brief was to capture this approach in line with our ‘Rest easy’ brand messaging and update our central collection of brand images accordingly.

Behind the lens, capturing the all-important lifestyle moments was the talented Kerry Harrison. Working alongside Kerry was our creative agency, Leo Burnett – who also helped us bring our Rest easy campaign to life. To truly represent our values, as an inclusive business we casted 21 models of all ages, abilities and ethnicities, as well as our very first same-sex couple in the UK.

Not only did we shoot on location with an amazing cast at our new Premier Inn London Paddington hotel and the Bar + Block restaurant on site, but our real-life team members also joined in, too!

Impact
These images will be used everywhere, including website photography, press and PR, performance reporting, in-hotel print, partner websites and more.

From resizable rings to clean shirts, we’ve come up with a handy new way to help brides, grooms and guests avoid wedding day mishaps.

Issue
We know we’re a popular choice for families and friends, but many people aren’t aware we can accommodate large groups – or that we have a dedicated helpline to facilitate big bookings. Tapping into royal wedding fever, we want people to know we’re the perfect choice for getting ‘Big Day Ready’.

Insight
At Premier Inn, we can facilitate it all: guests can book in together, get ready together, crash out after all the fun and tuck into a great breakfast the morning after.

Idea
We created a TTL campaign to support ‘The Bridesmaid’s Tale’, a romantic and joyful ad that shows bridesmaids and groomsmen preparing for a wedding at a Premier Inn hotel. With a subtle focus on our younger audience, we let people know we’re a brilliant choice for wedding accommodation. One element of the ‘Big Day Ready’ campaign we partnered with our PR agency Golin and focused on the top 10 items guests are most likely to forget. The machine was live at our County Hall hotel for two days, with a press release, images and a video available for the media. The key take-out messages were of Premier Inn listening to its guests and being innovative (albeit on a slightly quirkier front). Social followers also loved the fun take on some genuine insights.

Impact
In the run up to the royal wedding, six national online papers (The Mirror, The Express, The Independent, The Sun, The Irish Sun and The Scottish Sun), as well as Bride Magazine, ran editorials on our wedding vending machine. Social media responses were overwhelmingly positive and gave customers an opportunity to share their love with the brand. The campaign achieved a total reach of 350 million. 

Partnering with the publication Stylist magazine, we created a suite of print and digital features on how to win at weddings as a guest. From unique hen party destinations to tips on saving money for the big day, we’ve got it covered. And, of course, there’s always a Premier Inn nearby to help along the way.​​​​​​​

Issue
Find a way to speak to wedding guests and readers who are interested in weddings, travel and the royal wedding.

Insight
Coinciding with our Big Day Ready Campaign and The Bridesmaid’s Tale TV ad, we have a rich territory to explore the world of the wedding guest. With Premier Inn acting as a facilitator for weddings (for the hen party, wedding accommodation, wedding day preparation and more), we needed to find a partner to reach a female audience who attends several weddings in a year.

Idea
Having the reach to a younger, female-heavy audience, Stylist naturally lent itself to being the perfect partner. Creating an integrated campaign across Stylist’s touchpoints, the campaign provided readers with all the tools they needed to survive wedding season within budget, from city weddings to coastal beach nuptials. Content included ideas for unique hen destinations, wedding day outfits, gift ideas and accommodation.

Impact
Stylist has a combined reach of over twomillion women in the UK.

The day our pillows went viral.

Issue
86% of our guests agree that they’ve had a good night’s sleep in our hotels – largely down to our beds and bedding that offer otherworldly comfort. But what most people don’t know is that you can recreate a dreamy sleep at a Premier Inn hotel with your own Premier Inn bed, duvet and pillows at home.

Insight
Premier Inn is the UK’s number-one hotel brand. Going from strength to strength, you’ll find over 80,000 rooms across the length and breadth of the UK. With our amazing growth, our audience has naturally become more diverse. As a recognised, trusted brand, we’ve been able to increase our visibility through endorsements and non-traditional media channels. Like social media. When influencers with a loyal following sing our praises, people listen up and take note.

Idea
We wanted to ensure our media strategy had social media at the very heart of the plan. In turn, enabling us to tap into the power of the influencer market and their younger, experience-seeking, media-savvy followers. So, we came up with an idea… 

Introducing, the power of #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt.

The #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt movement surrounds sharing videos of proud, new purchases on TikTok. One influential user got on board with this trend by showcasing her haul of comfy Premier Inn pillows. The video went viral and, at the time of writing this, has 96,000 views and more than 5,000 likes.

TikTokBirmingham LiveThe SunThe IndependentWoman & Home

Impact
By going viral on TikTok, the sales of our pillows skyrocketed by a whopping 400%.  

An attractive, posts-summer 'offer' to lift spirits and inspire our guests.

Issue
To continue to support our soft trading performance, amid a challenging year and another not so amazing British summer, we need a tactical campaign to promote and encourage bookings at a time when people are needing a break. 

Insight
With people heading back to work and school in September, plus the cost-of-living crisis still in full swing, it’s important that the sentiment of the campaign culturally, seasonally and emotionally aligns with the majority of the nation. Heading ‘back to reality’ after summer and the colder months looming, it’s the perfect time to lift the spirits and inspire. Guests are looking for (and needing), a great value break more than ever, so a bold and impactful key message will encourage guests to book.

Idea
Over 1 million rooms at £45 & under

We launched an impactful and attractive ‘offer’ that would stand out in amongst a host of ‘end of summer savings’ from competitors. As we’re not discounting prices or promoting a sale, we instead used our existing pricing / availability to drive both Leisure and Business bookings. A multi-channel campaign included email, website, social, affiliates, programmatic, meta, push notifications and radio.

Impact
Launching September 2024 – watch this space.

Working with our evergreen brand guidelines and image style to work cohesively with our email headlines, click-through rates on the Premier Inn website increased by 35%.

Issue
The weekly customer email programme is the backbone of Premier Inn’s marketing. A weakness in the process can impact on timings and the quality of the output. Which, in turn, could potentially undermine results (hotel bookings). So, implementing an efficient design working process was vital.

Insight
Over a series of weeks, every part of the process was recorded and mapped – from the initial briefing right through to concept and design development. Extensive data gathering enabled us to highlight inefficient working practices.

Idea
The information helped us to refine our approach – leading to the development of a new, faster workflow system for email activity. At the same time, a broad suite of design templates incorporating responsive modules was created to speed up the process even further.

Impact
The new process has freed up time to concentrate on concept development, without compromising on turnaround. Specifically, results from these changes revealed an increase of 15% in revenue and 16.5% in engagement.

Utilising reception welcome walls to engage with guests and immerse them in their destination.

Issue
Our German hotel receptions have expansive, empty wall spaces that lack purpose and engagement.

Insight
Guests are arriving at our hotels with excitement and anticipation. Depending on what their trip will entail, often they’ll be ready to immerse themselves in their destination and make the most of the stay. So, when guests are waiting to check-in or waiting for someone in the area, surroundings are important with ample opportunity to create engagement and inspiration.

