Before their renovations, Super 8 hotel rooms were like time capsules from another era. While the bedspreads and boxy televisions were obvious signs of another time, the hotel artwork was remarkably outdated. Super 8 happened to own some of of the kitschiest, wackiest, and some would say ugliest art around. It turned out that the hotel’s artwork had never been determined by brand policy, but rather by individual owners and their varying tastes.

We saw great potential in Super 8’s art collection and pitched to use the liquidation of its old art as a means to both celebrate the hotel’s past, and tell the story of the brand’s renovations and reinvention. We proposed that Super 8 host a gallery event where the artwork from its rooms and lobbies would be given away for free, and where the brand could officially announce of the redesign of its North American hotel properties.

As other notable, high-end art fairs rolled into New York City in May 2016, Super 8 hosted an art exhibit enticing gallery-goers to snatch a piece of art – for free. The exhibit, open to the public and media, offered a first for the art world: old art pulled straight from the walls of Super 8 hotels. Given the artwork was largely unidentifiable, event host Amy Sedaris renamed each piece in her irreverent comedic style. Event guests were invited to claim a piece of art and meet Amy to receive a signed certificate authenticating the work’s new name and the specific Super 8 hotel it originated from.

Riding on the success of the exhibition, we brought the event to Miami in December during Art Basel. We raffled-off a new batch of hotel art in the artsy Wynwood neighborhood while an instructor from the Bob Ross estate offered free painting classes.

The events garnered more than 1 billion earned impressions — many in outlets that were firsts for Super 8, and unique for any hotel chain to appear in. The coverage was equivalent to $21M in ad spending, whereas the media budget was $0. The events reached 47M via organic social media activity.

Media Outposts:

-Associated Press break piece announced the brand’s redesign and drove consumer traffic to the NY event. The piece was picked-up by 200+ media outlets around the world

-Top-tier print & digital media features including USA Today and The Wall Street Journal

-Unprecedented national morning and late night television coverage on The Tonight Show and Today

-Direct millennial reach with coverage in Mashable, Apartment Therapy, Brightest Young Things, and Skift

-Business and Trade coverage for the brand in Fast Company and ADWEEK

-Traditional art / cultural media like Smithsonian.com and Paper in their art fair round-ups

-More than 85 media attendees across the events

Outcomes:

-Hundreds of VIPs, influencers, and unsuspecting art fans attended the events, where the entirety of Super 8’s art collection was claimed by guests

-The brand’s self-deprecating tone was celebrated by media and perceived to be genuine by consumers, building trust with the brand

-“When The Art Comes Down” demonstrated to brand franchisees the relevance of the “Innov8te” program to attract a new customer base

-The initiative resonated within Wyndham Hotel Group such that “When The Art Comes Down” became a model example of the brand transformations to come among the organization’s portfolio