Peninsula Hotels Treads a Delicate Balance Marketing in Hyper-Critical Mediascape

Success in luxury hotel marketing was a little more black and white before the world became more woke. That's the reality facing The Peninsula Hotels, which last week launched its Peninsula Perspectives campaign. A review of three ads from the campaign — set in Hong Kong, Istanbul, and London — reveals the high bar for success facing all luxury brands in marketing in an evolving media era.

Peninsula received acclaim in the early 2000s for static ad campaigns like “Portraits of Peninsula." Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz was given free rein to capture the day-to-day of doormen, room attendants, and others, in a mesmerizing black and white shots.

Those campaigns included staff, such as the iconic Peninsula pageboys, bedecked in immaculate white uniforms and pillbox hats inspired by military uniforms of the Victorian Era, as they served requests of all kinds from the five-star hotel’s guests.

But social expectations have evolved since then — and so has the need for luxury hotel marketers to level up their game when it comes to storytelling.

One of the images that were captured by photographer Annie Leibovitz for the "Portraits of Peninsula" campaign, circa 2004. Source: The Peninsula Hotels.

Today, Hilton and several other hotel brands, such as Four Seasons and InterContinental Hotel Group, have spotlighted their talent as “heroes” on social platforms. Hotel New York, for example, focuses on a behind-the-scenes approach to social media. It introduces employees as they have fun on the job for “likes” from trav