How IHG® Hotels & Resorts Measured Bookings From Its “Clean Promise” PR Campaign: Turning Crisis Into Competitive Advantage

When the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the hospitality industry in 2020, IHG® Hotels & Resorts faced an unprecedented challenge: rebuilding traveler confidence while differentiating from competitors launching similar cleanliness initiatives. With nearly 6,000 hotels and 350,000 colleagues across 100+ countries, IHG needed to demonstrate that their “Clean Promise” campaign was more than just crisis communications—it was a business-driving strategy that directly influenced booking decisions.

Partnering with industry-leading experts Cleveland Clinic, Ecolab, and Diversey, IHG launched comprehensive science-led protocols and established a global cleanliness board. But with every major hotel brand promoting similar safety measures, IHG required sophisticated measurement capabilities to prove their campaign’s unique impact on brand reputation and actual hotel bookings.

The Challenge: Standing Out in a Crowded Crisis Response 

The hospitality industry’s collective response to COVID-19 created a communications environment where every major hotel chain was promoting enhanced cleanliness protocols. IHG faced the critical challenge of differentiating their “Clean Promise” campaign from competitors’ similar initiatives while rebuilding traveler confidence during the industry’s most challenging period.

Traditional PR metrics couldn’t capture the nuanced impact needed to demonstrate business value during a crisis. IHG required measurement capabilities that went beyond volume to assess content quality, audience engagement, sentiment analysis, and most importantly, the direct connection between earned media coverage and actual booking behavior across their global portfolio.

The Solution: Comprehensive Crisis Communications Measurement 

IHG’s Global Communications team implemented Onclusive’s proprietary PR measurement framework to quantify real business impact across the entire customer journey. The framework addressed four critical questions aligned to specific business outcomes: Content Quality (producing the right content), Engagement (ensuring content resonance), Influence (impacting reader perceptions), and Action (driving booking behaviors).

This comprehensive approach enabled IHG to move beyond traditional share of voice metrics to demonstrate superior content quality, audience engagement, and direct business impact compared to competitors’ crisis response campaigns.

“Working with Onclusive has been a big shift for us, previously we focused on quantity metrics like share of voice to look at content quality, as well. For example, how do you accurately measure the impact of a crisis on your brand? That’s where Power of voice comes in, because it includes positive and negative sentiment analysis along with content relevance, publication authority and social media amplification rolled into a single data point.”

Director Global Brand PR Content & Multimedia, IHG Hotels & Resorts

Measurable Results That Drove Business Recovery 

Between April 2020 and Q1 2022, IHG’s “Clean Promise” campaign delivered exceptional results that directly contributed to business recovery during the industry’s most challenging period:

Strategic Benefits

• 9,980 target media placements across consumer travel, business, and trade publications
• 59% Power of Voice™ versus 39% Share of Voice, demonstrating superior content quality over competitors
• 225,000 social media engagements showing sustained audience interest and content amplification
• 98% positive/neutral sentiment during peak pandemic uncertainty when travel sentiment was historically low
• 42,900 website visits directly attributed to earned media coverage through PR Attribution™

The most significant achievement was maintaining overwhelmingly positive sentiment (98% positive/neutral) during a period when media coverage of travel and hospitality was predominantly negative, demonstrating the campaign’s effectiveness in rebuilding traveler confidence.

“There is a lot of value in introducing Power of Voice and PR Attribution™ to your C-suite. While it can feel a bit scary to propose a new KPI, you need to get out of your comfort zone to get a seat at the table. We educated our executive team on the significance of these new metrics and now they want to see them every time! It was truly a lightbulb moment when we demonstrated how PR can drive website traffic – generating tangible business results.”

Director Global Brand PR Content & Multimedia, IHG Hotels & Resorts

Ready to turn your crisis communications into measurable business advantage? 

Onclusive’s comprehensive measurement platform helps hospitality and travel brands like yours:

• Differentiate your crisis response with quality-focused metrics beyond simple share of voice
• Track sentiment and brand perception during challenging industry conditions
• Connect earned media coverage directly to website traffic and booking behaviors
• Demonstrate PR’s business impact with executive-level attribution data

Speak with our communications measurement experts today to learn how we can help you transform challenges into competitive advantages.

Schedule a Consultation

Access the complete IHG “Clean Promise” campaign analysis here.