Rezenate! by Cherokee
Program Design - Motel 6

Motel 6 was founded in 1962 in Santa Barbara, Calif., by two local building contractors who wanted to build motels with rooms at bargain rates. They decided on a $6 room rate per night that would cover building costs, land leases, mortgages, managers’ salaries and maid service, hence the company name.

In the beginning, Motel 6 emphasized itself as a “no-frills” lodging chain with rooms featuring coin-operated black-and-white TVs instead of the free color TVs found in the more expensive motels, along with shower-only bathrooms and functional interior decor to reduce the time it took to clean the rooms. But in 1990, the company was bought by the French-based Accor, which immediately began to renovate all rooms.

The redesign of Motel 6 was recently extended to the apparel program for employees. The company was looking for a new program that would align with its brand proposition of clean, comfortable and affordable rooms. To carry out its vision, it turned to Rezenate! by Cherokee.

With a few simple yet important tweaks to the existing program, Cherokee was able to develop an updated look that reinforced the company’s friendly, casual image. Eschewing other selections, Cherokee incorporated the hotel’s knit polo shirts into the new program, believing that the comfortable apparel best communicated to patrons the hotel’s low-price promise. A new, darker color palette was incorporated into the shirts and serves as a canvas for the company’s logo while giving employees the desired clean, consistent appearance.

The final designs embraced the Motel 6 update and communicated the clean and comfortable promise. The polo shirts are fabricated in poly/cotton jersey with a ring-spun yarn for added softness and comfort. The silhouettes are male and female specific with subtle shaping to give female employees a flattering fit. The shirt placket is accented with white piping to contrast the dark navy background and draw attention to the coordinating white in the Motel 6 logo.