Idea
We transformed blank walls into captivating welcome displays by designing contemporary line art illustrations that celebrate the unique character of German cities. These artworks highlight key landmarks, cultural attractions, and points of interest, serving as visual guides to the local area. Each design is intricately detailed to reflect the essence of the city, combining cultural heritage and modern artistry to inspire exploration and a sense of discovery.

​​​​Impact
The initiative has been a resounding success, with 34 designs rolled out across our Premier Inn DE hotels. These vibrant illustrations have become a defining feature of the brand, enhancing the guest experience and solidifying our identity in Germany.

Following a nationwide search, seven lucky children were chosen to become junior hotel inspectors to take over Premier Inn London Bank.

Issue
From where to go and where to stay, grown-ups are always making the decisions when it comes to family holidays. But shouldn’t the kids have their say, too? Just like the grown-ups, the breakfast menu is super important, as is the bed for a good night’s sleep and the TV for Sunday-morning cartoons. 

Insight
When you give children a platform to voice their opinions, they often have an endless list of questions to ask – and they are actually brutally honest. Kids aren’t afraid to say what they think! Seeing and hearing these opinions from kids offer up a completely different and refreshing perspective. What they see through their eyes is often completely different to how grown-ups see things. This is incredibly interesting to delve into.

Idea
In partnership with our PR agency, Golin, we crowned seven lucky youngsters as junior hotel inspectors, from 2,000 applicants aged between five and nine years old. Having visited the London Bank (Tower) hotel when it was under construction, they were then invited back once the hotel was completed to give it their seal of approval. Having been awarded the status of number-one TripAdvisor family hotel in the UK, it was the ideal location for the little ones to scrutinise.

Offering their opinions to help improve Premier Inn’s family offerings, they were armed with their very own ‘inspector kits’, including lab coats and magnifying glasses. Every aspect of the hotel was checked for its child-friendliness levels, from the welcome at reception and the breakfast menu, to the most important test – bed bounciness.

Impact
The competition announcement plus the video and imagery combined secured 49 pieces of news coverage with a reach of around 22.5-million people, nationally. The video and imagery brought the story to life, maximising social use with video views reaching nearly 200,000 on Facebook. What’s more, the link to our London Waterloo site helped promote the TripAdvisor family award.

Beatrice Vears, Head of Brand said, “Even the youngest of Premier Inn’s customers deserve a great night’s sleep, and these kids are not afraid to say what they think! Following their inspection, we’ve taken all of their feedback into consideration and will be using it to offer an even better service to families”.

Marketing activity that lands our brand essence with great efficiency.

Issue
86% of our guests agree that they have a good night’s sleep in our hotels. And we are known for having the best-in-class beds. However, most of the guests that stay at our hotels are unaware that you can actually buy a Premier Inn bed, including the mattress and the base, and now our pillows. A campaign to increase the awareness and exposure of our bed shop is required.

Insight
Premier Inn is the UK’s number-one hotel brand going from strength to strength, with over 70,000 rooms the length and breadth of the UK. Recent innovations in Premier Inn’s digital offering have led to an enhanced online and booking experience for guests. Guests trust us as a brand and buy into our proposition. They trust our products and services. They trust our people and they can always count on us to deliver. Because we’re trusted as a brand, people listen to us. If we say our products are of the highest quality and will deliver comfort, they will listen loud and clear.

Idea
We own sleep. And you can trust us to facilitate it for you. Our proposition takes on more of a claim as it powerfully positions us as a trustworthy, reliable source of comfort. The comms will focus on the combo – our brand status and our dependable products. Communications will have a confident TOV, be authentic, short, sharp and informative.

Impact
Simon Ewins, Chief Operating Officer for Premier Inn comments:
"The sale and forthcoming launch campaign of the Premier Inn pillows will not only play a pivotal role in driving the ancillary revenue line for our business, but importantly it is the first step on our journey that starts to re-establish the Premier Inn brand as the leading experts in sleep".

Stay with confidence.

Issue
The pandemic changed everything. With the highly contagious nature of COVID-19 and the tragic number of deaths it caused, people were naturally fearful and saw all public places including hotels as high-risk places to be. How could we protect and reassure our guests and staff from the very real threat this disease posed?

Insight
Government policy was to introduce measures to minimise the risk of spreading the infection. Social distancing, frequent washing of hands and the wearing of masks in public places were very visible, key messages. These ‘rules’ became part of our everyday life and made us all mindful of germs and the need for hygiene. We knew we needed to heed these instructions and more to make sure our hotels weren’t places where the infection could spread.

Idea
To help mitigate people’s real fears, it was important to build on the government's simple campaign. We looked at how we could reinforce, and enhance this messaging. This is where the idea of Premier Inn CleanProtect™ came from.

Premier Inn CleanProtect™

This was our clear and simple promise to our guests and staff. It was actioned with the simplifying of rooms to minimise touchpoints where the infection could spread, and supported with simple guidance messaging throughout our buildings.

Premier Inn CleanProtect™, was developed in partnership with Diversey, a global leading cleaning and hygiene product supplier. Our promise seeks to give extra peace of mind so guests could book and stay with confidence. Extra measures also reinforced our already rigorous daily cleaning regime: we gave our housekeepers more time to deep clean each room and changed our check-in time to 3pm – just to make sure that we have enough time to thoroughly clean our rooms.

Impact
We pride ourselves on being a caring brand. Premier Inn CleanProtect™ undoubtably helped make customers feel protected. The Premier Inn CleanProtect™ promise is now one of our brand values and shall remain so, in a post-pandemic world.

A podcast with Sir Lenny Henry dedicated to helping the nation sleep soundly.

Issue
We’re always looking for ways to help the nation rest easy, whether they’re staying with us in our hotels or at home wanting to get a good night’s sleep. And we’re not just talking about our Premier Inn Beds.

Insight
From listening to comforting sleep sounds like raindrops or white noise, to sleeping in pitch black rooms or trying out the good old ‘counting sheep’, we’re always looking for ways and remedies to help us fall asleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 10-30% of adults worldwide experience insomnia symptoms with sleep-related issues often having significant implications for overall health and wellbeing. Life post-pandemic has also brought attention to sleep-related issues with people reporting disruptions to their sleep patterns due to stress, anxiety and changes in daily routines.

Idea
As the experts in sleep, we created our very own guided sleep podcasts narrated by the dulcet tones of our very own Sir Lenny Henry. Purposefully sleep-inducing, Rest Easy Stories, dramatise our technology, expertise and craft that has gone into our new beds, bedding, rooms and bathroom products.

A mix of sleep meditation and informative product details, our aim was to balance the two worlds, communicating key information but in a creative way that was conversational and relatable for the listener. Sir Lenny’s soothing nature, the podcasts are slow paced with a rhythmic momentum that helps the listener drift off. To help elevate the specific themes, we added a soundscape behind the voiceover to help craft the sleepy, dreamy vibe.

