Buffet labels that live up to the brand image of a Finnish hotel chain

Finland’s leading hotel chain, Sokos Hotels belongs to the S Group. It has 50 hotels in Finland, Estonia and Russia.

In 2018, Sokos Hotels decided to undertake a comprehensive review to improve its breakfast offer, which it offers in buffet form. One of the conclusions was that the paper labelling used to inform customers of the products on offer was :

• old-fashioned
• quickly dirty
• and damaged.

The labels no longer met the hotel chain’s requirements in terms of brand image.

After a trial period offered to three hotels by CardPlus, Evolis’ distributor in Finland, Janina Nurmela, Concepts Manager in the Travel and Hospitality Management Department at SOK (part of S Group), was quickly won over by the Edikio Guest solution. Particularly well suited to the challenges of enhancing brand image and clearly displaying information, the Edikio Guest Access solution is now installed in 32 hotels in the chain. With the dedicated Edikio Guest software, employees can issue their own personalized cards according to their needs.

Every hotel now has around 70 labels on its breakfast buffet. They are displayed harmoniously, legibly and in 3 languages – Finnish, English and Swedish:

• the name of the products,
• their allergens,
• as well as pictograms specially created by the Group’s marketing department and the Sokos Hotels logo.

Staff now optimise their time when creating and printing new labels, and only reprint 5 to 10 each month.

Customers have commented positively on the change in labelling, which is easier to read and understand, thanks in particular to the format of the cards, which allows all the information to be printed in a font size that is large enough to be read.

The buffet offer is better highlighted thanks to an aesthetic and qualitative rendering that reinforces the brand image of Sokos hotels in the eyes of its customers.