The art of family experiences in the branding of Alean Collection

Alean is a large chain of Russian family hotels with properties in the resorts of the Krasnodar Region. In connection with plans to scale the business effectively and enter new markets, there arose a need to create a management company that would become a solid foundation for building and managing the brand portfolio architecture.

As part of the implementation of strategic investment projects, new brands are expected to be launched on the market. For each of them, a place in the brand portfolio needs to be defined, and a relationship with the parent brand needs to be built. At the moment Alean Collection manages the brands Majestic by Alean and Alean Family.

The main goal was to develop and harmonise the Alean brands in light of the company's business objectives by implementing a strategically calibrated brand architecture that would differentiate the brands within the portfolio.

It was also necessary to create an original field of meanings and images for different audiences: the future guests of properties in different price segments. The right balance had to be found between the priority focus on family holidays and the preferences of each target group, between local identity and the universality of the product. The list of tasks also included developing a comprehensive communication strategy, involving the elaboration of mechanics for engaging the target audience, identifying effective promotion channels and drawing up an annual budget.

The Brandson team conducted extensive research covering Russian and international hospitality market trends, the project's competitive field, consumer behaviour, and the assessments of leading industry experts. The trends point to growth in the family travel audience thanks to state support for domestic tourism. In addition, the pandemic allowed Russians to rediscover the south of Russia. Both factors will have a beneficial effect on the payback of Alean's investment projects related to launching new brands and properties on the market.

Factors such as unstable air links with other countries, the state cashback programme for domestic tourism, and Russians' fear of falling ill abroad and failing to receive quality medical care due to the language barrier also point to an increase in tourist flow to the south of Russia.

As for competitors in the B2B market: the leading competitors offer rigidly standardised products, either a franchise or hotel management. Both formats imply a fairly strict system of restrictions for the investor, which reduces the profit margin.

B2B competitors are perceived as having greater awareness and creating greater added value through their brand, but as having less expertise in the integrated family resort segment and being less adaptive.

Compared with international management companies, Alean Collection is a flexible and communicative company with exclusive niche expertise in the Russian resort segment.

Analysis of the target audience showed that its core consists of focused and diversified investors seeking to maximise the return on their assets. They are receptive to the personal meta-brands of their partners. In-depth interviews revealed the insight: "In seeking to maximise returns, I want to work with people I know well, whose approach to business is close to my own and clear to me".

In a growing but uncertain market, a hotel owner will prefer flexible cooperation formats to fixed ones, an established brand to a new one, a quality product to a mediocre one, and personal contact to impersonal contact. The Alean Collection management company is a partner with extensive experience, high brand added value and its own know-how.

Cooperation with Alean Collection can take the form of taking over the management of an existing property or jointly creating a new one. Management provides the investor with: maximum efficiency as the ratio of return to investment; a transparent system for monitoring the management company's activities; and the value content of the product, which ensures returns for the investor and consists of 3 components: the added value of the Alean brand, the team's expertise, and a loyal customer base. Thus, the source of differentiation for the Alean management company is its ability to maximise the investor's benefit through precise fine-tuning to their circumstances.

It was decided to position the brand of the Alean Collection management company as a team of resort business professionals building a system for maximising the added value of resort hotels. The combination of industry expertise, a multi-format offering and a base of loyal guests provides the ability to make a property attractive to guests at optimal cost to the investor.

The management company is a source of added value in resort hospitality. A professional, engaged and flexible partner that frees the hotel owner from the daily concerns of running the property.

The brand metaphor became a tuning workshop that helps get the most out of a property by fine-tuning it to the owner's objectives and wishes.

In addition to positioning the B2B brand, an important goal of the project was to develop a hypothesis for the development of the parent brand and all the retail brands under its management.

Unlike other Russian hotels, Alean is a recognised master of its niche, creating an original product that competitors copy, and providing well-rounded creative development for children.

Thus, the positioning of the parent brand was formulated as the art of family experiences. The Alean hotel chain is a family of Russian accommodation providers with an original and diverse product that delivers vivid emotions and serenity for guests.

The brand metaphor became a creator of masterpieces of family experiences. A professional creator who realises their own (conventional) vision of beauty in their diverse works.

Only a narrow circle of hotels in Russia manages to sustain the family hotel format. Mastering it takes more than formally assembling all the elements of a quality holiday. Making a family holiday truly vivid and serene is a genuine art, and not every hotel has access to it. Every brushstroke matters here, every note defines the melody of the day. Varied, high-quality dining for adults and children and creative activities for different ages make up a vivid and harmonious picture. Unlike the international chains, Alean is a creator of family resort holidays with a professional yet creative hotel product.

The project also built an effective and organic brand portfolio architecture that differentiated the sub-brands from one another and brought hotel formats that were new for Alean Collection to the market. In addition, a brand communication strategy was developed, enabling the use of the most effective communication channels for engaging the target audience.

The name Alean Collection focuses attention on a signature collection of hotels that encompasses various formats and absorbs many years of accumulated experience and expertise in the Russian resort market.

Alean Collection is a combination of engagement, flexibility, industry expertise, a multi-format offering and a loyal customer base that provides the ability to make the investor's property attractive to guests at optimised cost.

The brand line "A Collection of Solutions" points to the management company's advantage: the ability to offer the market a variety of relevant hotel formats that will be in demand among guests. A skilful combination of formats can significantly shorten the payback period of an investment.

Alean is a conceptually designed creator of family experiences, founded on the value of diversity. It is not just a hotel chain; it is an entirely new level of offering in the field of family holidays as a whole, covering a wide range of services. The value of diversity is visually embodied in the form of a mosaic.

A mosaic is the art of combining a multitude of diverse, vivid elements, each unique in form, into a single, stable and successful picture. In the same way, Alean is the signature unifying principle for a set of vivid experiences at the product level and for unique hotels, each with its own format and its own distinctive features.

The ability to find an approach to each property and unlock its potential, using professional competences as the glue that binds a multitude of individual solutions into a successful and effective product: all this defines the perfection of execution and the unique value of the mosaic. The craftsmanship, experience and skills of the master, together with the imagination and signature approach of the creator, form the basis of an individual mosaic of success for each of the management company's clients.