For New Year's Eve, my wife and I stayed at the Westin Book-Cadillac hotel in Detroit. It was very nice, and when I went to take a shower on New Year's Day, I discovered Westin's "Heavenly Dual Showerhead." It's a showerhead with two nozzles, not one, so you get double the water-spray.
There was a placard attached to the tiles in the shower advising me to enjoy the Heavenly Dual Showerhead. However, the sign informed me that one of the showerheads would be initially turned off, in order to help preserve "Earth's most precious natural resource" but that I could press a button between the showerheads to turn it on.
I found this to be both upsetting and intriguing. I was upset because I really did want to enjoy the "heavenly" shower, but the sign made me feel bad about wasting "Earth's most precious natural resource." Who wants to feel guilty? And that's what also intrigued me. As a business development officer for Stewart Title, my role is to solicit orders for commercial title insurance. So, as a marketer, I tried to understand why the hotel would offer a product to me while simultaneously suggesting I not use it.
The only solution I could come up with was that there must be two competing factions within Westin. One wanted to promote luxury to its guests and one wanted to promote environmental responsibility. As the old saying goes, though, "No one can serve two masters." I thought about Stewart Title and whether we promote a product or service with any strings attached. Thankfully, I couldn't come up with anything. But, it was a good exercise, and perhaps it's one which you may find useful as well to start off 2012. On that note, I wish everyone a very productive and prosperous New Year!
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