👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
When you think of Four Seasons, many things come to mind…
Fancy hotel rooms decorated in every shade of white imaginable (because rich people don’t spill things)
Stunning views that seem to be made for a “my beautiful back is facing the camera and I just woke up like this” Instagram photos
And concierges dressed in butler-style outfits who are maybe-not-but-it-certainly-feels-like-it probably judging you.
What doesn't come to mind? Ponies and snowball fights.
Those, however, are two of the stars of the Four Seasons’ bold creative rebrand titled “Luxury Is Our Love Language.”
At Four Seasons, every stay is a story. And it starts with love. We believe luxury – meaningful, personalized, warm – is our love language, and we deliver it one small act at a time.
The launch campaign features a series of vignettes that demonstrate the extremely great lengths Four Seasons has gone as it personalizes special experiences for its guests, including the aforementioned pony, a Shetland named Boris, being delivered to a room Madrid in “Love Rides at Dawn.”
We also get a dramatic retelling of an in-room snowball fight arranged for guests in New York in “Love Shows Up for Your First Snow.”
And we see a guest getting treated to the absolute height of monogramming everything and everything during his stay in “Love Knows You’re More Than a Name.”
When you think about Four Seasons, we hope unparalleled luxury comes to mind. But what is luxury, really? Our answer may surprise you. To us, true luxury is a meaningful sense of belonging. It’s the simple elegance of empathy. An abundance of warmth. The ever-present embrace of kindness. True luxury is a million unscripted gestures made with great joy. And it starts with our passionate team, welcoming you to be the center of our world, anywhere in the world. We live to make your visit with us a journey to your own personal happy place. And we’ll deliver it, one small act of love at a time.
What’s So Brilliant About This Rebrand
1. It’s cleverly redefining the world of “luxury” that the brand itself originally helped create.
Four Seasons opened in 1961 and has always been a brand transforming luxury for a modern traveler.
And that view of luxury was traditionally one of excess and opulence. As Marc Speichert, chief commercial officer at Four Seasons, told AdWeek:
We looked at some of the dictionary definitions of luxury, and the definitions are quite antiquated: It’s all about this notion of materialism and extra abundance and extreme exclusivity. This old definition of luxury felt a bit passe, and what seems to be resonating quite powerfully with our best guests is this notion of connection.
But Four Seasons has wisely recognized that if it is going to stay appealing and relevant to an elder millennial customer whose view of luxury now runs more “I want to have the most interesting experiences possible!” rather than “I want a room decked out in gold leaf!” — it was going to need to evolve its message at its core.
To us, true luxury is a meaningful sense of belonging. It’s the simple elegance of empathy. An abundance of warmth. The ever-present embrace of kindness. True luxury is a million unscripted gestures made with great joy.
And because the brand is known for having created the luxury of the past, it can elegantly trade in on its cred (which is decidedly not street) to be the new voice of authority on what luxury can mean.
2. The campaign is based on real customer stories.
It’s one thing to send your creative agency off to think up pie-in-the-sky ideas for what guests could want.
But the most compelling part of all of the vignettes featured in this launch campaign is the fact that they are all “based on a true stay.”
Four Seasons used the interviews and data from over 2 million guests during the past three years to create the campaign.
This means that yes: Boris the pony, the snowball fight, and the over-the-top monogramming all really took place.
How You Can Create This Magic
See if Your Definitions Still Fit
Whether you’re rebranding or just getting started, make a list of:
The keywords that apply to your brand’s positioning in the marketplace, like “luxury” for Four Seasons.
The keywords that apply to the category your product falls into, like beauty or beverage.
Next, analyze them:
What does the dictionary say they are?
What do they traditionally mean to you?
Ask a few friends… how would they define them?
Then, see if the definitions still fit.
Are the answers to all of the above questions still true in today’s world?
Is your brand shifting the definitions in some way?
If either or both of the answers to the questions above are “Yes!” — this could be exciting ground for you to explore as inspiration for your brand.
Get Personal with Your Customers
I’ve written about this many times before, but your customers are your biggest asset.
You need to treat their words like the gleaming pearls of wisdom they are.
Hearing their real stories and the actual words they use to describe your services or products or experiences will give you both insights and inspiration you could not have dreamed of otherwise.
It can also give you a great tagline, which is what happened with this client of mine.
Words of customer affirmation should be every brand’s love language.
As promised, here’s that second Shetland pony.
Know someone who needs branding help?
My business is 100% referral based — and I work with companies of all sizes, across all industries. If you know anyone who needs branding help, send them my way!
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, consider sharing it with friends, or subscribing if you aren’t already.
About Me
I help early-stage founders create the kind of brands that get customers so obsessed, they’ll do your advertising for you.
Based on my experience founding my own consumer brand, I developed The Branding Sprint—a uniquely collaborative, streamlined, and agile approach to brand creation.
Click here to learn more about The Branding Sprint, or schedule a call with me.