Challenge
Maybourne, owner of renowned and iconic London properties such as Claridge's, The Connaught, The Berkeley, and The Emory, has long operated as a 'silent partner' behind its celebrated hotels. The new masterbrand opens up opportunities to design an expanded world of luxury experiences and services in its own right.
Our experience challenge: where and how might we introduce the Maybourne masterbrand, without compromising their iconic hotel experiences?
Solution
Following the pitch, we carried out extensive discovery activities - site visits to all hotels, and an experience audit of how and where the master brand appeared (if at all). As the brand idea coalesced into ‘Stories of Distinction’, we used this to begin to develop brand activation ideas, aimed at individual personas, and geared at building equity in the masterbrand.
Favourite ideas were developed with both physical and digital lenses to uncover opportunities to explore.
For example, the brand creative was led by the idea of a tapestry that told all the stories from the 150 years of history across the hotel portfolio. Our team built this out to include a physical artefact alongside a virtual story explorer using augmented reality, and the ability for Maybourne to gift VIPs with part of their story by using NFT technology.
OUTCOME
The new Maybourne brand launched in early 2024, using one of our ideas – ‘May Day’ - as a celebration of the values of the talent working in the business. In London, the Household Cavalry paid Claridges a visit, and the new flag was hoisted in LA and Monaco to celebrate.