CHEVY CHASE, Maryland—Color can speak volumes about a brand. Just ask Lisa Holladay, who led The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company through its first logo refresh in history.
Though the branding exercise kicked off in earnest three and a half years ago, the key turning point came more recently when she conducted a simple demonstration to gain alignment among the Ritz-Carlton team.
First she pulled out an orange box with brown ribbon. “What brand is this?” she asked. Several associates immediately named luxury brand Hermès.
She did the same with a red box adorned with gold trim. “Cartier!”
And then black with white ribbon. “Chanel!”
“That was just to show the power a brand palette could have in representing the brand,” said Holladay, who serves as Ritz-Carlton’s VP of global brand marketing.
To create an unmistakable identity for the Ritz-Carlton brand, she and her team ditched the old familiar blue for more refined (and so-called) “memorable” blue. That change, unveiled 10 September along with tweaks to the lion’s head logo and “The Ritz-Carlton” typography, was not planned from the onset, Holladay said.
“We did not assume that we would be changing the color palette,” she said. “That was the biggest ‘aha!’ moment” in the brand refresh process.
The chief objective?
“We wanted to ensure that the brand representation linked to our brand positioning, values and personalities and that it could sit very, very strongly next to other true luxury brands,” Holladay said.
Absent from that list of brands were Ritz-Carlton’s competitors in the hotel space. Luxury hotel brands simply don’t stack up, Holladay explained. “We looked at what we thought were the strongest luxury brands in the marketplace as far as brand voice.”
That led to retail brands Hermès, Cartier and Chanel. All have strong colors that are recognizable across the globe—a key focus for Ritz-Carlton as it continues to expand in unfamiliar territory within Asia and the Middle East, Holladay said.
Pushing forward
There was nothing wrong with the prior Ritz-Carlton logo, typography and color, Holladay said. On the contrary, she believes it was in a place of strength.
That gave the Ritz-Carlton executive team the confidence to push it forward, she explained.
“It really started about three years ago in earnest. A group of executives agreed that the brand was in a great place, but as caretakers of that brand we needed to ensure the brand would continue to be thought of as an iconic, beloved brand,” Holladay said. “That meant not resting on our laurels and looking at everything.”
Holladay referred often to the search for the right “brand voice.” It’s more than a color or logo or typography on its own, she said. It’s all the above, and more.
Though the refresh was unveiled earlier this month, the marketing team is busy readying Phase 2: a comprehensive marketing campaign that will include both print and online spend.
That online aspect was a key driver of other tweaks to the company’s brand voice. The lion’s head logo, for instance, got a haircut. Bold lines were made thinner, and equal weight was given to the lion and the accompanying word mark. The result is a cleaner look that transitions across all marketing channel and sizes. (Think smaller and smaller screens.)
“We wanted to bring it forward,” Holladay said.
Did executives ever consider throwing the old logo away and starting from scratch?
“No,” Holladay said. “Never.”
Reaction has been good thus far, she said—both from internal stakeholders and outside observers. Feedback likely will increase when Phase 2 commences.
For now, Holladay is busy updating marketing materials, on-property collateral, uniforms and manuals.
“That’s been the biggest surprise,” she said, “how massive the project is.”