Listening to: Kick, Push - Lupe Fiasco

There are certain types of disappointment that cause an intake of breath - the cognitive dissonance so jarring you can’t think straight. My Hilton experience was one of those… I kinda sat on the edge of the bed and my teeth jangled. Not only had I been ripped off… I had been Taken.

U2 played in Auckland over the weekend. Seeing as I was up there with the Missus I figured it would be nice to spend a little more cash and experience how the other side live. Good U2 tickets and a swanky hotel… should make for a nice weekend. I got two out of three…

It turns out that the other side are suckers. In comparison to the other hotel rooms in Auckland you’re looking at paying a good set of multiples for a Hilton room. I know that that at a certain point a hotel room is a hotel room… but I also know that it is the type of experience where you can put a smile on the face of your customer face. It’s the type of experience that is a rich seam of “wow!” moments… but the Hilton guys are just shipping gravel. You don’t get a better room, you don’t get better fittings, you still get nickel-and-dimed to death (laughably so in some cases) and you don’t walk out feeling like you’ve had an even vaguely better experience. There isn’t a single part of the Hilton experience where you go “oh! I get it!”

Now I get branding and I know how the bait’n’switch works, but it has been a really really long time since I have experienced such a distance between the sell and the reality. I’ve sold and I’ve delivered in my life - I know the rules of engagement. I wasn’t looking for anything spectacular - I was simply looking for something, a single magical “I get it” moment, it wasn’t there.

I know that in the scope of life it’s a pretty meaningless thing to write about. But I haven’t had an experience like that in a long time. Hi, I’m Dave and I was a schmuck that got taken by Hilton (LOL… yes I know - but going there, well, that’s too easy).

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.