From DJ to Hospitality Experience Designer - Pablo Lopez, M Social New York

Pablo Lopez is the marketing director at M Social New York and in this episode, we talk about a fun activation they did to create a mini rooftop pickleball court on their property. But we also talk about the role of experiences in providing hospitality. Pablo, Thanks so much for taking a little time to chat about a fun activation. Before we get into that activation, I wonder if you could tell me just a little bit about your career journey in hospitality and what led you to your role today.

Yeah, absolutely. You know it's funny, I actually got into hospitality by accident. In a previous life. I was actually a DJ and I actually used to DJ for W Hotels in Atlanta and you know I started DJing like manager trainings for them. I'm like, who are these guys Like? Why am I DJing manager, like corporate manager trainings and and I just I was really intrigued and you know I think I always really appreciate it hospitality and so that evolved into me starting a career with W Hotels and, and you know, working in their marketing departments and kind of really like I was, I became the lifestyle marketing guy in Atlanta for W Hotels out there at the time and, long story short, I spent like 10 years with W Hotels. I'm from New York. They brought me back to New York from Atlanta, spent some years here, you know, really trying to re-energize the W Hotel brand in New York. Then I jumped from with the big Marriott merger. I kind of you know there was a lot of shifts and I jumped to a couple startup brands, which is a great experience for me, so really got into the brand development side and then worked with one hotels for a while as a marketing director and yeah, and now I'm working with Highgate and I'm social, which is really exciting because I mean, everybody knows Highgate and you know the, the power that they have in the industry, and so it's really exciting to be a part of this, this company. Now.

I want to get into this project you've worked on most recently. But I have to ask him always fascinated by how do people get attracted to hospitality, you're working as a DJ pretty fun life what attracted you to working in hospitality?

Well, one of the reasons I got into DJing was was because I was really into creating unique experience, experiences for people, and I did events. I did events and curated events and you know I started working with a brand like W Hotels. Well, you know, they were all about stimulating all the senses and I honestly just became obsessed with like, really curating special experiences for people, memorable experiences. I'm a creative at heart. It was this beautiful creative space that I entered that, you know, for a while there I would actually tell folks like I consider myself to be an artist and a creative and hotels are my canvas and yeah, so that's that's how I got into hospitality.

I love that analogy of hotels as a canvas. Right, I want to fast forward. So you, you have been working in hospitality for some time. Then you get this, this role at M social which you mentioned, and so to this notion of hotels being a canvas. As you were talking before this, you mentioned kind of one of your first walkthroughs of of the hotel. Then you see the rooftop and what's going through your head is is your touring, touring the property and you see the opportunity there.

I mean, I have to start when, when I first heard that I was like I had to go meet with somebody at a hotel in Times Square, I'm, like you know, as a typical New Yorker, I'm like, oh man, come on, I don't want to go to Times Square, right. But then, to my surprise, and it's, it's kind of a fun little journey to make your way in there, because you, you arrive and you don't really see anything when you get there. It's like a cool little, you know atrium. When you first walk in, you have to take the elevators up to the lobby and so when those doors open from the elevator, it was just like whoa, like where, like I had no idea this existed, like wow, this is incredible, like this, this is awesome. And so it's an incredible lobby, huge open space, open layout, like it's just it's a great space to walk into and then to discover the outdoor terrace and and seeing that view. I I've been in New York for a big part of my life and I had never seen this view of Times Square. You're literally sitting right above Times Square, looking in on it right from above. It's on 52nd Street, so it's like right above, right it's, it's kind of away from the madness and and it's just an amazing view, like it really helps you appreciate, like the magic of Times Square and and, honestly, that energy is is sort of contagious right, because you you know you're flying in from wherever but it's really cool to be immersed in that right.

