Consumer Innovation Shout Out: Everly Hotel Room Turned into a Social Experiment

Ever curious about who stayed in your hotel room before you? Want to know what their hopes and dreams are and who they are as a person? The Kimpton Everly Hotel in Los Angeles emphasizes local experiences and has decided to take community and connection to another level. In an attempt to get to know their clientele better, they have launched a social experiment that focuses on getting personal with their guests as well as encouraging guests to get personal with each other.

Taking the sharing economy a step further, Room 301 - the site for The Everly's experiment, has many features that encourage "oversharing" and "paying it forward". The experiment will span 3 months and will include the following features: a confession board, a map to tag where you are from, iPads with spotify playlists that are added by each guest, pinboards to write motivational phrases and aspirations for the next guest to view and specialty cocktails to choose from. Participants will also have the opportunity to record a video testimonial in which they will be asked the questions "what is your favorite thing about yourself and why?" and "when was the last time you cried or laughed intensely"? All of the choices the guests make and personal additions they contribute to the room will be collected by the hotel.

Another feature of this experiment is that as a reward for participating in the experiment, IHG Rewards Club will grant those who stay in Room 301 with 10,000 points. The catch? Guests will have the option to either keep the points for themselves, or "pay them forward" to the next resident of Room 301. The Kimpton Everly Hotel wants to uncover the way their guests think.

After the experiment is finalized and all data has been analyzed, The Kimpton Everly Hotel will host a gathering for all of the guests of Room 301 to share their experience and listen to insights that the Everly will use to evolve their brand.

Does the Room 301 experiment sound up your alley? What would you leave behind?

Like this Blog?

Read more Retail Innovation Shout Out blogs and join the conversation!