City of Dreams Brand Creation

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Macau has become a leading Asian leisure destination following deregulation of its gaming industry, and the entry of world-renowned gaming entertainment resort brands. City of Dreams, an integrated entertainment resort developed by Melco Crown Entertainment, included world-renowned brands such as Hard Rock, Crown Towers, Hyatt and Dragone.

The main challenge for The Brand Union Hong Kong was to create a destination brand for City of Dreams that would stand out in the competitive Macau marketplace yet be cohesive enough to unite its strong partner-brands under an umbrella positioning.

The Brand Strategy

The brand positioning for City of Dreams was based around “Diversity and Choice”, inspired by the different experiences and options one would normally find round-the-clock in a world-class city. The brand’s personality attributes were contemporary, spontaneous, vibrant and casually urbane. This strategy distinguished City of Dreams from the static and more conventional offers of competitors, as well as accommodated the existing physical infrastructure, various partner propositions and audiences of the existing brand mix.

Creating the logomark

To balance out the positioning that was led very much by the notion of “city”, our logomark design was developed to connote the ethereal, vibrant and imaginative properties of “dreams”. The idea was also selected because it represented the dome-shaped theatre called The Bubble, one of the iconic landmarks located in City of Dreams.

The Bright Idea

One of the key opportunities that set the City of Dreams apart from its competition was the round-the-clock entertainment offered through its casinos, theatres, nightclubs, retail and F&B precincts. Thus this became the inspiration for our Bright Idea – simply referred to as “24-7” – which was also the foundation for our visual identity system.

We subsequently developed the horizon graphic device that was applied across collateral in two different ways to denote day and night. This produced a dynamic and flexible visual system that was meant to capture the diverse collection of experiences within the City. In particular, the strong vibrant colours in the logo and visual system stood out in a marketplace that was awash with auspicious gold emblazoned identities.

Creating the sub-brands

We created names for two of the core attractions at City of Dreams - an animated show housed in a dome-shape theatre which was named The Bubble, and the retail and F&B strip named The Boulevard.

The visual identities for these two sub-brands not only reflected their architectural designs, but expressed their relationship with the masterbrand by adopting its colour palette and typeface. We also developed the naming and identity for five F&B brands within the resort.

“The Brand Union Hong Kong has turned a dream into a reality by developing a contemporary and dynamic identity system for City of Dreams that creatively brings to life the gaming and entertainment offering as well as the core positioning of the brand.” Mario Natoli, Director of Brands and Communications.