Singapore – Global hospitality brand Shangri-La has launched a new visual film, titled ‘Find Your Shangri-La’, under its new global brand campaign which launched in May. 

The film, done in collaboration with McCann Worldgroup Southeast Asia, kickstarts Shangri-La’s significant initiative to showcase the hotel brand’s ongoing efforts in inspiring guests to discover their ‘own moments’ of joy. It also highlights the brand’s commitment to delivering unforgettable experiences through the ‘authentic’ and the ‘unexpected’.

The development of the film engaged GRAMMY® award-winning film director, Dave Meyers. To drive home the brand’s unique vision, the film is a remarkable departure from category norms. Instead of showcasing property amenities and lifestyle moments, ‘Find Your Shangri-La’ employs whimsical metaphors, fantastical characters, and magical storytelling. 

Leveraging on the film’s name which is also the campaign’s title, it highlights Shangri-La as not just a physical place, but as a state of mind associated with the joyful moments within the hotel experience.

The film centres around the journey of a peony flower, the protagonist, as it makes its way through the whimsical world of Shangri-La’s properties, searching for its own personal Shangri-La. As it explores the world, the peony encounters various other ‘guests’, each enjoying their own whimsical versions of Shangri-La. 

Whilst these characters and their Shangri-La’s are fantastical, they were designed very strategically. Each subtly represents a different guest subset, such as foodies (the hummingbird), honeymooners (the wedding dress), wellness seekers (the penguins) or families with children (the train).

Brandon Cheung, regional director for global clients & business leadership at McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, said, “We started with a beautiful truth about Shangri-La’s hospitality experience – Luxury is best expressed as personal moments of joy. Shangri-La has delivered this at the heart of their service for over 50 years. This gave us tremendous creative license to push the imagination and create a magical, whimsical world with Shangri-La in film.” 

To bring this ambitious project to life, multi-GRAMMY®-award-winning film director Dave Meyers was commissioned alongside visual effects studio, The Mill (most recently of ‘Dumbo’ and ‘The Lion King’ fame), to shoot and create the magical vision of the new Shangri-La world.

The film launched worldwide on 15 May across all of Shangri-La’s social media channels and its official website.

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.

Manila, Philippines — Luxury hotels and resorts company, Shangri-La Group, has appointed Chrystel Ilano Acuna as its new director of marketing communications for the Resorts. This appointment will serve as a return for Acuna to the hospitality company after previous stints.

Acuna will be responsible for leading the marketing teams and the initiatives for Shangri-La to cater to the easing of borders and travel restrictions. In her new role, she will be prioritising the return of international guests and how they can consider Mactan or Boracay as their holiday destination.

She holds an extensive understanding and knowledge of the hospitality business and the marketing industry. Prior to returning to Shangri-La, she was with Chroma Hospitality as marketing communications and digital manager leading the Crimson, Quest, and Timberland marketing teams. Prior to that, Acuna was with Shangri-La Group as a digital marketing executive handling the Philippine properties and before that, she was with Makati Shangri-La as a digital marketing executive, marketing executive and corporate trainee – communications. Her first job was with Acacia Hotel Manila as a marketing communications assistant.

Commenting on her appointment and coming back to Shangri-La, Acuna shared, “I’m excited to return to Shangri-La Group and to elevate the campaigns of resorts as we welcome back international travellers.”

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.

Hong Kong – As Shangri-La Hotel marks its 50th anniversary, it launches ‘#WithHeart’ campaign to celebrate its ties with the Asia region, honoring the passion and values that have driven the brand’s evolution and the rise of the region through the stories of those who have lived this transformation.

The ‘#WithHeart’ campaign aims to bring to life the significance of ‘wholeheartedness’ in all endeavors. It includes a short film series, which will be premiering on 19 November 2021, will tell the stories of young and passionate Asian culture makers.

Titled ‘From Asia with Heart’, the short film series features a culinary pioneer who rose to become Asia’s Best Female Chef, an architecture graduate who followed her heart to become an internationally renowned installation artist, a respected fashion designer who embarked on a journey of advocacy to open peoples’ minds to the idea of luxury goods made in China, and an iconic furniture designer inspired by the profound beauty of nature, as well as an illustrator reimagining Chinese culture and folklore for children, and a pianist infusing his riveting performances with Asian influences.

The teaser trailer is now available at www.shangri-la.com/50years. At the website, visitors will also find inspiring stories, perspectives, and foresight into different industry trends from even more Asian innovators, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who put their heart into everything they do. Full versions of the short films will be released in the coming weeks.

Hui Kuok, Shangri-La Group’s chairman, shared that Shangri-La is proud to have supported Asia’s growth over the years.

“As we mark our anniversary, we want to bring to life the stories that have made Asia what it is today. We are not just celebrating our past but looking towards the future as we embark on our next chapter,” said Kuok. 

In celebration of these stories from around the world, Shangri-La is also rewarding those who share their #WithHeart stories on social media. Beginning on 22 November on Instagram, the brand is inviting people to share what they do “with heart” for a chance to take their passions further and win exclusive Shangri-La prizes. 

To enter the contest, people should follow @shangrilahotels and post their stories, tagging Shangri-La and using the signoff “From _____ #withheart”, filling in the blanks with their name or handle.

Hong Kong – Following the company’s recent logo revamp to mark its 50th anniversary, Shangri-La Group has recently announced a new family experience brand called ‘Fam.ily™’ which aims to create best-loved experiences for multi-generational families as well as provide support for customers on their parenting journeys.

The recent brand launch speaks to the group’s strong Asian heritage and strong family culture, as well as reaffirming the brand’s commitment to evolving with customers to fulfil ever-changing demands and delivering on the brand promise of heartfelt hospitality. 

The ‘Fam.ily™’ brand houses a variety of new and existing programs specially designed to enable family guests to realise their Shangri-La franchises, both individually and with one another, as they explore, bond and grow together.

In regards to the brand’s logo, it comprises two parts: ‘fam’, the shortened word for ‘family’, and ‘ily’, the abbreviation for ‘I Love You’, connected by an infinity symbol. At the centre of the symbol is a heart-shaped knot, symbolizing the love shared by family members and the strong ties that bind them. The logo reflects Shangri-La’s commitment to go beyond service by inviting guests to be part of an integrated family-centric experience.

According to Hui Kuok, chairman of the Shangri-La Group, the recent brand launch reflects the company’s perception of the family being the heart of the Shangri-La brand culture and treating their guests like family remains a hallmark of the Shangri-La identity.

“With the launch of our new Fam.ily™ brand, and as we continue to introduce thoughtfully-designed family offerings, we hope to deliver the best-loved experiences that will bring families closer together, and create precious and lasting memories for our family guests,” Kuok stated.

Through Fam.ily™, guests can take part in a wide variety of activities that have been specifically designed to encourage learning through play and shared experiences through co-discovery across generations. This summer, pilot Fam.ily™ programmes will be rolled out at four properties across Mainland China.

In addition, Fam.ily™ will offer a unique mix of active and creative family experiences, including staying in themed family suites that have been thoughtfully designed to accommodate multigenerational groups, as well as activities for children who can take a memorable adventure to a jungle, castle, outer space or underwater wonderland from the comfort of their rooms.

To support customers in their parenting journeys, Fam.ily™ strives to facilitate learning and communication among parents by building a supportive community where they can connect and exchange experiences with one another through multiple channels, such as online chat groups and family events. 

Fam.ily™ also harnesses Shangri-La’s own insights and expertise by engaging thought leaders and experts in parenting and child development to share their knowledge with the Fam.ily™ community. These experts will share ideas and tips for fostering bonds across generations and achieving work-family balance.