Helping the world’s largest luxury hospitality brand to Inspire Incredible from the inside, out

The challenge

One of the world's leading luxury travel brands, InterContinental came to us at a pivotal moment in its evolution.

With 75 years of rich history behind it, the brand wanted to modernise and redefine what it stood for as both an employer and a luxury experience provider.

Our brief was to create a unifying culture proposition and service philosophy to support InterContinental’s new brand strategy. It needed to attract the right talent and shape the right guest experience across its hotels and resorts. InterContinental sought something uniquely their own that complemented the brand and culture of its parent company, IHG.

The solution

We worked closely with InterContinental’s core team and general manager stakeholders to gain deep insight into the global brand and culture. Then, we developed an authentic, globally relevant proposition based on the idea that InterContinental is the place to ‘Inspire Incredible’ in all that you do. The statement unified the employee and guest experience and positioned InterContinental as a place where talent can grow and deliver incredible guest moments.

To bring the new proposition to life for employees, we developed three new brand culture values and an employee behaviour framework.

They sat alongside a service philosophy framework and principles that gave examples on how to ‘Inspire Incredible’ across internal teams and within every guest’s experience.

We also crafted a digital playbook and series of missions and assets for InterContinental’s global network of general managers. Built as a globally consistent yet locally adaptable framework, these resources empowered leaders to activate, embed and sustain cultural change across their properties – balancing brand consistency with the freedom to reflect local culture, context and personality.

We created launch and activation materials that built a strong, brand-led visual identity for InterContinental to express ‘Inspire Incredible’ in a distinctive way.

The impact

We helped InterContinental launch its new culture through a series of global general manager events. We then supported the rollout of the new EVP and service philosophy across its global workforce, with materials and plans for all-colleague launch events, alongside ongoing engagement and embedding initiatives. The result is a culture that is clearly defined and built to scale – brought to life consistently across a global brand, while giving teams the flexibility to reflect local character and deliver incredible experiences in every market.