Lintercontinental Hotels' Larry Light Leads a Global Marketing
Viewpoint InterContinental Hotels’ Larry Light Leads a Global Marketing Transformation Larry Light, appointed a year ago as Chief Brands Officer of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), has the rare ability to take the complicated and not merely make it simple, but also make it meaningful. He has enjoyed an extraordinary marketing career as agency executive, brand champion, advisor, author and academic, but may be best known for his contributions to McDonald’s while CMO from 2002-2005. Not only did he galvanize a global brand behind “I’m Lovin’ It,” adopted from DDB’s Heye & Partner of Unterhaching, Germany as part of a breakthrough agency competition, but the expression has made its way into the local language of 47 million customers and has become McDonald’s longest-enduring tagline-turned-mantra. Larry Light was Lunquestionably instrumental in the company’s outstanding marketing turnaround. Today, he is leading a transformation spring in Palm Beach, Larry mission to build brand preference. at InterContinental Hotels Group, Light captivated an audience for He emphasized that achieving one of the world’s largest hotel 45 minutes, as he described the brand preference is not simply companies. IHG provides over process of “brand leadership about “how you manage a 157 million guest nights per year marketing,” which he characterizes marketing campaign,” but even through a total of 4600 properties in as both a process and a mindset. extends to how you compensate nearly 100 countries via a portfolio In fact, he believes that the goal to employees. He asserted, “Last of 9 hotel brands at varying price build strong brands should be a week, 300 job descriptions and points, including: Holiday Inn, business accountability, not merely responsibilities were changed to Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, a marketing accountability.
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