>The Bed of your Dreams

>Bedding Bliss

>Room to Relax

Impact
Living on Spotify and other streaming platforms, they’re now widely accessible where we can entice new listeners through targeting them late at night on social, getting them away from their screens and off to sleep. Links can be found through our social campaign, website, email programme, radio ads and in-hotel digital screens. 

Statistically significant.

Issue
Display banner advertising is often the last thing to be addressed in a media campaign. But just because the spaces are often tiny, it doesn’t mean their impact or cut-through have to be.

Insight
Any medium can push your message effectively – when the thinking, targeting and execution are potent enough.

Idea
We turned things on their head. We made a suite of programmatic banners the hero medium. Instead of merely back-fitting and squeezing existing assets into these challenging spaces, we gave them a life of their own. With a simple, single-minded message, an attention to detail and a full shoot, we created banners that looked clean and uncluttered.

​​​​Impact
These simple, well-executed campaign banners had a healthy ROI and overall impact, prompting an increase in click-throughs compared to previous banner campaigns.

Bag on Bed Collection

Finding a futureproof name for our newly designed rooms across 40 Premier Inn hotels. 

Issue
Our estate has a mixed variation of room design with some hotels having an older format style than others. However, from September 2024, we will have 10,000 newly designed and improved rooms across the Premier Inn estate. We needed to find a smart, futureproofed way of describing the new room improvements in a way that doesn’t denigrate the older product and justifies why Premier Inn is great value.

We also need to consider the point that as we pride ourselves on consistency, regardless of what our rooms ‘look and feel’ like, guests should always experience consistency from our top-quality products – this will always be the comfort they can count on.

Insight
In some sites with older room designs, we have declining guest scores because of a potential sub-par experience, whilst the customer is paying higher rates due to occupancy. Also, customers who stay in older rooms are less likely to return, by a factor of 2 to 5%.

As our guests are at the heart of everything we do, it means we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to enhance their experience. We pride ourselves on continually innovating, refining and enhancing our designs and ideas so that as a business, we’re constantly evolving.

Idea
Essentially, we would be naming a process, not a product. The process would align with our company RTBs around innovation which would highlight the fact that we’re in a continual cycle of product innovation and refinement. This strategy also futureproofs us for all future product refreshes / makeovers / enhancements.

The newly designed rooms could not be considered or have the word ‘new’ in the name as this would imply we have a new, bookable room option (our room options are only Standard and Premier Plus).

So, Next Evolution Style rooms was created. Feeling the most aligned to the generational and transformation process angle of the naming convention, ‘Next Evolution Style’ signifies progress and iteration. In addition, ‘Next’ felt the most appropriate substitute for ‘new’.

Impact
Found in over 40 hotels, our Next Evolution Style rooms have had a positive impact on our guests and increased our guests scores.

If guests want to find out more about the rooms, they can head to a dedicated page on our website that explains everything about our transformation and innovation processes. The announcement of the newly designed rooms was rolled out via email, the website and brand new branded photography.

Owning the festive moment.

Issue
Building the brand beyond TV adverts, our task was to maintain top-of-mind brand awareness, consideration and bookings throughout Nov/Dec.

Insight
Visiting Christmas markets is a tradition for millions of Brits. According to the study, seven in 10 people go to a Christmas market to feel festive, and 42 per cent attend for gifting inspiration. The average spend during a trip is £41, and most are willing to travel for nearly an hour and a half to get to their favourite market.

Idea
Premier Inn understands what UK travellers love to get up to, and we get them close to those experiences. We recognised that there is no central scheme for verifying the nation’s favourite Christmas markets in the UK. 

Our idea is for Premier Inn to own a much-loved Christmas moment that’s relevant to hotel stays and create a platform for consumers to feel inspired to visit them. Our campaign has allowed us to take ownership of 'The Nations Favourite Christmas Markets' year on year on year.

Impact
A poll of 2,000 Brits found the festive event in Derbyshire secured the highest overall score, with Edinburgh, St. Nicholas Fair in York and London’s Hyde Park Winter Wonderland all achieving 'gold' level status.  The press coverage was outstanding reaching into the millions.

Increasing face-to-face engagement and conversations with our clients.

Issue
UK Construction Week is a yearly NEC Birmingham event with over 650 exhibitors, covering every facet of the construction industry from BIM and materials, to flooring and roofing. Face-to-face marketing is one of the most powerful and successful marketing tools. And exhibiting is one of the only platforms which allows businesses to interact with prospective customers, in person.

Insight
Exhibition stands draw customers in and allow two-way communication between brands and stand visitors. It was vital that we engaged with potential customers as much as possible, with synergy, engagement and conversation, ensuring our brand left a lasting impression after the interaction was over. With a well-planned strategy, our trade show was an opportunity to extensively expand our company’s customer base and strengthen relationships with our existing customers.

Idea
The aim was to raise our profile and increase brand awareness. Simple and charming with a purpose, the concept was to create interactions that would generate curiosity and conversation. For our exhibit display, we developed high-impact, eye-catching designs that encouraged visitors to actively engage with our products and our brand.

Impact
The exhibition was a notable success, recording a large number of interactions and potential leads. Our presence at the exhibit strengthened our position as a business-focused hotel and as the UK’s leading budget-hotel brand.

Bringing to life our ‘warm welcome’ through our integrated ground floor and lighting.

Issue
Often our guests feel confused about where and what facilities are available for them to use at our hotels. This is highlighted in our current integrated ground floor model. The blueprint is a progressive, new model for all our new builds and in the future will be repurposed across all our existing hotels. The design caters to everyone’s needs – eating, socialising, checking in, working and lounging.

Insight
People desire choice, flexibility and the freedom to choose where they spend their time outside of their bedrooms – working, relaxing, chilling, eating and socialising.

Idea
We wanted to create a warm, vibrant space where guests feel welcome and enjoy spending time. We seamlessly integrated our food and drink offering into the experience, enhancing both their days and nights during their stay with us.

Utilising our brand colour palette, we will create a harmonious light, mood and messaging installation. An extension of our warm welcome, it will create a homely, familiar and comfortable space that our guests will feel immersed in.

Designed in a handwritten style to give a warm, human look and feel, we were holistic in our approach regarding our carbon footprint. Company Neonplus create low voltage neon products with an 80% reduced running costs vs traditional neon.

Impact
The desired behaviour is our guests spend more time in our hotels. Through the space we have orchestrated, the lighting effect will welcome, energise and relax.

Premier Inn’s new room photography.

Issue
Product imagery is a key part of our brand messaging. Not only for improving conversion on our website, but also to fully represent the reason why we should be the front-of-mind choice over our competitors.

Insight
Imagery is used to seduce, engage, inspire and sell. When people find something attractive or aspirational, they want to buy into that style, product or way of life. We want our imagery to be not only a true and honest representation of our products, but to also attract guests and engage with them.

Idea
To showcase our Ultimate Rooms, which bring the ‘premium economy’ concept to the UK’s budget-hotel market, we worked with Julian Abrams – a true craftsman with a fantastic mastery of light and architecture. He captured the overall vision and the intricate details in a beautiful, graphical way.

