Shangri-La embraced the data revolution and its driving big change

It’s been five years since the Shangri-La launched a branding initiative on a large and global scale.

That campaign, “It’s In Our Nature”, was introduced in late 2010 with an elegant 90-second film to engage the hearts and emotions of consumers worldwide. It was truly a campaign for its time. Heavy in print and heavy on TV, the work sits in stark contrast to the thinking that dominates the hotel brand in 2015.

Gone is the campaign mentality that has been the hallmark of the Shangri-La, in favour of an overall marketing strategy that is highly personalised and increasingly driven by data.

In January this year the Shangri-La named Steven Taylor as chief marketing officer and did so with a strong statement that the market had well and truly moved on.

“There has been a fundamental shift in marketing communications in the past decade,” Shangri-La president and CEO Greg Dogan said at the time.

For the past 11 months that mantra has been driving huge change in how the group operates its marketing function, but it’s just the beginning of a larger strategy of business transformation.

“We are plotting a digital transformation and we are doing it at pace,” Taylor tells Marketing from his base at the Kerry Centre in Quarry Bay.

“I’ve been brought in to lead a transformation and that’s been six to nine months worth of work. We have a series of initiatives to roll out over the next year that will transform people’s perception of Shangri-La.”

For the past six months, those initiatives have seen the Shangri-La consolidate its collection of customer databases in preparation for the relaunch of its hugely successful loyalty programme, Golden Circle.

In addition to doubling its Hong Kong digital team and establishing its first China digital team, the group has been working with data scientists to map the customers journeys across its 90-plus hotels and understand what makes people tick.

“Customers are always the starting point,” Taylor says.

“We have been doing a lot of customer segmentation work, mapping out the customer journey and ultimately figuring out how we can add value across that customer journey.

“Golden Circle members make up four out of every 10 guests and our goal is to transform Golden Circle into an industry leading loyalty programme. We think we can get to 50% in the very near future.”

Taylor joined the company after a career with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, where he oversaw 260 hotels under nine brands in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. A large part of that time was spent implementing CRM and digital initiatives.

“The role of the CMO has absolutely changed in the last five years. We used to be focused on these big tent pole campaigns, driving awareness and driving consideration, but now it’s really about harnessing, storing, collecting and organising data and using it in an intelligent way. Harnessing data is absolutely critical.”

In late October, Shangri-La revealed one of its biggest technology initiatives yet and announced it was integrating a virtual reality experience into its worldwide sales efforts.

The group rolled out Samsung Gear VR headsets across all global sales offices and produced immersive 360-degree videos for over a quarter of its hotels and resorts.

Nearly half of the hotel’s portfolio will have VR videos by January next year, with a full roll out to be completed in 2016.

Taylor says Oculus is the result of nine months of work and stands as an example of the direction the hotel is heading.

“Technology has been a huge driver of change. Shangri-La is investing significantly in technology and the future of travel content, which is why we are embracing virtual reality on this scale.

“We have to become more digitally savvy and technology driven, but again it all starts with the customer and you have to figure out how to add value along that customer journey.”

Business transformation
As the company’s marketing function undergoes rapid transformation, Taylor and the marketing teams are working to transform all customer-facing areas of the business, whether it be online, in room, or any destination throughout the physical properties.

“Everyone is a marketer, right? The customer experience is the most powerful form of marketing that we have. With the proliferation of social media, the customer experience can be amplified like nothing else.

“I often say it is the job of marketers to collaborate with our product teams and with our technology teams to create customer experiences that are unique and can be shared by customers on our behalf. That’s where we as an industry are quite unique.”

The role of the CMO has absolutely changed in the last five years. Harnessing data is critical.

Driving this change is the growth and influence of social media.

“There has been a huge amount of change in the last five years with digital and social and that has driven a recognition that the customer experience is now the most powerful form of marketing that we have. Social is deeply engaged in the way a brand connects and builds relationships with customers.”

And for the hotel industry, it’s paramount.

While the Shangri-La has held key agency relationships over the past five years, this too, is set to change. With its renewed vision is a refreshed line up of agency partners reflecting its social and content strategy.

Despite building its internal digital teams, Taylor insists there is a critical need for agencies, particularly when sifting through large amounts of data. But it’s not the agencies we have seen in the past.

The company has been working closely with SAS to consolidate its various customer databases, including its Hotel Jen brand, and DigitasLBi for the relaunch of Golden Circle.

“Digital and social are almost now pre-requisite skills for any marketer, but I still think you need specialists. Mobile is now 50% of our web traffic so we need that understanding and we need people who can optimise the mobile experience.”

As Shangri-La makes a bold play for a bigger slice of Asia’s growing middle-class, Taylor argues the company is in a strong position to leverage its heritage for the digital age.

“The Shangri-La for me is in a very positive space,” he says.

“There’s a lot of headlines about the economic headwinds that we are suffering at the moment, but I think the long term trend of an emerging middle-class across Asia all beginning to travel is an advantage for a brand like Shangri-La.

“We have legacy, heritage and an incredible history in the region and we are positioned very well to take advantage of that growth.”