AC Hotels branding campaign features David Helpern as design spokesperson

We think you’ll recognize the voice. It claims: “This is the kind of place that a guest will remember, and that a guest will want to return to.”

The memorable place is the latest Helpern Architects-designed hotel to open: the AC Hotel New York Times Square on West 40th Street. The voice belongs to David Helpern.

To mark the opening, AC Hotels by Marriott© – an “entrepreneurial lifestyle brand” with a “European soul and Spanish roots” now in 15 countries – simultaneously launched its “Unpacked” branding campaign to distinguish its properties by their attention to Design – note the capital D.

Wonderfully, AC Hotels decided to use David in the campaign. In two separate videos, he discusses how design and design details not only influence the feelings and provide the sensations of the AC experience, they will also attract today’s smart young traveler.

The shorter video, the campaign lead-in, uses David’s unscripted baritone voiceover to emphasize the design message: “You may not look at the details the way an architect may look at the details, but you will feel them,” says the voice. The 60-second video interviews David himself. This is not typical hotel marketing. Not a bed in sight.

Describing his involvement with the campaign, David says, “This adventure started with Karl [Lehrke] and me talking to AC’s agency. A couple of weeks later, they asked me to come for an off-the-cuff conversation in a studio with cameras running. I had no idea what would come of this. In essence, we have inadvertently become the spokesperson for the best of AC’s design intentions. That’s nice acknowledgement of our work.”

The videos appear on the AC website and, we’re told, run in every AC hotel room around the world!

As for the AC Hotel New York Times Square itself, according to the editor of the hip CoolHunting.com, it turned out very well.

Note: Fred & Farid New York is the creative agency behind “Unpacked.” The brand leader behind the campaign is Benoit Racle, Senior Global Director, AC Hotels by Marriott.