​​​​Impact
Julian’s photography has been instrumental in increasing our brand profile, helping to reach and resonate with a wider audience and produce a consistent and stylised approach that mirrors the essence of our brand.

Next evolution style rooms.

Issue
If a hotel becomes dated and the room furnishing and prodcuts become tired this can have a negative impact on our brand loyalty and our overall reputation.

Insight
Our guests are at the heart of everything we do, which means we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to enhance your experience. We pride ourselves on continually innovating, refining and enhancing our designs and ideas so that as a business, we’re constantly evolving.

Idea
Check out our Next Evolution Style rooms! We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to give our rooms an enhanced, re-imagined look and feel to provide our guests with even more.

With all that said, we believe that no matter which of our 800+ hotels you choose to stay at, you’ll always experience that consistent level of Premier Inn comfort you know and love, from our warm welcome to our comfy beds.

Impact
Our upgraded rooms have improved our brand image. Our guests have a more luxurious experience, which has had a positive impact. It has increased our brand loyalty and our reputation for excellent customer service and accommodation.

MirrorExpress

Naming our brand-new bed and mattress made exclusively in partnership with Silentnight.

Issue
We needed to create a futureproof naming convention for our new bed that would not only retrospectively consider our previous generation bed name but also make sure it was viable for future generation beds, regardless of third-party partnership or collaboration. Additionally, we needed to create clear parameters on how we talk about the partnership with Silentnight across different channels, environments and audiences.

Insight
A huge part of what we give our guests for that Premier Inn experience is by providing them with a great night’s sleep. We do this by maintaining a consistent high standard of excellence no matter what because ‘Sleep is our thing’. Alongside our famous breakfast, our beds rank highly with what’s most synonymous with Premier Inn.

After researching our competitors and other bed selling sectors in depth, we found that a lot of them talk about the ‘bed experience’ and then sell their beds / mattresses off the back of this concept.

Idea
We discovered that in order to champion our pillar of consistency and continue to sell our ‘Premier Inn Bed experience’ we had to first officially make our beds a ‘signature product’.

Introducing The Premier Inn Bed™

As a concept, we’re saying that no matter who we partner with to make our next generation mattress or a headboard or a base, The Premier Inn Bed will always be a product that represents our consistency and quality. As a business that is in a constant state of innovation, any modifications/iterations we make simply enhance the signature product but never change it. Our promise of comfort remains our constant.

But we still had to name the new mattress:

Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 made exclusively by Silentnight.

Ownable and distinguishable (Premier Inn Mattress) the 2.0 part is a futureproof way of being changeable when we roll out all future generation of mattresses, regardless of partnership.

Impact
Since the launch of our new mattress, we’ve had a substantial increase in sales of over 500%. For our guests to enjoy the full ‘hotel to home’ experience, they can not only take home our brand new Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 but can build their very own Premier Inn Bed with our range of divans, headboards and bed frames on our bed shop. What’s more, from our dedicated bedding website site Premier Inn at home, guests can also buy our duvets, pillows and mattress protectors.

However incredible a product or service, it counts for nothing if your audience doesn’t understand it. We created two animated infomercial videos to help impart that understanding – creating ‘I get it!’ moments for both our leading e-business tools.

Issue
Getting customers to learn how a complex, multi-benefit service works can be challenging. We have at least six benefits to communicate for Business Booker and six others for the Business Account. We need to drive increased engagement for more customers to sign up to our e-business tools.

Insight
Every time we see a nicely animated dramatization of a feature, our brains produce a hit of the neurochemical dopamine. Our brains are addicted to dopamine and it feels good when it's produced. Videos are a great way to simplify complexity, but only if they are well-written and animated with wit and are full of moments that surprise and delight. They should also be voiced with genuine enthusiasm and feature a memorable, distinctive voice-over artist.

Idea
Voiced by Sir Lenny Henry, our fun, informational explainer videos will be packed with fresh and engaging moments for the viewer to connect with. We want to reach out to businesses and business people across a variety of industries to communicate the benefits of our tools.

Impact
Launching our comms in Oct 2019, we hope to increase our conversion rate for sign-up with new customers by 85%.

Managing guest expectations by positively positioning our windowless rooms across our Premier Inn and hub estate.

Issue
We have a high number of rooms across our hub and Premier Inn estate that are classified as ‘windowless’ due to the limitations with natural light. The current model is a mix of mood-lighting solutions including back-lit light box that’s operated on the same circuit as the room’s main lights, circadian light wells or a vinyl/frosted window covering. As a key priority, we needed to communicate our windowless proposition more openly to ensure we are managing guest expectations on what they can expect for their stay, be upfront and own that we market windowless rooms and positively position the guest benefit to not having a window.

Insight
We were receiving a number of complaints from guests about the lack of pre-stay transparency around our windowless rooms. Some guests felt there was a lack of communication on this as well as the benefits (or lack) of having a windowless room.

From using different names for these rooms, displaying icons and providing informative descriptions about the benefits to charging a lesser bookable rate than their Standard rooms, competitor analysis showed a mix of how hotels communicated and positioned their windowless rooms.

Idea
Ambient rooms
On an emotional and benefit-led angle, we wanted to focus on how our lighting solutions made our guests feel. Our hub ambient rooms create feelings of tranquillity and peaceful wellbeing through calming mood lighting that makes for a cosy and peaceful stay, helping guests sleep and wake up easier.

We wanted to strike a balance between communicating both the functional and emotional benefits of our windowless rooms. Calling them ‘window-free’ felt more positive sounding than ‘windowless’ with the latter potentially sounding like these rooms are without something or ‘less than’ another room. Window-free overcomes a perceived negative.

From overnight stops for work to weekend breaks with family and friends, our ads show that whatever the occasion, our hotels are always a great place to start.

Issue
With a no. 1 ranking on the YouGov BrandIndex 2017, Premier Inn already scores highly with consumers. Our mission now is to become the best-loved hotel chain the world over.

Insight
Nobody visits a Premier Inn just to spend time in our comfy rooms. A Premier Inn stay is part of a bigger purpose – from important business meetings, to sporting events, romantic breaks and family occasions.

Idea
Let’s dramatise this humble truth and remind people that, wherever they're going, Premier Inn is always "a great place to start".

Impact
Over the duration of our eight-week campaigns, we saw an average increase in revenue of 21%.

Creating a bespoke cocktail to attract guests to our bars and restaurants over the festive season.

Issue
During the festive months of November and December, we needed to drive additional visits to Premier Inn’s bar and F&B spaces while enhancing brand perception and consideration during the festive season.

Insight
Drinking special alcoholic drinks at Christmas is a cherished tradition, bringing warmth, nostalgia, and celebration. Festive cocktails like mulled wine and spiced martinis capture the seasonal charm, promoting togetherness and indulgence while amplifying the joy and spirit of the holidays.

