Shangri-La has tapped McCann Worldgroup Southeast Asia and Grammy award-winning film director, Dave Meyers, to bring the brand’s new visual film titled “Find Your Shangri-La” to life as part of Shangri-La’s new global brand campaign which launched last month. The launch is seasonally aligned with the long-awaited resurgence of international travel markets.
To drive home the brand’s vision, the film is a departure from category norms. Instead of showcasing property amenities and lifestyle moments, “Find Your Shangri-La” employs whimsical metaphors, fantastical characters, and magical storytelling. Leveraging on the film’s name which is also the campaign’s title, it highlights Shangri-La as not just a physical place, but as a state of mind associated with the joyful moments within the hotel experience.
The film centers around the journey of a peony flower, the protagonist, as it makes its way through the world of Shangri-La’s properties, searching for its own personal Shangri-La.
As it explores the world, the peony encounters various other ‘guests’, each enjoying their own whimsical versions of Shangri-La. While these characters and their Shangri-La’s are fantastical, they were designed very strategically. Each subtly represents a different guest subset, such as foodies (the hummingbird), honeymooners (the wedding dress), wellness seekers (the penguins) or families with children (the train).
“We started with a beautiful truth about Shangri-La’s hospitality experience – Luxury is best expressed as personal moments of joy,” said Brandon Cheung, Regional Director, Global Clients & Business Leadership, McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific,.
“Shangri-La has delivered this at the heart of their service for over 50 years. This gave us tremendous creative license to push the imagination and create a magical, whimsical world with Shangri-La in film.”
Meyers was commissioned alongside visual effects studio, The Mill (most recently of “Dumbo” and “The Lion King” fame), to shoot and create the magical vision of the new Shangri-La world.
