Wink Hotels
Wink is a new kind of hotel within the Vietnamese hospitality space for a new breed of travelers. The brand is inspired by the tenacity of the Indochine mentality. It aspires to find harmony between modernity, innovation, and efficiency while embracing the city vibe.
Service(s):
Naming
Tone of Voice
Holding Site
Brand Concept Video
Naming
The vibrant new brand required a fun, energetic name that would speak to the Vietnamese millennials and nod to its playful brand culture. The ideal name would be English and easily understood and pronounced by a Vietnamese audience. ‘Wink’ stood out from a strong shortlist for its approachable, tongue-in-cheek meaning. While it conveys the cool, ‘in-the-know’ brand personality, it also gives plenty of room for creativity in terms of visual branding. W;nk just gets it, you know?
Tone of Voice
The voice of Wink is personified by a chic and cheerful character, someone who the target audience aspires to become. The embodiment of Indochine 2.0, the brand voice reflects the region’s infectious optimism and bold style, peppering its speech with upbeat exclamations while maintaining a cool, clued-in tone.
Slightly more female than male, the stylish brand character might be an entrepreneur, a party-starter, or a fashionista. She is a bold risk-taker. A straight-shooter. And happy to be a starlet under the social spotlight. As a native of Indochina, she proudly embraces the region’s modernity and traditions. She is a cosmopolite who respects local sensibilities but isn’t confined by them. And she isn’t afraid to let you know when she is having fun.
The voice of the brand seamlessly alternates between sleek prose and cheerful expressions. It plays with punctuation and phrasing, creating a unique and engaging tone while remaining easy to understand.
Holding Site
Although the hotel was still in development, the absence of a physical property didn’t stop it from kick-starting its digital presence. I worked with the design team to conceptualize a sleek holding website to stir up excitement for the new brand. Aside from concise, one-word headlines, the staccato web copy featured fun onomatopoeias, local lexicons, and memorable micro UX copy.
Brand Concept Video
Taking inspiration from the name ‘Wink,’ I created the video storyboard under the concept of ‘a blink of an eye.’ I was highly involved in sourcing the video footage and instructed the video team on how the editing needed to mimic the eye movements. In every blink of an eye, the video should take the viewer to a different location, a new experience. The strategy is to show and not tell, swiftly conveying the energetic and fast-paced personality of the brand in brief motions.
