Brief

We were briefed by Best Western – Palace Hotel & Casino to launch their new Looky’s Lounge Bar. The intention is to make this a “Coffee to Cocktail” environment, catering to the morning coffee set, run into a lunchtime crowd and then a late afternoon change to a cocktail environment which in turn will spill over to the Casino.

The décor is reminiscent of a New York City cocktail bar, with the logo styling reminiscent of the famous Chrysler building. There is impressive cherry blossom cascading ceiling lighting that can change colour to enhance the ambiance. The ideal target audience is the 30+, more mature set.

As well as the commercial launch of the venue, it was important to delicately weave into the backstory awareness of the dedication of the bar to the memory of the CEO’s son, Lucas (Looky), who sadly passed away of meningitis. The goal was tell this story in the positive spirit of this young man in a way that hit the appropriate notes.

Approach

From a brand styling perspective, there were a number of positives. The brand logo and the colour palette, textures and interior design were very helpful in developing something very distinctive. We decided on reflecting a combination of the 1920s/1930s Bauhaus/Art Deco themes in our design for the website and social media advertising elements which would also align with their logo and interior décor.

There was a wide range of target audiences to cover from early morning coffee and lunchtime customers, to cocktail hour, dinner and late-night casino trade. We also had to target sports fans (the venue includes big screens) and live music events for the weekend trade so it was clear we needed to target different consumer tribes to cover age and gender splits in our communication messages and advertising.

Another benefit was that Looky’s is part of “family feeder” venues under the same corporate umbrella – the location also includes a cinema, health spa, hotel and casino. We were able to raise awareness amongst those existing audience groups to drive traffic to the new venue.

Outcome

Looky’s Lounge Bar launch activity took place across META and YouTube, with a competition being the main activation. We chose a combination of paid and organic activity on META, and skippable video ads on YouTube for a three-week campaign with goals of video views, traffic and awareness.

The campaign was extremely high performing, reaching a large proportion of the target audience, generating well above average social followers from zero in only a few weeks, and very cost-effectively. This strong performance highlights the effectiveness of the creative concept, with our campaigns generating a significant buzz about the venue before the first drink had been served.