In the recent Hollywood comedy The Internship, a movie based on the unlikely premise of two guys on
the brink of middle age landing internships at Google, there’s a scene where
one of the main characters, played by Vince Vaughan, goes up to the counter at
the infamous Google canteen and orders a coffee. When he asks the server how
much he owes, he responds “it’s free”.
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| Vince Vaughan and Own Wilson in The Internship |
“It’s free.”
“The muffin?”
“No charge.”
“The fruit?”
“It’s also free.”
It’s not a word for word transcript of how the conversation
went, but the gist is there: Vince Vaughan’s character is in total awe of one
of the reasons why Google has been voted one of the best companies to work at:
the free food.
Free massages and other perks not withstanding, the free food
canteen has become the employee-envy of choice for non-Googlers trudging to the
pantry of their workplace every day to put their lunch box in the microwave.
But as said by others, the
point of the canteen is not the wide variety of food that’s on offer, or that
Google wants to spare its workers the daily distractions around what to eat at
work. The point is the fact that, in stereotypical internet style….. it's all
free.
It’s no secret that people like free stuff. Used as an
adjective, Free is defined as “not under the control or in the power of
another; able to act or be done as one wishes” but as an adverb it means “without
cost or payment”. Combine the two - free of charge and free to consume - and
you hit on something that is ingrained in our cognitive patterns which makes
free stuff inherently and almost automatically attractive.
Of course, the label free is also a big fallacy and things
that are offered for free almost never are. The free food and other perks at
Google for example, are designed to foster employee loyalty, and I’m sure it
works. There is no such thing as a free lunch, remember…
How
Free can Work in Hotels
Given the powerful pull the label free has, I am surprised
how little it is employed in hotels. Take movies, for example.
As I have pointed out before, the
airlines have been doing a much better job with employing “Free” as marketing
and branding tools by absorbing movie and other content costs in the ticket
prices, meaning they are invisible to their customers.
Imagine the same customer who has watched two Hollywood
movies “for free” on the plane over to Asia now checking in his hotel and
discovering that the same range of movies will be charged at US$15?
In the age of BYOD, movie hit rates – specifically for
Hollywood content – are suffering like never before, and fact is, that they
won’t come back. So why not turn this trend into an advantage by offering
Hollywood movies for free? The free-to-guest business model can be had for as
little as US$5-6 per room and month (depending on the room count) which is
surprisingly reasonable and can be a rounding adjustment, if absorbed in the
overall room cost.
But even if not, the marketing and brand value is something
not be sneered at. This kind of offering may not be for every hotel, but the hit
rates for free movies in some of the more family-oriented hotels where our
system has been deployed show a healthy viewership, indicating that it hits a
soft spot with a certain demographic. This knowledge, if used wisely, can be a
great loyalty driver.
Of course, not every feature or service can and should be
free in a hotel. But a lot of hotel features move through a product life cycle that
ranges from innovative to commoditised and a lot of times this matches the
trajectory from chargeable to non-chargeable item.
Internet access/Wifi has already marched through this cycle and
has arrived at a point where it is now expected to be free to guests. VOD is
still at the beginning of the curve and hoteliers should move quickly to get
the maximum brand and marketing value out of offering them for free before
they, too, move to the commodity site of the cycle.
(Incidentally, I am writing this from my hotel room in Tokyo,
a city where ‘free’ still seems to be a dirty word. Aside from the
impossibility of finding cafes offering free wifi, my hotel initially insisted
on charging me ¥2,100 (about US$20) for using the hotel pool. Only after
repeated requests to explain the charges, the manager finally allowed me to ‘become
a member’ which allows me free access…)
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