The Ritz-Carlton was once the pinnacle. It was the hospitality leader and a cultural touchpoint. It was first-to-market in introducing an experience-based positioning in a time when other hotels were touting sheet thread counts and expansive pillow menus.

But times had changed. As the category crowded with new luxury accommodation options, it needed to shift its perception from one of many to one of its kind. As competitors began to infringe on the brand’s once-unique message, it needed to reimagine how it communicated its positioning to new and existing audiences. And as consumer expectations evolved beyond memory-making, we needed to exemplify a more transformative benefit than indelibility alone.

Our objective was simple: regain The Ritz-Carlton’s leadership position by differentiating the brand from the category sea of sameness, and in turn, recruiting new luxury travelers to our brand.

The Ritz-Carlton’s global brand campaign celebrates the transformative power of travel. Redefining something universally known—arrivals and departures—into a promise that only The Ritz-Carlton could make: by the time you check out, you will leave better than how you arrived. Rather than typical hotel imagery, like pool scenes and uniformed staff, the campaign uses metaphors and abstraction to showcase the brand's transformative experiences. Each guest is invited to take an individual journey of self-discovery and progress, thanks to The Ritz-Carlton's unwavering commitment to service. The visual language we created uses arrival and departure to highlight the before and after of the transformation that takes place. This dual nature, a purposeful design choice, allows departure to be the hero, paying off how a stay at The Ritz-Carlton will leave you: refreshed, energized and renewed. It’s a simple idea that transcends language barriers and resonates globally.

As consumer expectations of luxury hospitality evolved beyond memory-making, The Ritz-Carlton needed to reimagine how it communicated its positioning to audiences. This reimagination started with uncovering a seminal insight about Ritz-Carlton guests. Our guests’ travels are rooted in a higher purpose—not merely to check places off their bucket lists but to become better versions of themselves. They are always striving for enrichment and self-improvement, and travel is one of the ways that they seek to create that change within themselves. Thus, they gravitate to The Ritz-Carlton because the brand uniquely creates experiences that help them to widen perspectives, unleash imagination, inspire understanding, and cultivate empathy. Said simply, The Ritz-Carlton helps to leave them better than they arrived.

The campaign launched through a partnership with Conde Nast and its network of brands including AD, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. Aiming to share the brand's new positioning worldwide, the campaign was executed across owned and paid media channels, with a focus on high-impact moments across key channels like digital, social, and print. The campaign message was further extended through ritzcarlton.com. The campaign spanned across five countries: US, China, Japan, UAE, KSA, and Germany, running from September 26 to December 31, 2023.

According to our media partner Conde Nast, the campaign saw a positive median shift in several crucial brand perceptions: innovative (+4.1pp), modern (+5.5pp), relevant (+6.6pp), and sets the standard for luxury travel (+11.1pp). Select creative assets generated three times the clickthrough rate for Conde Nast benchmarks and performed 53% above Conde Nast video completion rate benchmarks.

Readers of the print issues in which the campaign ran took action after seeing The Ritz-Carlton ads: GQ (67%), Conde Nast Traveler (72%), AD (66%), Vogue (74%) and Vanity Fair (83%).

YOY traffic to ritzcarlton.com increased an average of 38% in October and November during the campaign flight.