Kimpton Hotels Brand Building

A hotel should lift your spirits, not put you to sleep. The great hospitality brands continuously evolve for rapidly changing tastes. Like this.

Bill Kimpton

"A hotel should lift your spirits, not put you to sleep.”

- Bill Kimpton

How the brand that pioneered boutique hospitality redefined it.

As consumer tastes and competing brands caught onto the multi-billion dollar industry that Kimpton inspired, the Kimpton-FINE team began a multi-year effort to crystallize and differentiate the brand vision to lead a new generation.

The journey is the first step.

It all starts where all great brands begin—with customer-centric perspective. Experience mapping helps identify and rollout universal touchpoints of brand experience, while leaving room for each property to be so much more than cookie cutter.

Boutique brands call for decidedly non-standard standards.

Brand distillation methodology helped all properties develop core attributes and signature moves that make each clearly Kimpton, yet distinctly its own.

A new and deeper brand of rewards program.

Most rewards programs have been commoditized into precious metals and free rooms. Kimpton Karma used a new concept, name, identity, and visuals to show how brand experiences, not just spend, can form the basis for loyalty.

A brandwide campaign backed by ownable lifestyle photography.

Special moves everywhere.

The things that form the brand experience communicate the brand. Signature amenities, from bikes to yoga mats, become the basis for differentiation and promotion, opening the door to fresh, like-minded brand partnerships, like PUBLIC Bikes.

Growing the boutique brand family.

Kimpton provides a solid brand foundation upon which each individual hotel and restaurant brand develops its own differentiated name, identity, and experience. Explore the FINE-developed brands below.

A world-class digital destination 
is the brand glue.

A ground-up redesign of the website shows there is no more important place to drive a unified perception, and significantly increase revenue and bookings, brandwide.

The iPad as sales “sidekick.”

Digital tools extend the brand, empowering staff company-wide, and at each property, to share brand, venue, and event planning information for larger and more complex group and B2B sales.

“Bricks and mortar can be shifted around, but people make the difference.”

  • Bill Kimpton

Employer branding treats staff as personally as guests.

Global expansion, localized.

Each property brand, like the first-ever international property, Kimpton Seafire on Grand Cayman, is a localized branding exercise of defining the experience, naming it, and fully realizing it, online and off.

A brand "playbook" puts everyone on the same page.

A comprehensive reference coalesces the whole brand approach, from messaging to graphic guidelines, and even operational standards that FINE helped Kimpton hone, to set the stage for future additions and evolutions.

USA Today Reader's Choice #1 Luxury Hotel Brand

Because as Bill Kimpton knew, it all comes back to guests showing preference with their wallet, word of mouth, and even their votes.