It’s big news whenever a hotel company launches a new brand. Ok, it used to be bigger news, when new brand launches were scarcer and farther in between. Now, you can almost set your watch to a new brand announcement.
The one caveat to that is when a hotel company launches a new brand without a formal name for it; instead, using a placeholder or temporary name. That sends media folk scrambling to find out more, peppering brand executives with questions they know they’ll receive no definitive answer to.
It’s not all too often that a new brand is launched without its actual name: it’s like having a baby and not appending a name once it’s birthed. Awkward, right?
A BRAND WITHOUT A NAME
A trio of new hotel brands, interestingly enough, have recently been announced with just that: code names—a cipher trying to be broke. In some cases, like with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, the fake name ends up becoming the real thing. Last year, it launched a new extended-stay brand with the name “Project Echo” and either got too tired or bored and decided to give up and keep Echo in the real name, dubbing the brand ECHO Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham.
Marriott didn’t want to be left out of the name game and, to this day, has not given a formal name to its new affordable midscale brand, which it announced in June at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. It’s currently being marketed as Project MidX Studios, which sounds like a film production company or a new pair of basketball shoes from Nike.
Not to be outdone is Hilton. In May, it launched a new apartment-style extended-stay brand with, you guessed it, a provisional name: Project H3. In this name, we at least have the distinguishable “H” and Hilton’s two other extended-stay brands also begin with the letter H: Homewood Suites and Home2 Suites. So, there is some continuity.
About a month ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Hilton headquarters outside Washington, D.C., and caught up with Hilton’s chief brand officer, Matt Schuyler, as he showed me actual guestroom buildouts of the interim-named brand. The first question I posed to him, of course: When can we expect a name?
His response: “I’d give you a wide range of six to 12 months, given the way the process rolled for the last couple of names that we’ve tried to get through the trademark process. It’s not just working through their milestones and their gating factors, but then you have to potentially work with outside companies that have that brand that they’re using. So we just don’t know yet. We’re on a pathway.”
Nothing you can share, Matt? I mean, just between you and me. On the QT.
“We want to name this. The challenge with this brand, in particular, unlike some other brands in the past, is we want this name to be commensurate with the product to tell the consumer that this is a long-stay extended-stay type of product. Other names, like Spark, [Ed note: Spark by Hilton was launched in January 2023 in what Hilton calls the premium economy space] didn’t need to try so much to understand what the product means. We can define it over time. But with this one, we want it to right out of the gates resonate with the customer in terms of what the product really is.”
I am not easily discouraged, unless it has anything to do with IKEA assembly. Like everything in business, there is a process. When it comes to developing a new brand, beyond design, standards, story, there is trademark. Unfortunately, one can’t just conjure or borrow a name and make it their own for commercial use. If I decided to drop the name David and market myself as Air Jordan, I’d probably receive a cease and desist letter from Nike.
Therefore, it’s likely that a lodging company wants to come straight out of the gates with a formalized brand name, but trademark rules, sometimes, prevent that.
Trademarks, patents, copyrights, domain names and business name registrations are routed through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A trademark typically protects brand names and logos used on goods and services. There are many factors that affect how long it takes to register a trademark. In fact, there’s no guarantee a trademark will ever register, as it may be refused for various legal reasons. Usually, the process takes 12 to 18 months. Registering a trademark is a complex procedure that involves your application moving through various stages. (I didn’t make any of that up, it’s straight from the USPTO website. And if you want to learn more about the trademark process, be my guest.)
“Time waits for no man,” but “time is money,” which is why some brands launch without an actual name.
GUESSING GAME
Fun note: You can search for trademarks filed on the USPTO website. I did, for Hilton.
Like Schuyler said, and backed by the USPTO, it can take as much as 18 months for a trademark to be approved. Using no scientific method at all, I googled “Hilton trademark names,” and was led to a webpage that stated at the top: “Trademark applications and grants for Hilton International Holding Llc. Hilton International Holding Llc has 287 trademark applications. The latest application filed is for ‘MOONSONG.'”
My power of deduction leads me to believe that Moonsong is a restaurant patent and not a new hotel brand name. Though the song of the moon isn’t too bad, but I digress.
Next, I backed out around 18 months from when Project H3 was announced, to around January 2022. There, exactly on January 24, 2022, a trademark was filed for TWILO BY HILTON. Furthermore, it stated, “TWILO BY HILTON™ trademark registration is intended to cover the categories of
Now, is Twilo a good name for a hotel brand? According to nameslook.com, Twilo can be a boy or girl name and means “Investigator, Care Taker, Courage.” Care taker—that works for hostelry. Twilo was also an American nightclub in operation from 1995 to 2001 in New York City and from 2006 to 2007 in Miami. Since it doesn’t operate anymore, the trademark, if they had one, may have elapsed. It also might do well with the “Twilight” crowd (Team Edward, y’all!).
So we know Hilton filed this trademark for a potential hotel brand, but it doesn’t mean that TWILO is or will be the eventual name. We can call it a possibility.
Next, on the same day in April, the 5th to be exact, Hilton filed trademarks for GLEAM BY HILTON and PIXEL BY HILTON. The former, gleam, means to shine or…. sparkle. Again, using my limited brain power, I surmise that this was a trademark filed for what eventually became Spark by Hilton, which was formally launched nine months later.
A pixel, meanwhile, is the smallest component of something, so if Hilton was trying to get across that the rooms at this hotel will be minuscule or that the value is such, I’d say they ended up ditching it.
Fast forward to August 2022. Within four days of each other, we get ADAPT SUITES BY HILTON, BELONG SUITES BY HILTON, LIVSMART SUITES BY HILTON.
Adapt… adjusting to guest wants and needs. Meh, at best. You can do better, creative Hilton brains.
Belong… I guess it depends what we are belonging to. And like Groucho Marx said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”
Livsmart: This might have been a great name before LIV Golf came along.
Then, in early November, we get DELVE SUITES BY HILTON and SUITELY BY HILTON. I’m not sure what digging or excavating has to do with an extended-stay hotel brand, so I am going to say “hard pass” on Delve.
Suitely is a homophone that can refer to something sweet or a suite. Cute, yes; lazy, definitely.
Moving ahead to December, we get DWELLING SUITES BY HILTON. Now, this cracks me up: I 100% believe and won’t be dissuaded that someone at Hilton though Delve and Dwell had similar meanings. Only they don’t. This was a make good. Dwelling works, but it does have a rather bureaucratic, harsh tone to it. I think Hilton needs to get off this whole dwell/delve theme.
LIVSMART was again filed, but this time absent SUITES. Just LIVSMART BY HILTON. Are they trying to say we live stupidly? Also, again, LIV Golf.
We are at the end—I promise. In April 2023, Hilton filed trademarks for SUITE START BY HILTON and—I kid you not—H3 SUITES BY HILTON and H3 BY HILTON. Could they be taking a play out of Wyndham’s playbook, throwing in the towel and just going with the OG H3 name?
We should likely know soon and if I was a betting man, which I am and a terrible one at that, I’m going with H3 for the win, but I’m not going to dwell too much on it.