Hotels Embrace Role as Curators of Niche Products


Skift Take

As brands struggle to break through with consumers, they need to consider introducing themselves within the environs of hotels. It's a means to create a new relationship in a contextual way. And hospitality brands have a huge opportunity to introduce tastemakers to up-and-coming products.

Series: On Experience

On Experience

Colin Nagy is a marketing strategist and writes on customer-centric experiences and innovation across the luxury sector, hotels, aviation, and beyond. You can read all of his writing here.
The rise of direct-to-consumer brands and steady growth in entrepreneurship means that it's harder than ever to stand out. One must only look at the rising costs of advertising on Instagram to see the demand for brand building. And a lot of these tasks are being carried out online. But digital-first companies are increasingly realizing that physical distribution remains important in order to reach a broad swath of consumers. Note how Away, Warby Parker, Sonos, and other brands have had to move their models from online-only to physical stores as well. People can experience the product, ask a question, and engage.

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One of the most interesting opportunities for hospitality brands, then, is to be a new and intimate discovery channel for consumers. This idea is nothing new, of course. Brands have been placing themselves in hotel rooms for ages: Aesop likely owes some of its initial rise to being placed in the rooms at Park Hyatt Tokyo before anyone knew the brand. The tastemaking audience who stays there helped with global pollination at an early stage. It was old-school seeding. Right people, right