Why Hotel Brands Are Won in One or Two Moments

Samuel Miele, Co-Founder of CARTESIAN, joined Brad Moore of Giant Shoe Creative Agency on The Brief Creative to talk about distinctive assets, the short decision cycle in destination markets, and why most hospitality marketing plans ask far too much of the guest.

Key takeaways

1. Guests decide in one or two moments, not seven. Most hotel marketing plans assume a guest will patiently move through a funnel. In reality they look at price or product, feel something or they don't, and book.
2. Recognizability beats polish. A nice ad is not a strategy. The goal is to own a small number of distinctive assets the audience can actually recall.
3. People remember one thing about your brand. Two if you are lucky. Build for that constraint instead of designing around it.
4. The 60/40 brand-to-activation split is not a constant. It moves with two variables: how much brand work the flag already does above the property, and where the guests travel from. Domestic drive markets lean conversion. International markets justify more brand.
5. Deep thinking is a production input. In a category saturated with the same of everything, time away from the work is what produces work that stands apart.

CARTESIAN Co-Founder Samuel Miele was recently featured on The Brief Creative, the podcast hosted by Brad Moore, President of Giant Shoe Creative Agency. The conversation covered the parts of hospitality and tourism marketing that tend to get skipped in strategy decks: how guests actually choose a hotel, what a distinctive asset is worth, and why the budget frameworks borrowed from consumer packaged goods keep failing destination properties.

Below is a summary of the positions Samuel took on the episode, expanded from the thinking he has been publishing publicly over the past several months.

The creative space in hospitality is saturated with the same of everything

Miele's starting point is uncomfortable for an industry that prides itself on taste. Hospitality creative has converged. The same drone shot over the same coastline. The same script font over the same welcome message. The same couple toasting at the same sunset.

"The creative space in hospitality marketing is saturated with the same of everything. To truly stand out, you need time away from it all to think deeply about what people want, what resonates with people, and how you can communicate that message articulately."Samuel Miele, Co-Founder, CARTESIAN

His prescription is not a new tool or a faster process. It is unstructured thinking time, protected on purpose. Miele credits CARTESIAN Creative Director Joey Sabri with the kind of breakthrough that only comes out of that space, an idea the team internally nicknamed "Michelangelo."

Time to do nothing, in Miele's framing, may be the most productive time a creative team spends all quarter. That is a difficult line item to defend in a status meeting, which is exactly why so few agencies protect it, and exactly why the category looks the way it does.

What a distinctive asset is, and why a hotel needs one

A distinctive asset is a specific, ownable element that makes a brand recognizable without the logo: a colour, a shape or device, a typeface treatment, a photographic signature, a recurring phrase or ritual. It is not the same thing as a differentiator or a positioning statement. It is a memory hook.

Miele's argument is that for hotels, finding those assets matters more than producing another well-executed campaign.

"Differentiating and finding your distinctive assets are by far more important than getting a nice ad out there in the marketplace. Primarily for hotels, the goal is to be recognizable."Samuel Miele, Co-Founder, CARTESIAN

The constraint that makes this urgent is memory. People remember one thing about a hotel brand. Two if the brand is lucky. Everything else in the deck is being built for an audience that will not retain it.

Finding the right one or two assets is not a deliverable you brief and receive. It comes out of trial and error, which is expensive. Miele is direct about the cost implication: a property may end up spending 40% of its allocated budget on creative assets, more than it planned to. Viewed as a line item, that looks like overspending. Viewed as an investment, the newly discovered distinctive creative could be the thing guests recognize the property by for years.

Or, as he puts it more simply: spend more to do it right, and stick with right for a long time.

The second half of that sentence is where most brands fail. Distinctive assets compound through repetition. A hotel that rebuilds its creative platform every eighteen months never gives any asset the chance to become distinctive in the first place.

Guests decide in one or two moments, not seven touchpoints

This is the position Miele expects people to argue with, and he says so plainly. He is also transparent that it is drawn from observation rather than a controlled study.

When a large share of a property's market is the domestic traveller coming from a few hours away, that guest does not spend meaningful time selecting a hotel. They look at one of two things first: price or product. They see both eventually. But the sequence matters less than the volume of consideration, which is low.

"People don't think as heavily about your brand as you do. They think about it just enough to get them to book."Samuel Miele, Co-Founder, CARTESIAN

The choice usually comes down to location, price, or the first image that made the guest feel something. It is an emotional decision resolved quickly, and one or two pieces of creative across a few channels typically define how a guest feels about the brand. After that, the only real friction left is price relative to comparable hotels.

The industry, meanwhile, keeps building elaborate marketing plans that require the guest to encounter more than one or two things before booking. Miele's view is that the industry needs to be honest with itself about that gap.

The practical conclusion: stop building strategies that assume the guest is going to work for you. Build so that you only need one or two moments to land, then remove every remaining reason not to book direct.

