How does a 60 year-old luxury brand with an established consumer base, reach new audiences who have never experienced our hotels and resorts? With luxury properties on every corner, how do we remain relevant and stand out against our competitors? How do we attract new generations of consumers while staying true to our historic brand roots? Our answer is Pop Down: taking everything that is special about our brand and infusing it into immersive activations and far-reaching digital experiences. Pop Down is playful and engaging, a first in our industry and a platform for us to activate outside the walls of our hotels. It aims to showcase our talented people in unexpected settings, attract global media attention and social media buzz, and foster dynamic cross-platform content and engagement. Pop Down feeds the millennial desire for personal experiences, creates brand awareness and connects diverse consumers around the world with our brand.

Pop Down Hong Kong combined a high-profile event and unique public activation during Art Basel designed to generate buzz and brand awareness. Inside a transformed vacant space, nothing was ever quite what it seemed. A retro refrigerator door, in what looked like a traditional Chinese bakery, opened into an extraordinary culinary revelation for the senses.

Moments of surprise and delight were at every touchpoint. Our brand was brought to life by a global cast of culinary craftspeople showcasing their skills in a highly interactive format. Every aspect was strategically designed to encourage storytelling with human interactions, mini activations, camera-ready visuals and consistent hashtagging.

For the next three days we then offered of a taste of the evening to the public in a reverse fake-out, actually opening the bakery that hid the Pop Down to serve, for the first time outside our hotel, a Michelin-starred chef’s cult-favourite pineapple pork buns.

Our target audience is the next generation of millennial travellers and restaurant and bar patrons who, once introduced to the brand, can be converted into long term customers; brand loyalists who must continue to be excited by the brand; and media and influencers who are most relevant to these audiences.

All experiences were designed to be shareable on social media. Participants were encouraged to become part of the creative execution as they told their own stories and shared their experiences with:

-Photogenic light, décor, and florals

-Interactive food and drink offerings from by a diverse cast of chefs and mixologists

-Surprise set by Grammy and Oscar award-winning DJ and producer Mark Ronson

-One-time only photo ops such as large scale art installations, avant-garde florals and growing lineups around the venue

-Strategic posting of prepared video content in real-time and images ready for easy sharing, with consistent branded hashtagging throughout

To prepare for the live event, we had 48 hours to transform the space, including the construction of walls, bars, and storefront facade, and updates to interior aesthetics for full customization. When complete, the venue was transformed into a working bakery where a “refrigerator” was a secret door into the rest of the venue.

The three-part video series captured the transformed space through showcasing our Masters of Craft (e.g. Mixologists, Chefs, Pastry Chefs) as brand storytellers. The series is comprised of a teaser, an event recap and a consumer activation video of the bakery. Footage was captured over seven days and was edited on the ground in Hong Kong. Each video was uploaded to social media platforms within 24 hours of capturing the footage, customizing the format for YouTube, Weibo, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Results signal we’ve tapped into something special; engaging new, diverse audiences and those who have loved our brand for years:

-Post-event survey showed top customers wowed with event’s unexpected location and edgy vibe; “Diverting attention from every other party in town during Art Basel is no mean feat but the team went the extra mile...” Tempus Magazine

-Engaged a diverse group of global influencers yielding 80 posts and 132K engagements

-Local and international media extended the story to new audiences “Pop Down highlights the best of the brand by turning the concept of a hotel on its head...proof that a hotel brand doesn’t just need its hotel to be relevant” – T&L

-500 media placements and 300+ million PR impressions

-38 million social media impressions and 1 million+ engagements, including readership of 13 million on Weibo

-Video content: 7.2 million total views across all social platforms