When an iconic hospitality brand meets a streetwear label with the ideal name, it makes for a perfect match and an unforgettable collaboration. Here’s the story:
In 2024, The Ritz-Carlton—a brand known for its prestigious service and commitment to always leaving guests better than they arrived—launched their partnership with Late Checkout, a Madrid-based fashion house known for a playful approach and hospitality-inspired point of view.
In a time when “Brand A x Brand B” activations are becoming all too common, The Ritz-Carlton chose Late Checkout carefully — seeing great potential in matching a label inspired by carefree stays with its own reputation for exceptional escapes at hotels and resorts around the world.
This partnership also offered a chance for The Ritz-Carlton reach into the growing world of entertainment content, staying on trend and taking a leading role in the luxury hospitality space by creating an adventurous and unexpected narrative.
The collaboration unfolded with three interlocking parts:
Overall objectives:
To tell Late Checkout: A Ritz-Carlton Story, we worked with filmmakers Little Spain to create our “Leave Better” tale at The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong.
Our story drops in on a family helped through a difficult situation by The Ritz-Carlton. It’s about the synergy between service & guest, where we offer a keen sense of understanding, anticipation, and care, presented with humor and 16mm cinematic style that separates it from typical aspirational travel content.
Under the umbrella of “Leave Better,” the film includes a series of key brand touchpoints, connecting the plot and characters to themes and priorities of The Ritz-Carlton:
To present the concept of “Leave Better,” we found a star perfect for the role — Josh Hutcherson. Guiding the film’s guests through the experience of The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, and showcasing the style of Late Checkout, Hutcherson lends a familiar face to our campaign, and made the perfect ambassador for The Ritz-Carlton on film.
Interwoven with the story and brand touchpoints is the style of Late Checkout, both in a playful approach to tone and aesthetics and actual pieces from the capsule collection.
For the capsule collection, Late Checkout designed a series of irresistible pieces — joggers, hats, jackets and more inspired by leisurely Ritz-Carlton stays and emblazoned with vintage-inspired Ritz-Carlton and Late Checkout graphics.
Sharing the story
With the full short film on YouTube as an anchor point, we launched a social media campaign across TikTok, Meta, and LinkedIn, with the capsule collection available for sale on the retail site of The Ritz-Carlton.
On Instagram and Facebook, we focused on sharing the story of the film with in-feed posts and Reels, including narrative slices from the film and looks from the collection. On Instagram Stories, we used the capsule collection to drive viewers to retail.
On TikTok, our focus was on driving traffic, with dark posts sharing looks from the capsule collection modeled at The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong.
The run-up to the launch of our campaign included additional activations — at The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park, a launch party shared more looks from the collection and gave influencers a chance to be the first to see and celebrate the Late Checkout capsule collection.
As the campaign debuted, our mix of unique aesthetics, creative fashion, and legendary hospitality proved to be a perfect combination.
In only a matter of days, the capsule collection effectively sold out. The strength of the content and clothing and our traffic-focused posts on Instagram Stories and TikTok drove a rush to buy.
We saw this strong response reflected in a high click-through rate 200-300% over Marriott benchmarks driving our audience to the collection’s retail site.
On TikTok, with 40% of our spend on Meta, the platform delivered 80% of Meta’s impressions – showing our TikTok audience’s high interest in the collaboration and the value of a retail campaign properly executed.
In total, we achieved:
We were struck by the qualitative "buzz" achieved by the campaign, as it broke through the noise of typical luxury hotel content.
We saw earned coverage commenting not only on the film and the collection, but also analyzing our strategy and noting the high level of excitement, and received comments approvingly discussing the film, Hutcherson, The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, and the capsule collection.
And, as the capsule collection sold out, we continued to see strong interest in purchasing, reflecting the appeal of the collaboration and positive sentiment about The Ritz-Carlton and Late Checkout, including among younger luxury consumers.
Conclusion
We see Late Checkout: A Ritz-Carlton Story as an unqualified success.
The combination of a unique short film and a limited capsule collection created with Late Checkout built awareness and excitement among our desired audiences, and reframed the values of “Leave Better” and The Ritz-Carlton in a new, creative, and contemporary light.
With this successful integration of narrative content, retail launch, and brand marketing — a stylish and creative story of how guests will “Leave Better” with The Ritz-Carlton and Late Checkout — we are excited to embark on even more ambitious collaborations in the future to further stand out in the luxury hotel space.
