Case Study: Marriott International

Creating luxurious and unique corporate gifts for press event attendees to experience the hotel’s outstanding hospitality and culinary offering.

The Marriott name has long been a synonym for luxury and excellent hospitality, and their fine dining offering is no exception to this. They recently held an exclusive press event in Dubai to market their international suite of Michelin-star restaurants and wanted to create a bespoke gifting experience that would wow their attendees.

With such an established and well-known brand, it was essential for this gifting to be elevated, sophisticated, and in line with company values. Creative director Vaishali Shah explains how Creative ID lead the design and printing process for this very special event, and created a one-of-a-kind corporate gift that was true to the Marriott brand.

Marriott International offers one of the most extensive portfolios in the hotel industry, with 30 brands and over 8,000 properties across 139 countries. The company was founded by J. Willard and Alice Marriott in 1927, and their core values of “putting people first, pursuing excellence, embracing change, acting with integrity, and serving our world through sustainability” – all remain embedded in the company’s culture to this day.

They are proud to offer truly extraordinary hotels around the world, and to pair these with culinary experiences that are destinations in their own right. In particular, their recent press event in Dubai celebrated the dining offerings of the British cuisine at Rhodes W1 in Grosvenor House; the Italian cuisine of Torno Subito, located in W Dubai – The Palm; the afternoon tea experiences of The St. Regis Downtown and The St. Regis Dubai, The Palm; the Latin American cuisine of Dubai’s Tamoka at The Ritz-Carlton; and the Indian cuisine of lndego by Vineet at Grosvenor House.

The Creative ID team was given a budget, a goal, and comprehensive branding guidelines within which to work, so that the content, fonts, and design would blend seamlessly with the company’s existing visual stories. With all of this firmly in mind, we wanted to create a gift that would surprise and delight the guests, represent this luxury brand, and leave a long-lasting impression in a sustainable and eco-conscious way.

The results

We are proud to have come up with an innovative branded gifting concept revolving around the company’s brief, design direction, and values – which both Marriott and their press event attendees loved!

As the idea was to market five prestigious restaurants that are part of the Marriott family, we decided to create a gift revolving around the idea of the five senses: that is, where each gift would embody one of the senses, and one of the restaurants, thus giving the attendees a unique way to experience each of the brands. We curated five individual luxury gifts to represent each restaurant, wrote and printed the stationery and tags for each, and also designed the outer packaging in the shape of a suitcase to echo the international theme for the event.

The client was delighted with this innovative, creative, and sustainable solution to their gifting, and was really excited for their messaging to reach their audience in such a unique way. Images were shared widely on social media, and we were over the moon to receive very positive feedback from the event and client relationship.

“It was a real pleasure working with Vaishali Shah to create the bespoke gifting for our client Marriott International’s press event in Dubai. Vaishali and her team worked with Carousel to come up with an innovative branded gifting concept which fitted our brief and was in line with the event design direction, whilst keeping sustainability at the forefront.

She carefully curated items which played on the 5 senses to represent the 5 prestigious restaurants, which really elevated the messages we wanted to communicate and gave the attendees a unique way to experience the brands. As well as creating the copy to accompany the gifts, the team creatively designed the outer packaging in the shape of a suitcase to reinforce the international theme for the event. Creative ID managed the entire print process including printing on Polaroids and we were so happy with the impact of the gifts.”

Zainab A, Carousel Events

If you would like to work with us to create a truly unique gifting experience for your brand, we would love to hear from you.

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