You're looking out over a whole bunch of skyscrapers, high rises, you're looking, you know, down in the Times Square area, so there's a lot of energy there. But I imagine, just from your background, from your past life as a DJ you mentioned kind of thinking about these experiences you're also thinking about kind of ways that you can work together with other players and in in the space to to create these experiences. Right, and I wonder, maybe just to illustrate the opportunity and kind of some of the stuff that you're doing, if we could talk about your most recent activation, which is this rooftop pickleball court activation. Tell me about this, what? What does it include?

so we have this one corner of this terrace. It's been enclosed and they've done some fun activations before me. They're like curling. They had a curling rink there at one point and it's this very large space that we have to play with there. Again, going back to that canvas like we have this blank canvas and we have creative freedom to do whatever we want with the space. Right, but, of course, always thinking of, like, how do we enhance the guest experience in a unique way? And also how do we attract locals to experience this, because it's not just for, you know, the travelers. Like this is a great experience for any new yorker, and so I happen to be a fan of tennis and pickleball and it's just really exciting to see the the energy around it right now. And you know a lot of. You know we work with a lot of spirit brands too in this world, and partnering with spirit brands, to, you know, create these unique experiences, and a lot of times, spirit brands will have branded things laying around and you'll always hear ping pong tables and stuff like that. We're like no, no, no, no, we gotta, we gotta do something a little more special here, and so pickleball court was just like when that light bulb went off, I think with sour too, like with the whole PR team, and everybody were like, yes, that is it, like that has to be it and and so it's cool. So it's technically a mini pickleball court, still very large when you see it in the space, but it's not like full regulation but the the idea here is we're not trying to like have tournaments up there, right, it's. It's a food and beverage experience too, right. So we have a beast and butterflies, which is the restaurant of the hotel, and they have an incredible food menu, like modern american food menu and great cocktails. And we've partnered with great goose, which is one of the sponsors of the us open. So we're kind of excited to do this around the us open. We have the signature gray goose honeydews cocktail featured in the program and when you book, you know, when you book your slot in there, that comes with the honeydews cocktail. So it's a fun experience. Again, it's not like hardcore, we're gonna play a tournament today, but it's like you know, grab a group of friends, have some drinks, get some light bites and, and you know, and have some fun with pickleball.

I love it. What's?

the reaction been so far. It's been great, it's been really great and I mean honestly it's exciting because we are starting to get a lot of bookings and yeah, it's an easy sell kind of it's a pickleball court with the backdrop of time square, you know, drinks and great food, like yeah, it's a great experience it's super fun.

I'm curious how you think about you mentioned this is also a fun experience for local new yorkers right to to go and take part in. How do you think about designing these experiences? You know, as it relates to attracting locals versus visitors, is it? Is that intentional? Is it just you just try to create something fun and and hope it attracts both, or is there some kind of strategy to engage both audiences?

it goes a little deeper, like you know. For me, like when I think about a marketing strategy for a lifestyle brand, I think the brand needs to have a soul, and the brand identity of MSocial is that it's supposed to be a reflection of the surroundings. Right? So you know, what we're trying to do with the brand is have it be a reflection of New York City so that when travelers are in this space, they're experiencing New York City culture, the soul of New York City, right? So you know, beyond these type of activations I mean, we have, you know, weekly live music series we do a lot of things to bring in New Yorkers and New York creatives and people that align with this fun, playful brand. And Pickleball is the same thing. It's a reflection of what's going on in New York City right now. I mean, the courts are all over the place, like you know. I think I've seen basketball courts and all sorts of other courts being turned into Pickleball courts, like it's everywhere. So I think it's important to you know, with that being a main pillar of the brand, like it's important to bring in what's going on in New York City, you know.

I love it. How do you stay dialed into what's going to resonate with people, because everything's always changing Like Pickleball is hot right now but how do you stay immersed in the culture and get a sense of what's going to resonate with people?

Well, I don't have much downtime. I like to stay outside a lot. I'm always active and, yeah and again, I'm a very passionate person and I'm very passionate about hospitality and I love New York City. I love this city and you know the New York City culture. Nobody stays home right Like. There's always something to do and it's. You know, I'm always looking to be stimulated and see. You know, the next big thing and I think this is being in this marketing, in this lifestyle marketing space. It's a lot of fun to see what other brands are doing, because we're all kind of like, not, I mean, I guess you know we kind of do compete but like, but it's kind of this friendly competition in the world of creatives, of like who's going to come up with the next like most innovative thing or the next experience that really, like you know, takes off, you know. So it's fun to see that.

