The Brief

Shangri-La’s brand essence is built upon its familial values. ‘Staff’ are actually called ‘colleagues’ and the service to guests reflects a more personal approach. For this opening, we wanted the welcome for the new hotel to come not just from the people of Istanbul, but from the global Shangri-La family. Thus all the guests and colleagues around the world were invited by eDM to send their own personal messages of goodwill, which would represent one collective embrace of welcome for the Shangri-La Istanbul.

Creative Execution

The use of people as the impetus for the campaign resonated strongly with the values of the brand and formed a wonderful, tangible gesture of welcome in the new hotel. The use of lanterns was rich in symbolism – an Asian brand extending its welcome to a new hotel on the European side of the Bosphorus. The use of micro-personalised eDMs as the culmination of the campaign, showcasing the video to those who had submitted messages, closed the loop in a way which reflected the warmth of the brand.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

The simple messages of goodwill we received were turned into a magical event to mark the opening of the new hotel. Thousands of messages, thousands of lanterns and thousands of welcomes for the new member of the Shangri-La family. And this event was turned into a beautiful film, which was distributed around the world.

Results

Pre-event eDMs: Email blast 8th May All Shangri-La GC members 1,900 x trade partners 84 x Hotel GMs We received over 2,000 responses (Event 14th May) Personalised Lantern Message eDMs: Email blast 10th July 1,122 emails to GC (majority, trade partners and hotel GMs) Post-event eDMs: Email blast 11th July TBC All Shangri-La GC members 1,900 x trade partners 84 x Hotel GMs