Charles and Dinorah at The Pearl Hotel

The Challenge: 

Nearly 60 years after its arrival onto the San Diego boutique hotel landscape, my former colleagues at Bay Bird Inc and I were tasked with the opportunity to usher in a new chapter for Point Loma’s iconic mid-century modern The Pearl Hotel. At the forefront of these changes was the renaming of the hotel property’s restaurant. After multiple rounds of ideation exercises drawing from the history of the hotel and its role as an integral part of Point Loma’s fishing community, we reimagined the restaurant as Charles and Dinorah aptly named after the property’s original husband and wife owners. As part of this rebranding process, we served as project managers working in tandem with the talented San Diego graphic designer Lena Farris who helped us dream up a logo and branding suite that fully captured the hotel’s mid-century modern coastal aesthetic. 

The Tactics and Result: 

With a newly established name, our next goal was to spread the word and reinvigorate the property by making the restaurant a household name in the San Diego culinary landscape and beyond. Aside from extra touches including newly recommended in-room offerings, we orchestrated a launch party attended by more than 100 media, industry, influencers and local tastemakers complete with a synchronized swimming performance at the hotel’s pool focal point. In addition to dozens of press articles and TV appearances, we organized a strategic social media campaign enlisting influencers to share their experiences on-property with their millions of combined followers.

Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills Brand Partnerships // Leica + Steep LA

The Challenge: 

While the 5-star property has long garnered attention as one of LA’s premier luxury destinations, well-respected among Hollywood elite (Jaws and Good Will Hunting were both penned in the hotel’s legendary bar) and international visitors, the team at The Door was presented with the challenge of broadening the property’s appeal to a encompass a local demographic of all ages.

The Tactics and Result: 

We knew that to accomplish this goal we’d need to bring in brand partners with previously established recognition to help elevate the hotel property. In selecting collaborators we were cognizant of proper brand alignment, a strong following and genuine enthusiasm on behalf of the ideas we were presenting. Two noteworthy partnerships that we spearheaded were with Leica, the highly regarded camera line, and with Steep LA, a respected tea brand located in downtown’s Chinatown district. In partnership with Leica we created a pop-up art installation, in line with Viceroy’s commitment to appealing to a culturally driven audience, with the work of renowned photographers hung prominently in the hotel’s common spaces. To debut the pop-up, we coordinated a highly-attended launch party activation that resulted in increased general property awareness by drawing Angelenos who hadn’t visited the hotel in more than a decade. In a separate project, we brought on Steep LA, a Chinatown based artisanal tea purveyor to mark the Chinese New Year celebration at the hotel. The celebration has always been significant for the property, so we wanted to brainstorm a compelling activation to appeal to guests during the holiday. After multiple meetings, we honed in on a pairing of Steep’s oolong tea with a five spice cookie created by the hotel restaurant’s executive chef. The tea bags and cookies were served as part of the hotel’s turndown service for guests that evening and Steep’s owners were on hand to perform a tea ceremony for guests and visitors in the restaurant’s lounge the same day. As a byproduct of Steep’s strong following on LA’s East side, Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills benefitted from awareness in an area of the city that they had not previously connected with in the same capacity.