The 60/40 brand-to-activation split is not a constant

Every marketing textbook recommends splitting budget between long-term brand building and short-term conversion. The most cited version is roughly 60% brand and 40% activation. Miele's position is that the number is not a rule. It is an output of two variables: how much brand work the property already inherits, and where its guests come from.

The first variable is the flag. This argument applies most directly at the property level of a name-branded hotel. When a property flies a recognized flag, the parent brand is already funding the long-term memory work at the corporate level. That property does not need to build brand awareness from scratch, so its budget can do the job in front of it: convert the demand the flag and the destination are already generating. An independent property carrying its own equity is a different calculation entirely.

The second variable is where the guests come from. Long-term brand building is an investment in memory. It pays off when a customer is going to consider you again in the next 6, 12, or 18 months. You are planting a flag in someone's head today so your name surfaces the next time they are in market.

"Most people visit destinations twice in their lifetime. Some visit once. A huge portion come for the day and never stay overnight. If your hotel sits in a market like that, the 12 months from now argument for brand building starts to fall apart."Samuel Miele, Co-Founder, CARTESIAN

In a destination market with a high domestic or close cross-border visitation rate, the decision cycle is short, and very often it is the only cycle you get. A guest researches one specific trip. They pick the hotel they saw first, the one with the best photos, the one with the strongest social proof at the exact moment they were deciding. Then they leave and never think about the property again.

For that market, Miele argues the allocation should lean conversion. That means heavy paid media on the exact search terms travellers are using, retargeting the second someone lands on the site, and content living on the platforms guests actually use while researching a trip they are only taking once.

Flip the market and the answer flips with it. In a market heavy on international travel, brand building climbs back up in importance and earns a greater share of the split than it would in a domestic-driven destination market. International travellers plan further out, research longer, and lean harder on brand familiarity and reputation when committing to a trip they cannot inspect first. Memory does real work in that context.

The 60/40 split that works for a Toronto business hotel serving repeat corporate stays does not automatically apply to a flagged destination property serving one-time family visits from three hours away. Neither answer applies cleanly to a hotel filling rooms with travellers flying in from overseas.

Miele's recommendation is to answer two questions before allocating a dollar. How much brand work is already being done for this property above the property level? And how often will this guest realistically consider us again, given where they are travelling from?

In a destination market built on domestic visitation, being the first thing a guest sees is worth more than being the most memorable thing they recall a year from now. In a market built on international travel, that trade runs the other way.

Watch the episode

Samuel Miele's full conversation with Brad Moore is available on The Brief Creative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QD9pRa60Xs. Follow @TheBriefCreative on YouTube and Instagram for new episodes.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Samuel Miele?

Samuel Miele is Co-Founder of CARTESIAN, a hospitality and tourism marketing agency. He writes and speaks about distinctive brand assets, media allocation for hotels, and how travellers actually make booking decisions.

What is The Brief Creative?

The Brief Creative is a podcast hosted by Brad Moore, President of Giant Shoe Creative Agency, featuring conversations with creative and marketing leaders. Episodes are published on YouTube and Instagram under @TheBriefCreative.

What is a distinctive brand asset in hotel marketing?

A distinctive brand asset is a specific, ownable element that makes a property recognizable without its logo present. It can be a colour, a shape or device, a typeface treatment, a photographic signature, or a recurring phrase. Miele's position is that most guests remember only one thing about a hotel brand, so identifying and repeating the right one or two assets matters more than producing another polished campaign.

Should hotels prioritize brand building or conversion?

It depends on two things: how much brand equity the property already inherits, and where its guests come from. For a name-branded hotel at the property level, the parent brand is already doing the long-term memory work, so that property's budget can lean conversion. In destination markets driven by domestic or close cross-border visitation, guests often visit once, so being first at the moment of decision beats being memorable a year later. In markets heavy on international travel the calculation shifts, because those travellers plan further out and lean on brand familiarity, which justifies a greater brand share of the split.

Does the 60/40 rule apply to branded hotels?

Less directly than it applies to independents. A property flying a recognized flag inherits brand building funded at the corporate level, so the property-level budget does not have to reproduce that work. Miele's view is that a flagged property in a domestic-driven destination market is usually better served weighting its own spend toward conversion, while an independent carrying its own equity has to fund both.

How much of a hotel's marketing budget should go to creative?

Miele has cited cases where roughly 40% of an allocated budget went to creative asset development, more than the property originally planned. His argument is that trial and error is how the most memorable assets are found, and that treating creative as an investment rather than a cost is justified when the resulting asset can carry the brand for years.

How long do hotels have to convince a guest?

In Miele's view, a few moments. Guests choosing among comparable properties tend to decide on location, price, or the first image that made them feel something. He recommends building strategies that need only one or two moments to land, then removing every remaining reason not to book direct.

CARTESIAN is a hospitality and tourism marketing agency. We build the distinctive creative and media strategy that gets properties recognized and booked direct. #THATSCARTESIAN

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