138 – TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Michael Cady

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

The latest and greatest TMG Hospitality Trailblazers episode is here! 👏🔥 Join Suite Spot host Ryan Embree and the Chief Marketing Officer at Charlestowne Hotels, Michael Cady, as these two hospitality experts cover some exciting and insightful topics for viewers, including: ♻️ Sustainability in the Hotel Industry ⚡ The First 100% All-Electric Hotel in the Country: Hotel Marcel 💪 The Critical Importance of a Strong Social Media Presence 📱 Technology and the Guest Experience 🏨 What is on the Horizon for Charlestowne Hotels Tune in now! Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. I am here for another edition of our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. Very excited about our guest today, lot to talk about. I'm gonna bring 'em right in. Michael Cady, Chief Marketing Officer at Charlestowne Hotels. Michael, thank you so much for being on the Suite Spot. Michael Cady: Pleasure to be here. Thank You. Ryan Embree: Yeah, excited to to have you on. Obviously being a digital marketing podcast, having the CMO at Charlestowne Hotels, got a lot of talk about. But before we get into talking about that beautiful portfolio you have over there at Charlestowne, talk to me a little bit about your experience and the journey that led you to where you're at now. Michael Cady: It's been a long, strange trip that's for sure. I guess I've been doing this for 25 years now. Time is happening fast. It's crazy but yeah, about 25 years in branding, marketing, digital media, creative services. I've been with Charlestowne Hotels for eight years. Currently, I oversee an in-house marketing team that executes all our campaigns and initiatives across our portfolio, customizing each plan hotel. Before Charlestowne, I did two marketing director gigs in hospitality. One with Orient Express now called Belmont, so worldwide luxury travel train, cruise company. And then the other, which back in the day was similar boutique lifestyle hotel management company as Charlestowne. Obviously that's changed a bit, but, uh, back in the day it was, it was a lot like us and also have some agency experience. So use a lot of my agency background into integrating our team. And I work for a company called Saachi and Saatchi, which is a global ad agency working on Walmart, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola, some of those bigger brands. Ryan Embree: Let's lean into that spectrum there. Obviously a wide range of experience segments that you've been a part of. I want to get kind of your philosophy, the marketing environments that Charlestowne operates from anything from lifestyle, independent collegiate markets, brands, soft brands, really all across the gamut. Kind of like your experience there. Share with us a little bit about your philosophy with that in-house marketing team that you're talking about when you approach each project from a marketing standpoint, we're gearing up as marketers. This is an exciting time. We're getting into the spring, getting into the summer, getting our summer campaigns ready for the travel season. Talk to us a little bit about how your team's prepping for that. Michael Cady: Well, I guess I'll cover the, the year to date so far. And then kind of go into our different environments. January and February actually, were pretty slow overall for us. Mostly on the occupancy side. I dunno, I think like January's becoming this month of like personal focus and reflection, getting back to basics and so just didn't have the leisure travel demand that, that we've had maybe in years past.