LAS VEGAS—A crowd of some 4,000 IHG owners and general managers attending the chain’s annual Americas Investors & Leadership Conference here learned their legacy brand, Holiday Inn, is about to get its own television series.
The brand and HLN (a Turner Broadcasting network) are producing a six-episode original series,Growing America: A Journey to Success, that will premiere Nov. 16 at 9 p.m. EST. Hosted by Ty Pennington, (known for Trading Spaces and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), the documentary series follows teams of MBA students from the MBAs Across America (MBAxAmerica) program, who are given one week to use their expertise to transform businesses and positively affect communities in cities across the United States.
“We were fortunate enough to work closely with Casey Gerald, co-founder and CEO of MBAxAmerica, this year as part of our ‘Journey to Extraordinary’ campaign, and were in awe of the impact he and his MBAxAmerica teams are having on businesses and cities across the U.S. The entrepreneurial spirit and a focus on the communities in which our hotels do business is the foundation on which the Holiday Inn brand was built, so the relationship was a perfect fit,” said Maurice Cooper, VP/Holiday Inn, the Americas, IHG. “Together, we approached HLN to create a TV series that would further showcase on a national level the personal journeys of these MBA students and the entrepreneurs they are helping, and how the Holiday Inn brand has enabled them along the way, all while hopefully inspiring viewers on extraordinary journeys of their own.”
Digital media will play a key role in Growing America: A Journey to Success. After each episode airs, viewers will be encouraged to visit HLNtv.com/GrowingAmerica to vote for the most inspirational small business of the television series, with the winner announced during the show finale, airing on Dec. 21.
The Holiday Inn brand and HLN also co-created a companion digital series, which will explore the challenges of small businesses in Boise, ID, and Nashville, TN. This series, along with profiles of the business owners and MBA teams and tips for small business owners, will round out the content featured online. To join the conversation throughout the series and share their own journeys, viewers can visit Holiday Inn’s and HLN’s social channels, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and are encouraged to use the hashtag #GrowingAmerica across all channels.
MBAxAmerica takes MBA students from America’s universities and challenges them to take a journey across the U.S., learning from and working with visionary entrepreneurs who are making a difference in their communities. With 32 students traveling to 27 cities over four months, Holiday Inn provided hotel accommodations for the MBA teams. The brand also documented and shared the journeys of these MBA teams and the entrepreneurs through a “Signature Stories” series as part of the brand’s Journey to Extraordinary campaign.