The story
Holiday Inn Express was founded in 1990 under the ownership of Bass. Plans at the time called for 250 locations to be open by 1995. The first three hotels under the Holiday Inn Express name all opened in 1990. These were located in Nashville, Tennessee, Abilene, Texas, and Poughkeepsie, New York. All three were converted from existing Holiday Inn properties.
In 1996, the brand's first European location opened in Scotland.
Starting in 1998, Holiday Inn Express started an ad campaign that featured ordinary people achieving superior feats, such as averting a nuclear disaster or performing like rock stars. When questioned on whether or not they are professionals, they would attribute their skills to their stay there with the reply: "No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!" The commercials originally ended with the tag line "It won't make you smarter. But you'll feel smarter." which was changed to "Stay smart, Stay at Holiday Inn Express." in 2000. The ads were created by Fallon Minneapolis, a unit of the French Publicis Group. These ads have received positive reviews, and have been so successful they have crossed over into popular culture, having been featured in late night comedian jokes and political cartoons. The ad campaign continued to air until 2009. It was revived in 2014 with new ads featuring comedian Jim Gaffigan. In 2015, ads featuring comedian Rob Riggle were produced.
From Wikipedia’s article on Holiday Inn Express, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4