The relaunch of W New York - Union Square was designed to operate as a cultural reintroduction and a strategic brand milestone for W Hotels. Following a $100M Rockwell Group transformation, the idea driving the work was to present the property not simply as a renovated hotel, but as a design icon and cultural landmark that signals the brand’s evolution into the modern luxury lifestyle space. The goal was to honor the hotel’s legacy as a nightlife institution of the early 2000s while strategically repositioning it for a new generation of travelers who value design, culture, and experience over tradition.
The team set out to create an opening moment engineered for cultural impact. Our strategy was rooted in building anticipation, cultural authority, and sustained visibility across multiple phases. This included intimate pre-opening design previews, tastemaker and influencer hosting, and a Rockwell-led design and lifestyle shoot crafted to bridge heritage with reinvention. These strategic actions established a foundation before the premiere even began.
The two-day premiere was designed as a cultural flashpoint rather than a standard hospitality event. Celebrity-level talent, creator partnerships, and real-time social storytelling allowed the reopening to compete with major cultural moments occurring during New York’s busiest week.
Overall, our objective was to:
This strategy ensured the relaunch operated as both an immediate cultural event and a long-term brand-building milestone.
The relaunch of W New York - Union Square was brought to life through a strategic framework built on design leadership, cultural relevance, and multi-phase storytelling—each deliberately developed to meet our goals of brand repositioning and cultural impact.
1. Leading With Design and Heritage: Our plan began with the Rockwell Group transformation, which anchored the entire narrative. A Rockwell-led design shoot showcased restored architectural details, materiality, and the conceptual vision behind the redesign. By weaving heritage storytelling into early creative, we established the property as a design-led landmark, not just a reopened hotel. This strategic emphasis on design set the tone for a more elevated luxury positioning.
2. Building Cultural Relevance Through Talent: To make the relaunch unavoidable, we aligned the premiere with one of New York’s most culturally charged weeks. We activated a curated group of high-reach creators, cultural figures, and celebrity talent—including Hari Nef, Cole Walliser, Richie Shazam, Michelle Williams, Pierce Abernathy, and Ella Emhoff—to meet our KPI of entering broader cultural conversation. Their content extended the storytelling beyond hospitality into fashion, nightlife, art, and modern New York culture, an intentional move that allowed the relaunch to operate as a cultural event rather than a traditional ribbon-cutting.
3. Executing a Multi-Phase, 360° Content Ecosystem: Our plan of action spanned three phases
Challenges & Innovation: Balancing nostalgia with reinvention required a distinct creative approach. The challenge: honor the hotel’s early-2000s nightlife legacy without trapping the relaunch in the past. The solution: merge design authority with cultural storytelling and treat the premiere like a New York cultural moment, not a hospitality opening.
The creative innovation centered on elevating hospitality content into entertainment—leveraging celebrity casting, BFA-style photography, and social-first cinematics to create a moment worthy of cultural attention. This strategy broke away from category norms and positioned W New York - Union Square as a flagship expression of the new W Hotels.
The relaunch delivered measurable results that directly aligned with our objectives of cultural relevance, luxury repositioning, and sustained brand elevation. On owned channels, launch-week content generated 11.8M+ impressions, 554K+ engagements, a 5.5% engagement rate, and 2K+ shares and saves, positioning the premiere as one of the brand’s strongest-performing content moments of the year. These metrics demonstrated our ability to dominate conversation during a high-volume cultural week.
Earned and paid talent amplification significantly expanded reach and validated our strategy of using cultural voices to reintroduce the property. Across 79 activated influencers and celebrity-level partners—including Hari Nef, Cole Walliser, and Richie Shazam—the relaunch delivered 40M+ potential reach, 312 earned posts, 8.8M+ impressions, and $130K+ EMV. The content showed consistently positive sentiment, confirming that the transformation resonated with audiences across culture, design, and lifestyle communities.
Brand lift studies demonstrated the campaign’s impact on the broader W Hotels brand: +6.6-point increase in consideration (vs. +1.5 benchmark) and a +10.5-point increase in favorability (vs. +1.4 benchmark). These results directly ladder back to our strategic objective of repositioning W Hotels within the luxury lifestyle category.
Beyond launch week, the program delivered a sustained storytelling pipeline—including editorial photography, hi-fi content, and lo-fi reels—that continues to support social, PR, and global brand initiatives. By combining design, culture, and creator-driven narratives, the relaunch reestablished W New York – Union Square as an NYC icon and proved that W Hotels can create cultural moments with long-term brand value.
