Starwood Hotels takes unusual steps to market the Westin brand.
Most hotel advertising follows a formulaic approach; typically, such promotional graphics feature luxuriant beds or in-room amenities that entice would-be patrons to relax or optimize preparations during business travel.
Starwood Hotels, which owns the Westin Hotels & Resorts brand, bucked the trend when it developed its $30 million, multi-platform campaign that promotes the Westin brand. Eschewing traditional hotel advertising themes, Deutsch Inc. (NYC), Starwood’s agency of record, executed a campaign entitled “This is How It Should Feel,” which features exhilarating or sanguine imagery, such as sky divers or a rock garden, to equate enthusiasm to travel.
Deutsch and Mediavest (also of NYC), the project’s media buyer, hired Atomic Props (Oakdale, MN) to fabricate 3-D billboards that provide a larger-than-life forum to breathe life into these whimsical designs.

Measuring 26 ft. 3 in. x 24 ft., this bloom, by any other size, would not be so sweet. Atomic Props fabricated each petal from Alcan Composites’ Sintra® with heat guns, which formed them into shape, and faux painting before affixing them to the steel frame. The bloom comprises sculpted, hardcoated, expanded-polystyrene (EPS) foam.

Against a digitally printed “wild blue yonder,” Atomic Props captured the freedom and excitement of travel with these coated-EPS-carved skydivers who vary in size from 6 ft. 4 in. to 11 ft. 2 in. They’re embedded into the board with an integral steel armature and painted to match client specs.

Atomic Props created a megasized rock garden, the quintessential Zen symbol of tranquility, to convey an air of relaxation to harried motorists. The 12 ft. 6 in.-wide centerpiece from hardcoated EPS. The moss comprises painted, synthetic fur sealed with flexible glue, and the 14-ft.-long rake comprises sheetmetal and wood rods and dowels.
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