If You Think Twitter Gives You Tight Quarters, Try Storytelling in a Door Hanger.

Few people can consistently amuse in 140 characters.

The only person I’ve come across who does is Tim Siedell who parlayed his Twitter account from a job in advertising to writing for Comedy Central.Now, try to be clever in half that space. That’s the challenge for those select few who call themselves door hanger copywriters.

We have scoured hotels across Europe, Asia and the U.S. looking for door hangers with that certain “je ne sais quoi” (my 49 days in France doubled my French vocabulary). Storytelling can be found in tight quarters. Also, many thanks to Edoardo Flores for letting us tap his door hanger collection.

The following infographic captures 14 hotel door hangers that deviated from the vanilla “Do Not Disturb” message along with a brief history of the genre thrown in as glue.While none of these door hangers are going to win a Pulitzer, the hotels behind them all deserve credit for being willing to deviate from the status quo.

As discussed in previous posts, every single interaction with the customer — no matter how seemingly trivial — is a chance to build the brand. Even if the door hanger doesn’t generate a bona fide smile from the guest, there’s an underlying message that says the hotel is going beyond the typical.

In short, there are many ways to show a business cares about its customers.