Most hospitality marketing fails upstairs, not downstairs. The content is fine, the ads run — and none of it adds up, because no one decided what the brand was trying to be. Our strategists work only in restaurants, hotels and hospitality groups, so the conversation starts at covers, occupancy and average spend rather than at brand adjectives.

It is also where the house decides what it should and should not do for you. A strategy written here names the channels that will move your numbers and, just as often, the ones that will not. Some clients take the plan away and run it themselves. Others hand over the whole function, and this floor becomes their head of marketing.