Posted on Fri, 9 Sep 2011
Fans … And Friends!
Kevin Spacey is everywhere these days .. first on stage as Richard III and now on an ad for a Hotel chain’s global campaign. Let’s just say in Asian terms that his feng shui these days is obviously in its element.
I picked up a picture of him from a note sent to me about the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s latest USD multi-million dollar global ad campaign and took a second look because it brought back fond memories of my four odd years as a fledgling hotelier working in PR in the Singapore property. It was my very first job, my first taste of life and politics in the working world and honestly it was there that I also first met Ee Waun.
She was a writer with a well known food publication and I was the PR person hosting her to a meal that neither of us could truly afford. I remember giving her a leather card holder on that first meeting, embossed with the fan logo on it and I remember telling myself mentally “I like this girl..I think we are going to be great ‘fans’ .. I mean ‘friends’.”
That after thought came back to me almost twenty years later when I was at her home a few months ago and imagine my immense surprise when she whipped out that very same card case to tell me that she had kept it… all this time for almost twenty years. Well used, in tact and still much loved. Not wanting to be presumptious, I asked: “Was it the quality of the leather?” She quipped with a smile that it was and also the fact that she had always liked it too, immediately from the first time she received it. Indeed … the fan holds for me .. happy thoughts and memories of a friendship first fanned. Who would have thought that the winds would blow us together in such a fabulous way.
Away from my fond musings and back to the ad campaign … so the Hotel chain has pulled an acclaimed American academy award wining actor Kevin Spacey, a celebrated haute couture French shoe designer Christian Louboutin and a femme fatal Bond girl and French actress Sophie Marceau in its latest campaign joining its 20 other existing fans: IM Pei, Lance Armstrong, Michelle Yeoh, Jane Seymour, Kenzo Takada, Jerry Hall, Vanessa Mae, Vivienne Tam, Barry Humphries, Frederick Forsyth, Darcey Bussell, Bryan Ferry, Liam Neeson, Helen Mirren, Maggie Cheung, Sigourney Weaver, Sir David Tang, Harry Connick Jr., Hélène Grimaud and Sa Ding Ding.
Why? “Because..”, says Jill Kluge, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s Director of Brand Communications (a name I still remember from 20 years ago), “we continue to be delighted with the campaign, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2010, and believe it makes a strong statement about our Group in a simple and luxurious manner. By focusing on celebrities who clearly appreciate the finer things in life, we have been able to show the quality of our hotels in a far more interesting way than traditional hotel advertising”.
The photos were taken by renowned portrait photographer Mary McCartney in 2006 who photographs each celebrity in a location of their choice which, for them, best represents a feeling of well-being. In appreciation of their support, the Group makes a donation to each celebrity’s individual choice of charity.
Now wouldn’t you say that’s a great way to fan the flames towards a good cause!