Idea
In collaboration with Pritesh Mody (World of Zing), one of the ‘Top 50’ most influential drink innovators and a mixologist from Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, we crafted the 'Dream Catcher' – a Premier Inn-exclusive Purple Pornstar Martini with a warming ginger twist. This unique cocktail embraced seasonal flavours while marrying up with Premier Inn's brand essence.

The Dream Catcher was made it to the TV, showcasing the drink during a Sunday Brunch segment. Media photography highlighted the bespoke packaging and drink presentation, creating a strong visual link to the Premier Inn brand.

Impact
The campaign generated buzz and drove measurable engagement with Premier Inn’s bar and F&B spaces. Stay tuned for exciting updates on the ongoing success of Dream Catcher!

TikTok

TikTok-first campaign to help make Premier Inn synonymous with a great night’s sleep.

Issue
Our objective was to educate customers on how Premier Inn is investing in quality of sleep, improve perception and awareness by providing knowledge and confidence in Premier Inn’s sleep credentials as well as drive sales and traffic. For existing customers, we needed to reassure them that Premier Inn is the right choice, for new and lapsed, we would educate them on the brand and the investment in sleep and for the ‘under 35s’, we’d need to find a relevant route to them without excluding other customers.

Insight
Guests are increasingly prioritising sleep quality in their decision-making when choosing accommodations. Research shows that poor sleep is a common issue for travellers, with unfamiliar environments, noise and uncomfortable beds often cited as top concerns. Studies suggest that better sleep directly impacts guests’ satisfaction and loyalty to a brand. Furthermore, with the rise of health consciousness, sleep quality is no longer just a functional need but a key differentiator.

Idea
Underpinned by a social-first strategy and TikTok Campaign ‘Sleep is our thing’, the aim was to make Premier Inn synonymous with a great night’s sleep and help combat the issues around quality of sleep by encouraging users to unwind before bed. While sleep is a point of passion for Premier Inn, our target audience has all sorts of passions. We wanted to create a sound that can be used interchangeably and applied to everyone's 'thing' to increase the reach and versatility of the sound of social. The ‘thing’ could be a little or large passion, a hobby or a small part of a daily routine that’s been nailed to a tee.

Using an original script narrated by Sir Lenny Henry, we created our own content to showcase how ‘Sleep is our thing’ and worked with influencers to create content videos showcasing their ‘thing’ which would resonate and engage with their audiences.

Impact
An amazing 1,074,057 saw our videos, including influencer content, with an increase of 64.1% in our total engagement. Our organic influencer content got a total of 779,000 video views, too. We also gained 1,157 new followers across our socials throughout the campaign.

TikTok

Exploring the UK's Best-Kept Secrets with Premier Inn, in Partnership with The Guardian.

Issue
Building the brand beyond TV adverts. Our task was to maintain the summer buzz by creating a campaign that not only increased brand awareness but also showcased the breadth and variety of our hotel offering. 

Insight
Premier Inn are everywhere and all over UK. In all the big cities and all the popular places, hotspots and areas. But people are often looking for something different. Something or somewhere off the beaten track, something unique. By tapping into the feeling you get when you uncover a hidden treasure, we can enhance our guests’ travelling experience and bring out their sense of adventure. Premier Inn can be a facilitator of this with our over 750 hotels across the UK. 

Idea
Aligning with the popular UK publication The Guardian, an award-winning film location scout and three key social media influencers, we would lead conversations and comms around the topic of UK’s top Hidden Treasures - destinations that are lesser-known than larger, more popular ones.

Location scout Tom Howard shared his top hidden treasure destinations found through his work, coupled with a link to the nearest Premier Inn hotel. A content hub was created to live on site for these top 10 treasures, promoted on both organic and paid social.

Our partnership with The Guardian led to a creation of a variety of digital content - articles, listicles, galleries, traffic drivers, social posts and roadblock banners - encouraging discovery of the best hidden treasures across the UK, hosted on a dedicated hub on Guardian site. Content included articles on the best adventure holidays and alternative holiday destinations as well as the UK’s best beaches, mysterious sites and unique gardens.

Our three partner influencers stayed in our hotels exploring the local treasures on offer, creating curated Instagram posts and blog posts for their loyal audience. Key posts were boosted with organic and paid social in addition to promotion of Tom Howard’s top 10 treasures.

Impact
The Guardian content had great engagement, achieving a higher dwell time than the publication’s usual benchmark for promoted content and high click-through rates for our roadblock banners resulting in bookings despite being an awareness campaign.

https://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/short-breaks/hidden-treasures.html

Small adjustments, big impact.

Issue
SEO is a slow burner. It can take months to reap the success from an optimised restaurant page. But this long game is more than worth the wait.

Insight
Robust investment in SEO isn’t a nice-to-have approach, it’s a must-have. To be seen and heard above the competition and to truly excel to maximum potential across digital landscapes, SEO needs to be part of every marketer’s tool kit.

With experts and a sophisticated, yet beautifully simple formula – gone are the days of keyword cramming – SEO can create major business results, when executed effectively. Such as a boost in brand awareness, competitive page rankings on search engines, increased market authority and much more.

Idea
Committed to making our pages work harder organically, we regrouped at the end of FY22 to revise and strengthen our strategy. We wanted to disrupt the boundaries and take our application to the next level – utilising proven methods, as well as new ones.

From more page deliveries to applying the expertise of key working groups, our digital transformation story this financial year is one that’s filled with innovation. Between end-to-end optimisations and harnessing opportunities across existing pages, our copy has enhanced customer journeys, and grown site traffic exponentially.

Impact
As a result of our inbound efforts with SEO in FY22, we saw a 68% increase in organic bookings at our restaurants. Across our whole channel mix, organic search was responsible for 24% of all page visits and 20% of all restaurant bookings. 

Premier Inn’s Barry Island hotel located where the show is filmed is renamed in honour of the famous TV show ‘Gavin & Stacey.

Issue
With the hotly anticipated ‘Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special’ returning to our TV screens, we noticed that over the years, guests have visited our Premier Inn Barry Island hotel from as far and wide as China and even Hawaii, swapping Sunset Beach for Barry Beach.

Insight
Bookings at the hotel have seen an increase thanks to guests flocking to the area to try and get a glimpse of Nessa and Stacey hometown and the famous stars that play them.

Idea
Fans of the show will recognise the iconic catchphrase “What’s occurring…?” made famous by writer Ruth Jones’ character Nessa. So, we thought it was only fitting that our Barry Island Premier Inn had a little rebrand ahead of Gavin and Stacey: The Finale on Christmas Day, changing its name to ‘What’s Occur-Inn’.

A fitting tribute to a series that’s captured hearts across the nation, guests can now fully immerse themselves in Gavin & Stacey’s world, by staying in a hotel that’s truly part of the action.

Impact
Nothing short of a Barry-style celebration, our hotel had the honour of being ‘opened by a ‘knock-off Nessa’ lookalike, who in true Nessa fashion had a nap while she was on her shift and then clocked off for a spin around town in Dave’s Coaches. Guests, team members and locals every second of the festive buzz.

