In 2004, sexy and provocative posters abounded in Belfast’s streets and airport, and the same images graced the pages of local airlines. A young, refined and sensual woman wearing a mask invites: “I’m the best night you’ll ever have”. This original campaign announced the opening of the brand’s new property in Ireland, its eighth to be exact. For Malmaison it does not represent just one more hotel, but a symbol of its new strategy, the standard bearer of the chain’s renewal after ten years of existence. It uses this voluntarily provocative communication to help renew its avant-garde and glamour image that has grown a bit tarnished over ??time. “In recent years, we have felt that the brand’s essence had faded,” explains Mme Roz Colthart, the brand’s marketing director. In fact, Malmaison Hotels had lost its personality on the “lifestyle” market. It was time to emphasise once again the “cool” aspect. “For us, cool means innovative and eccentric,” resumes Mrs Roz Colthart. This also corresponded to a new phase in the chain’s life. It definitively joined the London real estate group Marylebone Warwick Balfour, which in 2002 bought 50% of the shares owned by Rezidor SAS, which had another view of its potential development.While it is obvious that the two lifestyle brands will keep their specific identities, there are many possibilities for partnerships and these are expected to multiply in the future. As far as concerns Malmaison, three new properties – in addition to Belfast- will open soon in Reading and Liverpool, but above all in Oxford this month. Advertising for the latter shows a woman’s hand handcuffed to a leather chair with the caption “This time we’re taking no prisoners”. Malmaison has not finished playing on its image as a chic and shocking agitator with its oh-so-British spirit.The brand, which...