How Late Checkout used Worldbuilding to create an irresistible brand.
From a creative perspective. Many brands do what they can. Logo, website, slogan, and good to go. But others, particularly those in competitive B2C spaces, go above and beyond to create unique brands. When it’s good, thoughtful brand-building is a competitive advantage, when it’s excellent, it's irresistible.
One brand dripping in irresistible is Late Checkout. The Spanish fashion challenger brand is disrupting the international fashion scene. How?
They used a technique called worldbuilding.
Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the act of imagining, designing, and implementing the world of a story. It's most commonly used in literature, cinema, and music. Think Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or even Sex Education as examples.
And perhaps the best thing about worldbuilding is there isn't a singular (or correct), way to go about creating a fictional world.
So The Late Checkout did it their way.
The Late Checkout World
This Spanish label has created an entire aesthetic, from its apparel design to its photography, around the “late-checkout hotel experience”. Setting the scene of the morning after a night-to-forget in a sleepy roadside hotel. Destination unknown.
The concept is bathed in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel references. But it's edgier, darker. Think the Grand Budapest Motel. The characters in the Late Checkout catalog are eccentric. Bellboys, rockstars, Ms. World pageant rejects and middle-aged men in speedos populate the scene. Their posing is unapologetically brooding, like most models, but their context is playful, veering on ridiculous.
Character Collections
Safe to say its characters are a hit. So much so, that the brand leans on its character's charisma to launch collections. Their first collection was “the bellboy”. Based around a clumsy bell-boy. Looking like Timothee Chamalet’s cousin, the bellboy transports (or steals?) guest luggage on a rowboat, walks in on a naked guest, and plays “hotel” with a border collie. All while wearing the latest items from the collection.
Late Checkout’s world is a daring twist on pretentious fashion, and a strong attempt to connect with a niche audience who loves to dress up by dressing down
The Small Details
Beyond creative campaigns. Worldbuilding spills into their other touchpoints across their marketing. Some of their items feature graphics of “Late” KitKats, cigarettes, and coke cans. Things you would find in a motel vending machine. You don't “subscribe to our newsletter”, you “check in while we fix your room”.
These small details help connect the storytelling with the product, and ultimately, the sale.
To conclude
Late Checkout’s world is a daring twist on pretentious fashion, and a strong attempt to connect with a niche audience who loves to dress up by dressing down. It appeals to those leading a life of travel, hotels, and work hard play hard, but don't want to dress like your typical influencer.
The label reverse-engineers the action of seeing a piece of clothing in a movie that you want to buy. Instead, you see the clothes you want to buy in a movie.
And if you think worldbuilding is limited to creative fields like fashion. Think harder, or think again.
What would worldbuilding look like for your brand?
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