Just when we thought our Premier Inn What’s Occur-Inn campaign couldn’t get any better JAMES CORDEN himself chats about it on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show! We only made the Gavin & Stacey cast WhatsApp group 72Point 🤯

Take a virtual ‘walk’ through and let your cursor be your guide as you wander around our hotels in a fully immersive VR experience.

Issue
The Business Travel Show is Europe’s largest and busiest B2B travel event, making it the perfect opportunity to promote Premier Inn and hub hotels. However, with over 260 suppliers scrambling for the attention of 7,730 attendees, delivering a genuine impact is a challenge.

Insight
In the past, we used scale models to showcase our rooms. Not only had this approach grown tired, ever-reducing stand sizes meant it was no longer practical. So, we needed to find a smarter, more modern solution that reflected our state-of-the-art designs; something to ‘wow’ our prospects.

Idea
360-degree imagery taken from two hotels was weaved together, loaded into an app and displayed via a number of iPhones through customised VR headsets. Customers who visited our stand, could take a virtual ‘walk’ through our reception area, restaurants and rooms. Large TV screens displayed video footage from our hotels and we even added carpet from Premier Inn and hub – increasing the feeling of authenticity even further.

Impact
We generated more impact with our realistic VR experience, over previous years. Our idea also meant that our stand had a smaller footprint overall, reducing cost.

BASICALLY BRILLIANT BREAKFASTS.

Issue
ZIP by Premier Inn is our new concept hotel bringing compact living to hotel rooms. With a tone of voice that embodies no faff, straight talking and upbeat, the breakfast offering was not triggering sufficient uptake and needed to be updated. While the initial brand illustrations were created within the brand guidelines, they lacked appeal and not enough noise for awareness and ultimately sales.

Insight
When people are on the go, they want things quickly, easily and without hassle. They want what it says on the tin. It’s not only about convenience, but also wanting to eat something that’s going to ‘hit the spot’.

Idea
We used simple, straightforward photography to communicate a breakfast offering that was not only appealing to look at but would also make our guests feel hungry. From juicy, green apples to crispy bacon rolls, the photography elevated the items significantly. Alongside a simple formula to explain what you get for one set price, we used our bold brand colours and our straight-talking copy to create memorable ‘no-nonsense’ breakfast comms.

Impact
Uptake increased by 25%.

In this heart-warming six-part series on ITV, Paul O’Grady visits Great Ormond Street Hospital and the new Premier Inn Clinical Building to spend time with the remarkable and brave children being treated there and the inspiring staff who care for them.

Issue
Every day, 618 children and young people across the UK arrive at GOSH. Young lives hang in the balance as patients, families and staff battle the most complex illnesses.

Insight
Premier Inn has been proudly supporting this incredible hospital since 2012. Since then, we have pledged to raise £7.5 million towards a brand-new medical facility at the hospital. Named in honour of the partnership, the Premier Inn Clinical Building has meant children have been able to move out of old facilities into new ones. Plus, parents can stay comfortably with their children overnight. It was officially opened by HRH, The Duchess of Cambridge, in January 2018.

Idea
ITV’s brand-new TV series, Paul O’Grady’s Little Heroes, is based at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and provides a unique insight into one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals. Visiting the Premier Inn Clinical Building, Paul O’Grady brings his unique blend of warmth and humour to the hospital as he meets a number of children from all corners of the UK. Each of the six 30-minute episodes focuses on two to three children and their journey through their specialist and pioneering treatment.

Impact
The show not only raised awareness of GOSH, it also recognised Premier Inn as one of its charitable partners, shining the light on the Premier Inn Clinical Building that helps thousands of children every year. With the help of one of the nation’s most-loved TV presenters, Paul O’Grady engaged with everyone from the patients to the staff, where his genuine kindness and warmth shone through. A charming documentary that stood out from the crowd, the series was uplifting, life-affirming and, most importantly, real.

A promotional campaign exceeding all expectations.

Issue
Christmas is an expensive time of the year. After buying presents for family and friends, enough food and drink, most people are strapped for cash until January payday. So there’s a seasonal lull in Premier Inn bookings.

Insight
Even though people have just forked out for Christmas, they still want to spend and love shopping the Boxing Day and New Year bargains. So there’s plenty of opportunity to sell our low rate £29 rooms by appealing to this eagerness to bag a great deal that’s in limited supply.

Idea
We use our iconic Premier Inn purple cushion to represent a Premier Inn room and add an orange price tag to represent ‘Sale’ without saying it. Coupled with a headline message that creates urgency to book fast, we create the warmth, value and comfort of our brand, combined with the speed and urgency of a ‘once they’re gone, they gone’ sentiment.

Impact
Within 2 weeks of launch, a staggering 45% increase in revenue was calculated.

Spotlighting our purpose and values messaging across our newly refurbished HQ's space.

Issue
Our oldest and biggest support centre office and HQ was going under refurbishment. Included in this refurb was the creation of 37 brand-new meeting rooms in varying dimensions as well as designated areas for each department with seven accompanying branded feature walls in each ‘neighbourhood’. We had to consider not only creating a themed naming convention for the meeting rooms, but also one that was easy to navigate as these meeting rooms would also be linked to our internal systems when booking a meeting via Teams and Outlook.

Insight
As the previous office design had no identifiable features and very little consistency, to combat this, we carried out some research to find out what our teams wanted the design and messaging to represent. For the meeting rooms, it was to express a sense of pride, the scale and size of Premier Inn and to feel inspired. For the brand walls, it was to showcase our brand purpose and brand pillars (Care, Choice, Sleep, Convenience, Consistency and Innovation).

Idea
Meeting rooms
We saw an opportunity to celebrate the fact that we are not only everywhere across the UK, Germany and UAE but that it’s this variety of locations that makes us the nation’s most-loved hotel. For each of the 37 meeting rooms, we would pay homage to our locations across Premier Inn and hub, by calling them a location name with an accompanying fun fact or special stat that demonstrated that hotel’s significance or ‘spirit’.

Informative, fun and celebratory, this use of locations encourages us to adopt a different way of speaking and create a new ‘internal language’ to help us navigate the new meeting room system. For example, “I’ll meet you in Manchester at 10am”. Not only does it highlight the relevancy and connection locations have to us and our brand, but the rooms also become an extension of our hotels in a playful, interactive way.
To help select the coveted 37 names, we asked business wide (from Product and PR to trading and Internal Comms) about hotels of significance to ensure we’re showcasing a diverse and exciting range of locations.

Brand feature walls
Inspired by our brand RTBs, we wanted these to be the focus on the brand feature walls. Having them front and centre and in amongst all our teams, would act as constant reminder of who we are, what we do and why do it. These included everything from our warm welcome and tasty breakfast to Premier Plus, expertise in sleep and business proposition. The visual design included a punchy but warm headline with supporting copy alongside one of our branded images.

Impact
With the refurb now complete, our teams are thoroughly enjoying their new space and use of meeting rooms. Due to the positioning of the designs on the wall, they are often in the background of Teams calls making them a point of interest an conversation starter on both virtual and face-to-face meetings.

