Hotel felix
Green was the feature. Happy was the brand.
Hotel Felix was opening as Chicago’s first LEED certified eco friendly hotel. We could have filled the campaign with recycling symbols and earnest paragraphs about sustainability.
Instead, we made people happy.
THE CHALLENGE
Chicago already had plenty of hotels competing for travelers, business guests and people who wanted to stay somewhere a little more interesting than the usual chain.
Hotel Felix had a genuinely different story to tell. It was a hip boutique hotel with serious environmental credentials. The challenge was making that difference feel inviting and fun instead of turning the brand into a lecture about being green.
THE IDEA
Happy. Naturally.
We built the brand around those little moments in life that inexplicably make your day better. Finding twenty bucks in an old pair of pants. Toast landing butter side up. The kind of tiny victories that make you think, “Well, today might actually be pretty good.”
The long form ads ran in Chicago newspapers, magazines and El stops where commuters actually had time to read them.
Then we carried the same personality throughout the experience. Door hangers turned “Do Not Disturb” into building a fort. Direct mail packages introduced CEOs and Chicago movers and shakers to a new boutique hotel they could recommend to visiting clients and guests.
Every piece had the same job: make Hotel Felix feel different, memorable and, naturally, happy.
Concept Development, Creative Direction, Copywriting
Hi, I’m Marc.
One of my favorite things about concept development is never knowing when, where or how the ideas will show up.
Good ideas rarely care what time you scheduled them to arrive. You have to keep thinking, writing and staying with the problem until something finally reveals itself.
I’m currently working with leading scientists to understand why this usually happens in the shower when there’s no pen nearby.
So far, they have nothing.