• by Larissa Faw , April 5, 2016

The Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) collective of 520 hotels in 80 countries is launching a new global campaign to differentiate its offerings from traditional hotel chains. McCann Bristol served as the creative support, along with the group's in-house team. 

The year-long "Unadvertise" campaign will total more than $1 million, the most the luxury brand has invested in above-the-line advertising in its 25 year history.

The concept "lauds the fact that SLH guests are too intelligent to succumb to generic tourism advertising showcasing infinity pools and staged imagery of people having fun," the group stated. "Instead the advertisements celebrate the fact that independently-minded people can’t be convinced what to do through advertising and PR and reminds them that an SLH hotel is a refreshingly original, and individual, choice."

One print ad, for instance, is straight-forward with a black background with the proclamation that "a picture paints a thousand words. But this ad is for people unaffected by retouched advertising images."

The campaign targets affluent travellers and will appear in print and digital publications, including Bloomberg, Departures, the Financial Times, Boisdale Lifestyle and Travel + Leisure. The global campaign runs in the U.S., UK, Australia, Germany, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and China.