Singapore – Shangri-La began a new chapter in its well-known Asian hospitality with the revamp of its Golden Circle loyalty programme, launching the new Shangri-La Circle, a contemporary travel and lifestyle platform that goes beyond the traditional hotel loyalty programme by offering members more: simplicity, flexibility, privileges, recognition, and convenience.
Building on the success of JEN by Shangri-La’s rebranding partnership with 8traordinary, Shangri-La Group has partnered anew with the creative digital agency to launch their newly-transformed Shangri-La Circle.
Formerly known as the Golden Circle, this rebrand will pave the way for deeper engagement with customers and transform the programme into being more than just a loyalty programme, but a powerful and aspirational direct-to-consumer travel lifestyle platform that promises more flexibility, simplicity, recognition, and rewards.
With a consistent narrative for the brand leading with the platform, guests are engaged in a variety of ways and brought on a journey across the Shangri-La portfolio to experience the best of both East and West.
Driven by the group’s commitment to delivering great experiences for guests, Shangri-La Circle offers its members exclusive access benefits and privileges across the 100 hotels and resorts in 22 countries and 76 destinations to live the good life. 8traordinary was brought on board to help curate, create and present these experiences online.
Shangri-La Circle comprises four membership tiers, including Polaris, a new, invitation-only membership tier offering the highest level of personalised privileges. Benefits include unrestricted access to Shangri-La facilities worldwide—even without staying overnight—a dedicated global Polaris concierge, Polaris Discovery experiences, and Diamond status gifting to share memorable experiences with loved ones.
Members also have access to the new Shangri-La Circle App, where they can plan a getaway, reserve a table, or shop for merchandise in the Shangri-La Boutique. Through the app, members can also manage their account in one convenient place, and decide whether to use cash or points—or a combination of both—for bookings.
8traordinary’s scope included creative content planning, social media strategy & management, influencer marketing & management, and community management.
Kevin Siew, VP and head of Shangri-La Circle, said, “We’ve had a great and longstanding working partnership with 8traordinary. They understand our brand, our guests, our members, and know-how to bring relevant content, campaigns and communications to them. With their help, we can use different online channels to tell the Shangri-La Group story and engage our community as we move from a hospitality brand to encompassing many more facets as a lifestyle brand, content curator and digital platform. We are excited to invite our valued Shangri-La Circle members into a new age of lifestyle experiences that this programme provides, adding the magic of discovery along the way.”
Jeffrey Lim, MD of 8traordinary, commented, “Shangri-La is a well-loved hospitality brand globally and we are extremely honoured to be part of this transformation journey. Having a first-hand understanding of the new experiences and benefits that Shangri-La Circle brings, we are more than happy to leverage our expertise and bring these offerings online. Working with influencers & content creators across different countries and community members from different walks of life, it’s been truly awesome to curate, share and enjoy the good life with Shangri-La.”
As part of the campaign launch, Shangri-La Group is working with 8traordinary to collaborate with popular influencers like Nathan Hartono, Lennard Yeong, Erwan Heussaff, Zahra Lari, Goh Jin Wei, and more than 150 other key opinion leaders across different countries to spread the good news.
Meanwhile, in preparation for Shangri-La’s first member’s day post-launch on the 6th of June, 8traordinary also developed a creative AR filter to help spread the campaign message that “Life isn’t meant to be square” and everyone deserves to live the good life.