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The boutique hotel review and booking brand Mr & Mrs Smith has launched a new risqué campaign designed to realign the company with its core roots.
Mr & Mrs Smith recently commissioned London brand consultancy firm Goosebumps to help amplify its core brand of professional couples looking for a romantic getaway, with a national print marketing campaign to be launched in the first week of January.
Established 10 years ago, the boutique hotel expert began as a guidebook publisher and developed a booking service for young professional couples opting for a romantic getaway on the back of that.
The new campaign, spearheaded by Goosebumps, set about restoring the brand with that core value and Simon Cotterrell, strategic partner at Goosebumps, said: The campaign seeks to reaffirm the essence of the brand, which people fell in love with at its conception – a sexy, flirtatious offering targeted at young couples.
“With a fresh take on this concept 10 years after Mr & Mrs Smith was established, we are aiming to capture a more youthful audience, with the young professional at its core.”
As the brand grew from its inception, broadening the target market, it launched Smith & Family, Smith & Co and Smith & Friends, adding families and group breaks to part of its sub brands’ target market – all now underneath the newly-created parent brand of Smiths Collections.
A decision, however, was made that before launching this offering full-scale, the brand was to “reassert the role and values of the Mr & Mrs Smith brand”.
The hotel booking site and guidebook publisher is therefore marking its 10th anniversary in January 2013 by going back to its roots with a daring national print campaign aimed at the late-twenty/early thirty-something audience it was set up to serve.
In a move to re-align the company with its “slightly mischievous roots”, James Lohan, CEO and founder of the boutique hotel service, said: “With the recent beta launch of smithandfamily.co.uk, we wanted to reassert Mr & Mrs Smith’s distinct identity as young and fun, and felt a brand-reinforcing campaign.
“I don’t believe any other travel company would get away with skinny-dipping and after-dark croquet shots and I hope the gently suggestive images and provocative lines bring a smile to people’s faces and inspire them to whisk someone special away for a romantic break.”
The campaign is set to feature in Vanity Fair, Tatler, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle magazines, among others.
