As travel is fast coming back to its feet, Shangri-La, the global hospitality brand, meets this rebound halfway, amplifying its loyalty programme to now be called the new Shangri-La Circle

With an incredible feat to rebrand both the creative and the marketing of the programme, the hospitality company rightly tapped its agency partners to fuse creative and intelligent hands and bring this transformation to the table. For the programme’s digital marketing and communications, digital creative agency 8traordinary was brought on board to steer the wheel. 

Watch the full interview with 8traordinary’s Jeffrey Lim.

The remit of the agency comes out as our top story for the month of July. To further learn about the behind-the-scenes and the craftiness put into the digital campaign, we conversed with Jeffrey Lim, 8traordinary’s founder and managing director

The agency’s scope included creative content planning, social media strategy, influencer marketing, and community management. 

Influencer marketing had been a huge part of the campaign and to make this happen, the agency roped in influencers around the region such as 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 news about the launch. 

On the criteria they used in selecting which KOLs, Jeffrey shared that they try not to focus too much on the usual metrics which are an influencer’s follower count and number of likes as these are quite achievable through paid media. What they looked into instead is the individual’s ‘authenticity’ and the motivation behind why people are looking up to the personality.

One of [our] key criteria, when we worked with Shangri-La Circle, is we want to look for [a] personality or [an] individual who is authentic, and we want to look at how can they use their passion and their authenticity to influence

Jeffrey Lim, Founder, Managing Director, 8traordinary

In line with Shangri-La’s main message of ‘Live the good life’, he also shared that they looked into tapping as much as a diverse group of influencers and not limit to the popular macro influencers, as ‘living a good life’ can mean differently for each person. 

“We want to showcase to the world that whoever you are and wherever you are…there’s a specific ‘good life’ that we at Shangri-La can present to you in its own unique way,” said Jeffrey.

The full conversation with Jefferey is now live on MARKETECH APAC’s YouTube and Spotify. In the interview, Jeffrey shared more about the challenges that came with developing the campaign as well as his expert insights into how brands can stand out in a period where there is overflowing content presented to consumers.

Hong Kong – Formerly known as the Golden Circle, the rewards programme of leading hospitality group Shangri-La Group has recently been launched as the rebranded Shangri-La Circle. The group said the newly transformed programme aims to pave the way for deeper engagement with customers and transform the programme into being more than just a loyalty programme. 

WPP creative company Superunion was the one appointed to lead the refresh of its visual identity. Superunion was tasked with the creation of a new brand strategy, tone of voice and visual identity to reflect Shangri-La Circle’s new positioning as ‘Curators of the Good Life’, and to express an invitation to “a personal journey of discovery.”

The transformation of Shangri-La Circle follows the launch of Polaris, a new exclusive invitation-only elite membership tier, in December 2021, with the brand also created by the Superunion Asia team. The group said the creation of Shangri-La Circle is driven by the group’s commitment to innovation in how it rewards and engages with guests around the world. 

Benedict Gordon, CEO of Superunion Asia, said, “Shangri-La is an iconic brand, and the Shangri-La Circle reflects both the impressive heritage of the rewards scheme as well as the business’s forward-facing focus on creating an experience-led brand across every touchpoint. We wanted to stay true to the brand’s heritage by rooting the visual redesign in Asian culture and to bring to life the warmth of the brand in every interaction with members.” 

“This new identity reflects Shangri-La’s position as a global iconic brand and symbolises a revolution in how moments of discovery and curated experiences are designed,” Gordon adds.

The concept of ‘discovery’ is brought to life through a new, dynamic visual identity through an artistic reinterpretation of a compass that helps members navigate the world of Shangri-La experiences, including hotels, bars and restaurants, guiding them to discover their personal Shangri-La. Inspired by Asian calligraphy, the brand icon draws on the equity of the original Golden Circle marque, reinterpreted for a digital age, and subtly references the ‘Shangri-La ‘S” iconic letterform.

Superunion created a custom pattern inspired by Asian crafts like woodblock printing, porcelain, watercolour ink and rice paper to reflect the brand’s heritage in Asian hospitality and to create a sense of warmth and attention to detail. The colour palette draws on Shangri-La’s legacy but adds a bold yellow to reflect the evolution of the gold of the Golden Circle marque, while art direction guided a photography shoot intended to capture the good life. 

Superunion’s development of the brand’s tone of voice matches the warmth of the visual identity, to make members feel intrigued, engaged and welcomed across every customer experience. The brand will be demonstrated across a wide range of applications including the app, website, membership cards, welcome packs, gifts and amenities.

This brand was created by Superunion Hong Kong, with support from the Singapore and Shanghai studios. Meanwhile, Singapore-based creative digital agency 8traordinary was the one tapped to head Shangri-La Circle’s creative content planning, social media strategy & management, influencer marketing & management, and community management.

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.