citizenM
A new kind of hotel brand for the mobile citizen.
Hotels used to be where design went to die. Dated interiors, bland identities, traditional thinking. Then came citizenM. A hotel that created its own category: affordable luxury for the mobile citizen. Where the guest was central to the point of being celebrated in the name itself.
The hotel was treated as a medium with keycards and do not disturb signs becoming eminently stealable; the doormats became a celebrated photo opp for those arriving in a new city. Shampoo bottles told stories and toilet signs caused confusion. Communication veered between challenger-focussed OOH, digital activations and artful exhibitions using the buildings’ facades as the world’s largest billboards.
citizenM's ethos paid off: the brand recently sold to the Marriott Group for a cool few hundred million and a couple of throw pillows thrown in for free.
*Made together, with the folk at KesselsKramer.