The Peninsula Hotels has continued its ‘Peninsula Perspectives’ campaign in a storytelling format that celebrates its staff as the stars. Karryon Luxury sat down with Carson Glover, Senior Vice President of Brand & Communications, The Peninsula Hotels during a recent visit to Sydney to learn more.
It was in January 2023 that The Peninsula Hotels launched its new global brand campaign to pay tribute to its destination cities, and to the employees who contribute to the personalised experience of its guests.
In a series of videos that feature Peninsula team members – including baggage handlers, drivers, interior designers and chefs – they reflect, in their own words, about the personal journeys that led them to The Peninsula, and the relationships they have fostered with the cities where they live and work.
“Ultimately, what distinguishes us is yes, we have a beautiful product… there are many beautiful products out there, but it’s our employees, each and every day, who deliver that guest experience that distinguishes The Peninsula and that build relationships with our guests,” said Carson Glover.
After the pandemic, he says that the group had a real opportunity to focus on a destination centric campaign as told through its staff.
Choosing the talent
Once the concept was launched successfully, Glover says there was a concerted effort to unpack the natural storytellers among the staff of The Peninsula’s 12 global properties in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Istanbul, Bangkok and Manila.
“We often joke with the team, how easy it would be if we could just make this all up. Right? Because all of the people who are featured in these stories, everything they’re doing is genuine,” said Glover.
“We work with each of the hotel teams to identify staff that perhaps would have an interesting story that they are willing to share. We go through a very long process of trying to identify candidates that will resonate and will have a perspective on their local cities and their local culture that will be interesting to our guests. That process probably takes a good six to eight months,” he said.
The latest campaign
For its latest iteration of Peninsula Perspectives, in August The Peninsula released an uplifting film (see above) featuring Kam Tsui, a tenured team member at its flagship The Peninsula Hong Kong with the role as one of the hotel’s Peninsula Pages.
As a Page for the past decade, Kam has greeted thousands of international guests to The Peninsula Hong Kong, and to his home city. Despite being unable to hear or speak, The Peninsula says that his warmest of welcomes have made a lasting impression on visitors from all over the world.
Prior to his participation in Peninsula Perspectives, however, Kam had never travelled before. The campaign offered Kam a singular opportunity to take a round-the-world journey, to visit each of the 12 cities where The Peninsula’s hotels are located – and to document his encounters with the locales for the first time.
“So this one was less about a story, and more a visual journey and his exploration of all the cities, meeting some of our fellow employees and really celebrating that,” said Glover.
“We designed this campaign also in a way, and I think Perspectives lends itself to evolve… it could be a guest perspective, it could be one of our partner’s perspectives. There is a range of ways that we can look to expand this, and that’s certainly something that when we originally briefed this campaign that we wanted it to have that ability to flex in different ways,” said Glover.
Creative concept
Glover says it took some creative work to ensure that The Peninsula organisation was comfortable and understood what they were looking to do and what the campaign would look like.
“We did a concept campaign in Hong Kong, and then we utilised an agency that specialises in moving image called Carbon Moves. They had not done anything like this before, but their creative team was phenomenal. I think that also speaks to this campaign: utilising a non traditional creative agency to create a campaign to really set itself apart.”
The Peninsula has now collaborated with Carbon Moves on campaigns featuring seven of its city hotels: Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, New York, Bangkok, Tokyo – and Shanghai will debut soon.
“I’m very excited to share the Shanghai campaign because the featured candidate is a gentleman by the name of Tony, who is our Chinese medicine expert from the spa who people travel from all over the world, literally, to see him. So we have a beautiful story of that craft of Chinese medicine,” said Glover.
What’s next for The Peninsula Hotels?
Owners of The Peninsula Hotels – Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited – also own and operate The Peak Tram in Hong Kong, whose track and car was recently regenerated.
The group’s latest openings were The Peninsula London and The Peninsula Istanbul; while in the US, the group recently unveiled a refurbishment of The Peninsula New York.
“These are the largest investments in the company’s history, and we are only 12 hotels, but we own and operate all of our hotels, so it takes us a little longer to look at new openings,” said Glover.
The demographic of their guests varies, depending on the market.
“For example, for our guests in Shanghai and Beijing, the average age is much younger than in the United States, which I think also speaks to the luxury traveller in these markets,” said Glover.
“We could start unpacking specifics, but at the end of the day, I think inherently everybody wants the same thing, which is they want to feel at home; they want to feel recognised and seen. That’s what we do really well,” said Glover.
“For a hotel to be truly successful, we need locals. And what will locals be doing? They’ll be going to the spa, dining at the restaurants, going to the bar, shopping at the boutiques. How we’re able to promote and speak about the brand, as opposed to the hotel room… that’s the difference and that’s where a campaign like Peninsula Perspectives is talking more about a brand idea and a brand position, rather than a single destination,” said Glover.
Read our earlier interview with Sonja Vodusek, Managing Director of The Peninsula London here.
Read more and view other Peninsula Perspectives campaigns at peninsula.com