Really and it's not a sort of kind of like zero sum game, right? I think there it's one of those things where you can expand in. You can reach so many people that maybe hadn't thought about you know, spending some of their downtime or some of their fund budget on, you know, at a hotel. But I think, going back to your analogy of a canvas, that really resonates with me, because the hotels have this physical presence, you know, in these neighborhoods, in these cities, and the approach that you took of thinking about Kay, what do we have to work with here, the physical building, and then kind of how can we bring together people to create a fun experience? And I guess I would be curious to hear just a little bit more about how that the design process works. Is it start, as you know, like you and Sarah and the PR team, kind of think about like what would be fun and worth talking about, and then kind of like what if you could just kind of briefly walk us through that process of from ideation to, you know, getting everything lined up to deploying the activation?

Well, I love where the ideas always start right, because, as a creative and like working with Sarah and the PR team, I feel like in these spaces we're very creative, right, so we start, we shoot for the stars right, we start with the craziest ideas, right, but then the practical operations team has to come in and be like, okay, but actually this is what we can actually do, right. But no, I mean, through the years, I think you kind of you kind of start understanding what challenges are being faced in operations, right, and because at the end of the day, like you need to take care of the essentials, right, and the essential functions of the hotel before you could do the creative stuff right. So I think that it's important to start very creative, right, but then you have to think of practicality. And you know, when we think about different concepts for this space, our ideas could get very left field, right, but then it's like, okay, but also what happens when there's a buyout, right, what happens when a corporate group needs to use that space? Right, so that's a fun challenge to face, right, because you have to get creative with that. And so what's great about this pickleball court is that it's you know, we got it built right. So it's this you know it's got it's nice safe ledges right and, and you know you can easily still have an event there and people can utilize that flooring right. So the space is still very flexible, which is very needed.

Interesting. And then, how do you think about partnerships and who to bring in on activations like this, because it seems those partnerships have the opportunity to create this really differentiated experience, you know, for your guests. Who are you thinking of working with and how do you kind of approach that?

I think you know, when we talk about lifestyle brands, right, I almost like to look at lifestyle brands as people, right. So you kind of have to align with the people that you would hang out with, right, so you align with brands that kind of, you know, feel the same. And you know this property before me had already had a relationship with Bacardi and I think you know, and Great Goose being a brand of Bacardi. So, and I mean, if you look at what Great Goose is doing out there in the experiential marketing space, it's impressive and as a lifestyle brand they're they're very aligned with the M social brand and it made perfect sense, right. And it's really exciting to kind of be slightly connected to the whole US Open experience, right, because we all know what that does to the city, like the energy that it brings to the city is incredible. In fact, this hotel is also a popular place for players to stay in, and so just that alignment with Great Goose are involved in with the US Open, because, you know, can't speak on that much right now, but, like you know, we also do have a direct connection to the US Open. So just tying that all together, it just it's a match made in heaven.

I think, as you're explaining this, one thing that stands out to me is how important relationships are and deeply embedding yourself not only within the workflows and the people working at your hotel there's the operational component but I think, also just in the city. You know living the life right and you can't introduce other people to things that you haven't experienced yourself and think from your background and what you've told me. It seems like you're just out there experiencing different things, and I think that's a good message for all of our listeners to be out there. You can't you can't plan all this from a desk, right? You got to be out there enjoying life, trying new things, hanging out with interesting people, and it seems like that's where some of the most interesting concepts come from, like this one.

I love that you pointed that out, because, yeah, these roles, being in these roles for so many years, that's what it takes. But you have to love it, you have to be passionate about it, because then it's not like work. I mean, like I remember one time I was developing a fitness program for a brand and I spent three months trying every like fitness class out there in New York City. That was so much fun. I'll never forget that experience, right. So it's like not like, it's like not work, it's fun, you know. So I think it's important to really like be passionate about what you do, and especially in the hospitality world.