How "lookalike" consumers boosted Holiday Inn
Stephen WhitesideWarc
Taking an audience of 2,000 brand enthusiasts and using them as the basis for a campaign reaching millions of similar people is usually the preserve of viral campaigns on social media.
But Holiday Inn, the hotel chain owned by InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), achieved this goal by taking the results of a more traditional form of information gathering – marketing research – and translating them into an advertising campaign which reached 15 million "lookalike" consumers.
As a starting point, it partnered with research firm TNS to ask 10,000 frequent travellers to...