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AN INTERVIEW BY MEG NOLAN
PHOTO BY TODD EBERLE
Richard Pandiscio is the kind of creative genius you want at your side when you’re developing your brand - he’s quick, thoughtful and, as his firm’s website says, ready "to brave the new world with you". The former creative director at Interview magazine is now at the helm of his 11-year-old Pandiscio Co., which has branded more than 4.5 billion dollars’ worth of luxury real estate over the last four years, mostly New York properties like Jean Nouvel’s 40 Mercer, Philip Johnson’s The Urban Glass House and the Cipriani Club Residences
at 55 Wall Street. Considering his successes, it’s no surprise that director Julian Schnabel, fashion label Jil Sander and hotelier André Balazs consult with him. Sitting down with the design mastermind, we sought to extract as much hotel branding and design advice as possible.
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Q: What’s non-negotiable for you in terms of a quality hotel stay?
A: The most basic thing for me is that I need to be able to communicate when I’m away from home. Wireless or technology is my number one thing.
Q: Okay, so what about just plain comfort necessities?
A: For comfort’s sake the room must be clean, but that seems sort of obvious. I also think the check-in experience is really important. Usually you’ve been travelling, you’re exhausted, and you just want to understand how your room works. That’s something a lot of hotels forget - to explain how the room functions. Really, it’s just an ease of entry. The location is very important as well. If you’re there for business you just want to be able to get around.
Q: Once you’ve determined what a hotel needs to do, how do you transition to developing a new hotel’s brand or image?
A: Totally new hotels are really fun. First it’s usually about understanding the product. And if you’re in early enough, then it’s also about shaping the product to the final image. With design and branding, you’re always looking for the unique proposition. Today there are a lot of hotels out there and so you have to stand out.
Q: Given that the word ‘luxury’ has become so commonplace these days, how do you convey to a saturated audience that a hotel is indeed luxurious?
A: It’s just as you learn as a writer - ‘Show Don’t Tell’. And it’s the same with the materials you create. You have to create them to a certain standard. The quality of the production, the writing and the photography all make the statement. When you can see it and feel it, it’s far more compelling than ever being told about it. It’s like, okay, now prove it. And that’s why production is such a big part of what we do.
Q: If I were to open my own hotel tomorrow and couldn’t employ your branding services, is there some sort of cheat sheet you could give me?
A: You have to think about how you want people to talk about your hotel. What do you want them to say? You need to come up with that idea, and then you go from there.
Q: How exactly do you translate that into an image, particularly if the idea is intangible?
A: You let your marketing methods act out the idea. If you want to be spontaneous, then be spontaneous with your ads. And as importantly, you must be consistent. The more times you can repeat the idea, the more it will take hold in the minds of your customers.
Q: How consistently do you like to see the brand disseminated across the project? Is there such a thing as overkill?
A: Yes. But not so long as the quality is consistent - from the swizzle stick, to the check-in card, to the pen in the room. I mean, the key bob of a hotel is really important, plus there’s the practical element too. I always use my key to show the taxi driver where I’m going or to say ‘here’s the phone number’. You want to consider all those elements - all those walk-away items, because they become little advertisements of the hotel. They have a marketing value, and I recommend investing in that.
Q: If you were budget-free, what would you do in terms of the design and branding of a hotel and why?
A: I would customize absolutely everything in the hotel. It makes it clear that this experience is different from any other experience you can have, and that the management cared enough to think through every single item. You have to assume that if they thought that carefully about the cocktail napkins then they probably thought just as carefully about the bed linen or about details like where the electrical outlets should go.
Q: So, when you go into a hotel room are your eyes constantly scanning?
A: (Laughs). Yeah, for a long time! I inventory every single thing in the room. I make a list, describe the room and even take photographs of it. I don’t do it so much for myself but to show other clients why it’s worthwhile paying attention to those things. Usually we’ll get a list of deliverables from a client in the beginning and I know by the time we’re done, it’s going to be ten times as long. It’s just a matter of being able to think about those things earlier enough in the process to be able to have the time to develop them all properly. Plus the more time you have, the more cost-effective you can be.
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