Shangri-La asks customers what loyalty means to them

Shangri-La has fired off the first in what is expected to be a number of significant changes to its advertising and marketing plans in 2016.To celebrate the fifth anniversary of its Golden Circle loyalty programme for the Shangri-La family of brands, the company has launched #LoyaltyIs – its biggest consumer campaign to date.From December through to May 2016, Golden Circle will rollout introduce a suite of new benefits, partnerships and offers while engaging fans around the question of what loyalty means to them and giving away five million Golden Circle award points.“This is a truly distinct campaign centred on redefining the conversation around loyalty from points and perks to a more meaningful discussion around what true loyalty means to our guests, our employees and handpicked cultural influencers,” said Steven Taylor, chief marketing officer of Shangri-La International Hotels.SEE MORE: Transforming the Shangri-La"#LoyaltyIs will act as the foundation for building even stronger relationships with our guests and form the basis of our conversation around loyalty for the year ahead.”Developed with DigitasLBi, the #LoyaltyIs campaign microsite features stories in video format of guests, employees and five cultural influencers. The first video shares the story of Edward Wa, one of Kowloon Shangri-La, Hong Kong’s longest serving colleagues, who has interacted with countless guests as lobby ambassador for the past 34 years.https://youtu.be/jxL44cv-wEkA #LoyaltyIs contest begins on 14 December with the debut of Voice of China contestant Zhang Heng Yuan’s video, “#LoyaltyIs The Sound of My Dreams”. Zhang is one of five international cultural influencers engaged by Shangri-La to give their unique take on loyalty.From 14 December 2015 to 7 March 2016, a new video from one of the five influencers will air every three weeks sharing his or her story and asking followers to share theirs. Each influencer will give away one million Golden Circle Award Points to 50 winners. The winners will each receive 20,000 GC Award Points (equivalent to US$2,000), and one Grand Prize winner will be chosen and treated to an incredible Shangri-La experience.“We’re celebrating five years of Golden Circle by breathing life back into the concept of loyalty and what it means to different people,” said Wee Kee Ng, Shangri-La’s vice president of loyalty and partner marketing.“In addition to rewarding and re-engaging existing Golden Circle members and Shangri-La fans, we’ll be raising awareness of Golden Circle and loyalty more broadly by partnering with influencers to help bring to life the stories of individuals and what loyalty means to them.”Other key components of the #LoyaltyIs campaign include the global launch of Shangri-La’s Instant Dining Rewards programme in mid December, the introduction of five new member benefits in late February and the debut of a series of #LoyaltyIs director’s videos in April.