Hotel offers guests a free camcorder for the weekend

Hotels are an ideal setting for many tryvertising campaigns, approximating as they do consumers’ domestic milieu. Much the way Starwood recently began giving its guests a free taste of Zinio’s “digital newsstand,” so Omni Hotels now offers patrons a free camcorder for the weekend. Through the Omni Flips for Summer campaign, which runs through Sept. 6, families staying at any of the chain’s hotels and resorts in North America can borrow a pocket-sized video camcorder for free and use it to record their most memorable moments. The camcorder provided is the new Flip Ultra video camcorder, launched this spring by Pure Digital, and it’s available to guests who purchase any “Omni Flips for Summer” weekend package. Along with the simple-to-use camcorders, families can also start their holiday with a complimentary breakfast for four featuring “Flip-jacks” on their first day. A “Summer Fun Counselor” will also be on hand with advice on local attractions. When their weekend filming is complete, guests can upload their video memories to their own laptop or use the Omni Hotels Business Center at no charge to transfer the footage to a thumb drive to take home. Guests are also encouraged to upload a three-minute video to Omni’s Local Scoop social networking website as part of the Omni Flips for Summer Video Contest, the winner of which—announced in September—will get a free trip for four to the Omni Bedford Springs Resort in Pennsylvania. There’s no substitute for trying before you buy, and what better time to let consumers try a camcorder than when they’d most likely use it in real life, such as on vacation? Take note, purveyors of holiday-minded goods! (Related: Hotel offers each guest a favourite book, on Kindle — Free car for the weekend, no strings attached — Hotel as retail space.) Spotted by: HotelChatter via airlinetrends.com