The most enduring and powerful form of marketing

Browns Hotel in Albemarle Street.

Five star hotel. Very old-fashioned. Previous guests include Theodore Roosevelt, Emperor Napoleon III and Emperor Haile Selassie.

Old-fashioned but also very successful.

Browns Hotel was the model for Agatha Christie's 1965 novel At Bertram's Hotel. Agatha Christie's novels have sold two billion in total, worldwide. After the publication of At Bertram's Hotel Browns' marketing personnel could relax.

Recently Terminal 5 at Heathrow tried to duplicate this effect by commissioning Alain de Botton to write A Week at the Airport. The most enduring and powerful form of marketing is to create or commission a work of art. That's my view anyway.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Week-Airport-Heathrow-Diary/dp/1846683599

PS Heathrow is a wonderful brand name for an international airport - it conjures up images of old hawthorn hedges running alongside ancient un-ploughed grassland.