Insight
Samsung's corporate social responsibility is Breast Cancer. Our challenge was to make 400,000 women breast aware through the 'More Than Talk' sponsorship.

Idea
In partnership with the ladies from Breakthrough Cancer Research, we created an integrated campaign actioning people to pledge their promises and share the message 'Everybody's Doing It'. This drove traffic to the 'More Than Talk' microsite that was translated into 23 countries and The Susan G. Komen Facebook page.

Impact
The viral video was hosted on the Samsung Piccadilly Circus screen – first time ever to promote a CSR campaign. The mix of inspirational social content with actionable commitments by real people gave the campaign a real human element that wouldn’t be possible without the contribution of women all over the world.

To date, 25 European countries are now active and more than $6million has been raised. 

Insight
In January 2007 at The UEFA Congress, Gibraltar Football Association had 45 votes against and failed to become a full member. Our task was to create a powerful 360 integrated campaign and get Gibraltar national football team to be accepted by the UEFA congress.

Idea
We produced a fully integrated 360 campaign called ‘Team 54 | We’re Ready’ to target the existing 53 National Football Associations and the world’s sports media, across multiple channels in 43 languages.

Impact
An audience reach of 2 billion plus global press and TV coverage. On 24/05/13, 51 nations voted ‘yes’, and the Gibraltar Football Association is now UEFA’s 54th member.

The campaign won us the 'Grand Prix Overall Winner 2014' and 'Integrated Strategy of the Year 2014' at the Drum Marketing Awards, and 'Gold Award for Best Public Relations Communications 2014' at the IVCA Awards. So we scored too.

www.youtube.com/user/GFATeam54

www.facebook.com/GFATeam54/

Insight
Yota is a Russian mobile broadband services provider and smartphone manufacturer. Our challenge was to create a higher awareness of the brand and to attract new customers to interact with products displayed in kiosks set in shopping centres throughout Russia.

Idea
The campaign message ‘See Things Differently’ embraced the delights of seeing and doing things in another way. The pitch document was narrated in a conversation between Facebook friends and Yota – so highlights were communicated as if they had already been activated. To create additional content for the website and social pages, we encouraged people to submit their Yota 'moves' creating an hilarious human chain.

Impact
This was a successful pitch win for Engage Productions, defeating Poke Advertising who were the competing agency. The ideas were used as the hero Toolkit for future marketing launches of the YOTA brand.

Insight
Sky wanted to provide schoolchildren with a fun, interactive and educationally beneficial service so they may experience first-hand what it is like to work in a news broadcasting studio.

Idea
Sky’s Skills Studios takes young people behind the scenes to see how Sky’s TV is created and then offers them the chance to make their very own television report. In teams, individuals can take on exciting creative roles such as camera operator, producer, director and editor, as well as getting the chance to work hands-on with some amazing technology including broadcast quality cameras, green screens and touch screen edit tables.

Impact
An intuitive, digitally-enabled environment that inspires, educates and promotes creativity and teamwork was completed in 2013. Five industry awards achieved. 

Three more Skills Studios in Livingston, Leeds and Dublin in addition to the London studio opened last year, each has the capacity to host 12,000 young people a year.

Prince Charles and the Duchess were visiting Sky studios in West London

Sky Skills Studios

Insight
Women in Leadership is an internal communications initiative within Bacardi ONE, which aims to encourage more women to enter leadership positions in the company. Our task was to bring everything together under the same umbrella, ensuring consistency and clarity within the brand.

Idea
We created a powerful suite of internal communications that fitted in with Bacardi ONE's brand guidelines. The updated look and feel embraced complimentary colours that were bright and fresh with visible texture to the imagery.

Impact
The work supported Women in Leadership's long term strategy and was delivered in 40 countries with translated copy in 11 languages.

Insight
As a leading global brand of power tools used for domestic and commercial applications, Black+Decker wanted to create greater awareness among DIY enthusiasts of their ingenious range of Autoselect® tools – focusing on how the products achieve the best result every time.

Idea
A stylised, short animated film showcasing the Autoselect® technology and an app concept was created for our client. 

In leading home improvement stores beacon technology alerts customers with a push notification of an exclusive promotional app. Free branded iPhone cases are placed at POS or on product shelves. The case transforms customers iPhones into a Black+Decker product once assembled. A digital addition to the Autoselect® range to assist those weekend DIY chores.

Results
The film features on the Black+Decker website and continues to drive DIY-ers to purchase a power tool that actually helps you to achieve the desired result. The client was impressed and plans for a DIY tool app is on the horizon.

Innovating automotive experiences at prestigious motor shows.

Issue
Motor shows are key events for automotive brands to showcase new models, concept cars, and innovations. However, with the rise of digital technology, brands face the challenge of creating retail experiences as engaging and immersive as the technology consumers interact with daily. Automotive brands must integrate cutting-edge technology while remaining true to their brand identity.

Insight
Consumers now expect seamless integration between digital and physical experiences. At motor shows, the challenge was to connect audiences to brands in a meaningful way, using technology that was both innovative and aligned with each brand's core values.

Idea
A team of designers and engineers developed interactive displays and installations to showcase brands such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Opel and Vauxhall. These displays communicated the latest innovations while creating immersive, connected experiences that reflected each brand’s identity and resonated with the audience.

Impact
The projects contributed to the company's evolution into Engage Works, a world leader in interconnected experiences. Over six years of working on the ‘Big Six’ motor shows, we established a new standard for how brands engage with consumers, blending technology and brand messaging dynamically and authentically.

Insight
FoodCycle – an award-winning charity serving nutritious, tasty meals to vulnerable people – required urgent funding from NESTA to expand food preparation hubs, increase awareness and recruit additional volunteers.

Idea
A vibrant animated film conveyed how FoodCycle relies on donations of food, money, equipment, volunteers and kitchen space to provide its service.

Impact
£150,000 was received from NESTA – and we subsequently created a brand new website as well as creating some engaging fundraising initiatives.

www.foodcycle.org.uk

Challenge
Africa on the Ball is a non-profit organisation working in deprived communities of Africa. This small charity with a big heart uses football and education to empower and support African communities and individuals to live full, healthy and sustainable lives. But in order to survive, it needed urgent funding.

Idea
A highly distinctive, informative and engaging website and film openly conveyed their vision, their news, their ambitions and their achievements – thereby creating much-needed awareness.

Impact
The company have joined Sandlanders – a network of community-owned African football clubs – and have bought their first bus. The site has helped them to promote projects including Kalingalinga Zambia Girls’ Football Team, First Aid training, programmes including student sponsorship, volunteering, food plus an outreach project.

www.africaontheball.org

Insight
Guinness Storehouse is a Guinness-themed tourist attraction at St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. The Storehouse covers seven floors surrounding a glass atrium shaped in the form of a pint of Guinness. 

Idea
The brand story is told through various interactive exhibition areas including ingredients, brewing, transport, cooperage, advertising and sponsorship. The seventh floor houses the Gravity Bar with views of Dublin and where visitors may drink a pint of Guinness included in the price of admission.

Impact
Since opening in 2000, the centre has received over 13 million visitors. Two D&AD Awards were achieved and more recently the Storehouse was awarded Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction 2015 from the prestigious World Travel Awards.

www.guinness-storehouse.com

Insight
Go Native, a global provider of luxury serviced apartments, sought to introduce the concept of ‘the neighbourhood’. Leveraging their position, they offer guests valuable ‘local knowledge’ before and during their stays, using social platforms to connect them to their surroundings.

Issue
Arriving at a serviced apartment in an unfamiliar city can be overwhelming. Navigating an inner-city environment and locating essential services can leave guests feeling lost and frustrated. Instead of spending time deciphering maps or scrolling through endless online searches, guests crave a quick, seamless way to explore their new surroundings and discover nearby amenities as soon as they arrive.

Idea
To complement the integrated campaign, an app concept was developed and prototyped around the campaign message ‘Neighbourhood Included’. Guests are directed to the app store via a QR code in their welcome pack. The multi-functional app uses GPS to help guests easily locate essential services like coffee shops, dry cleaners, restaurants, theatres and ATMs in the local neighbourhood. Additionally, the app enables users to instantly share photos on social media, enhancing the local experience.

Impact
Launched in 2014, gonative.com became a branded, innovative e-commerce tool that redefined the guest experience. The planned app release in 2016 further solidified Go Native’s commitment to integrating technology and local knowledge into their services.

Issue
The NHS Gateway Clinic, a specialist acupuncture center, faced challenges due to its controversial treatments and rundown premises. The uninviting waiting area made patients feel uncomfortable and stressed while waiting for their appointments, impacting their overall experience.

Insight
A clean, welcoming environment is essential for patients, especially when unwell. The waiting time is a perfect opportunity to share important health messages and create a positive first impression, helping patients feel more at ease and informed.

Idea
We undertook a complete makeover of the clinic, transforming the waiting area on a tight budget. By collaborating with some creative friends, we revitalised the space and designed a seat belt and helmet awareness campaign specifically branded for the clinic. This initiative aimed to raise important health awareness during the wait while creating a space that felt clean, fresh and welcoming for patients. The new environment not only uplifted spirits but also set the tone for a more positive experience.

Impact
The transformation led to the Gateway Clinic being awarded NHS 'Best Survival Clinic 2010' by HRH Prince of Wales, recognising the positive change in the clinic’s environment and its ability to communicate life-saving messages.

Issue
The Silver Coast is the last protected land in Portugal. Our client was granted planning permission to build a luxury retreat on plots adjacent to this stunning nature reserve. Our task was to sell the concept to potential buyers confidently and compellingly.

Insight
Buying property abroad can be a daunting decision, especially regarding luxury real estate in an unfamiliar market. Potential buyers need more than just blueprints and visuals – they need to feel confident in the vision, the location and the long-term value of their investment. Our research showed that prospects were hesitant to commit without experiencing the full scope of the project and the lifestyle it would offer. The challenge was to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and real-world experiences, providing buyers not only with an idea but with a tangible belief in the future of the development.

Idea
We branded the project ‘The Cliffs’ and created a strong visual identity to instil confidence in potential buyers. A dynamic, interactive iPad presentation equipped the sales team with a powerful tool to effectively communicate the architectural vision, the unique location, the golf club, the sports and spa centre and the promise of future communities.

Impact
85% of all plots have been successfully sold and construction is now underway, demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach in transforming the vision into a reality for buyers.

Issue
Home Retail Group, a leading UK retailer, faced a significant challenge with outdated and unresponsive career sites for its four brands – Argos, Homebase, Habitat and the parent group. The sites were difficult to navigate and failed to differentiate the brands, lacking a cohesive connection across the group. The company needed a solution that would engage and inspire both current and future employees, enhancing the user experience while reflecting each brand's unique identity within a unified group image.

Insight
Job hunting can be overwhelming and frustrating and an outdated career site only intensifies the stress. Candidates want to feel valued and inspired as they explore opportunities, but a clunky site can create a sense of disconnection. A seamless, engaging experience fosters an emotional connection, helping candidates envision themselves thriving within the company.

Idea
We developed modern, responsive designs that are intuitive and easy to navigate, presenting a fresh and clean approach. The user experience was streamlined to allow smooth transitions across different site sections, creating a cohesive yet distinct experience for each brand.

Impact
The launch set a new industry standard, featuring fully functional and efficient e-commerce tools that seamlessly support all four brands. This marked a significant leap forward in both user experience and brand cohesion.

Insight
As Jeep celebrates its eighth decade of legendary heritage, we aimed to create an exciting social campaign to promote the latest Jeep model.

Idea
Søken (Norwegian for Quest)
This term refers to a search or pursuit made to find or obtain something.

British racing drivers Max and Tom Chilton will be documented on their journey from Nordkapp, Norway, to Cape Agulhas, South Africa. This adventure will cover 19 countries and span over 17,000 kilometers to set a Guinness World Record. The Cape to Cape 'Søken' quest will make use of state-of-the-art technology and will be shared across social media platforms.

Impact
Jeep has embraced this idea, and it is currently a work in progress.

Insight
Jeep is an American car brand owned by Fiat Chrysler. Production began in 1941 for military use, making Jeep the oldest manufacturer of four-wheel-drive mass-production vehicles. Our task was to create a visually stunning website that is easy to navigate, informative, strong in heritage and unmistakably Jeep.

Idea
Our creative proposition was 'Jeep Rules Apply.' This concept reflects how, in a Jeep, nature, man and machine come together magnificently to provide drivers with the ultimate off-road experience. The seasons, weather conditions, and contextual camouflage enhance the site's visuals, creating a rich and impactful look and feel.

Impact
The project was well-received and received immediate sign-off. Our highly creative approach gave Jeep a distinctive look and feel, inspiring subsequent microsites and banner campaigns. The site was live for four years, with an average increase of 20% in return visits.

www.jeep.co.uk

Conceptual wearables exploring twinhood and technology.

Insight
After completing my Master's Degree in Applied Arts at the Royal College of Art, I collaborated with my twin sister Emma to create a series of works under the name 'H2 Design.' We managed to run our highly conceptual projects alongside our commercial work, which involved creating installations for motor shows.

Idea
The interplay between fine art and adornment was a prominent theme in our work. Celebrating technology and club culture, we designed hip flasks for psychoactive drinks, modeled after body parts. Our rings replaced traditional gemstones or diamonds with capsules for life extension pills. We also explored themes of twinhood, separation and longing through other works, such as a double-stomach flask for sharing amniotic fluids and a breathing cylinder that united mouths and lungs.

Impact
During that period, we garnered significant media attention and numerous publications. Our work continues to be discussed at the Royal College of Art by Senior Tutor and curator Martina Margetts. Additionally, our pieces are exhibited at the Dallas Art Museum in the U.S.A. and the Mumok Museum of Modern Art in Vienna.