Marlin Group had built its business on aparthotels in the UK – professional, functional, well-suited to mid-market business travel. The new Dublin property changed two things at once. It was the first venture outside the UK. And it was a full hotel rather than an aparthotel – a new category for the group.

The Dublin location had a complicated story. Bow Lane sits two minutes from Grafton Street and St Stephen’s Green – central by any measure. But it’s on the wrong side of the Stephen’s Green Centre, adjacent to less polished neighbours, and not visible from any main thoroughfare. A passer-by wouldn’t see the hotel and could walk past the street without noticing it.

A new category, a new market, and a location with real downsides. The brand had to do meaningful work.

Slater led the engagement. I worked alongside the team as strategic partner.

The strategic insight – tucked away as a value, not a flaw

The Marlin had two location problems. It was hard to find. And what surrounded it wasn’t a polished cityscape.

Most hotel brands in the same position would fight one or both – build awareness around being there, suggest the area was up-and-coming, find a way to mention the proximity without dwelling on the surroundings. That approach treats the location as a deficit to overcome.

The reframe came from the other direction. The hotel’s strengths – the interior, the rooms, the food, the proximity to Grafton Street and Stephen’s Green – meaningfully outweighed the visibility and adjacency issues. The hotel wasn’t a compromise. It was a find.

A find changes the proposition. The hotel becomes the kind of place an insider visitor seeks out, recommends quietly, returns to. The visibility problem stops being a problem and starts being part of why the experience feels different to staying somewhere obvious.

‘Tucked away at the heart of things’ became the central idea. Central enough to walk to everything. Tucked away enough to feel like a discovery.

1. FROM: A new hotel in a central but less visible location, in less polished surroundings, with no brand recognition outside the UK aparthotel category.
2. VIA: A hotel a visitor has to look for is a hotel that rewards looking. The location’s downsides contain the proposition.
3. TO: A find. Central but tucked away. For visitors who want to discover where they stay rather than be processed through it.

Finding the articulation

The brand idea needed two pieces of work – a positioning that anchored the strategic insight, and a tagline that carried it into everyday language.

The positioning: Tucked away at the heart of things. Central Dublin, intimately scaled, for the visitor who wants to find their hotel rather than be sold one.

The tagline: You are here: Don’t just stay, live!

‘You are here’ is map language – the locator phrase a visitor recognises from every city map and every airport. It places the visitor at the heart of Dublin, with a knowing nod to the tucked-away quality. ‘Don’t just stay, live!’ invites a different kind of relationship with the hotel – not a place to sleep between sights, but a place to be in the city. It fits a (post)modern format that mixes work, rest, food and meeting under the same roof.

The sub-brand: Here.

The food and drink offer needed its own identity – distinct enough to feel like a destination in its own right, connected enough to belong to the hotel. The answer was a single word: Here.

‘Here’ threads back to ‘You are here’ as the central brand idea. It also stands alone as a single-word restaurant brand – immediate, unpretentious, in keeping with the hotel’s register. A guest staying at Marlin eats at Here. A Dubliner who’s never stayed can drop in at Here without it feeling like a hotel restaurant.

Making it real

The visual identity, graphic design and signage came through Slater – clean, contemporary, suited to the hotel’s interior register without overpowering it. Photography emphasised the people in the spaces rather than the architecture alone – guests working, sharing food, meeting. The tucked-away idea showed up in the way the hotel was photographed: discovered rather than displayed.

Signage and wayfinding inside the building carried the ‘You are here’ idea consistently – the map-language thread running into the lived experience of the property. Menus, collateral and in-room communications all drew on the same simple vocabulary, in keeping with a brand that doesn’t over-explain itself.

Why it works

The reframe holds because it’s honest. The Marlin really is tucked away. The neighbours really aren’t a polished cityscape. The brand doesn’t pretend otherwise – it positions the visitor as someone who chooses these things over the obvious alternatives.

For visitors, this is a different value proposition than the average city-centre hotel. Not ‘stay where everyone stays’, but ‘stay somewhere you found’. The recommendation pattern shifts. People talk about Marlin the way they talk about a restaurant they discovered – with quiet pride.

For the Marlin Group, the case extends the brand’s range. The aparthotel core stays put. Marlin now also signifies the kind of hotel a visitor has to look for – giving the group a different proposition to play in different markets without diluting the original.

• The challenge: Launch the Marlin Group’s first international hotel and first non-aparthotel, in a central but tucked-away Dublin location with real visibility and adjacency issues
• The insight: A hotel a visitor has to look for is a hotel that rewards looking – the location’s downsides contain the proposition
• The articulation: Marlin | You are here: Don’t just stay, live!
• The approach: Position the hotel as a find rather than a default. Sub-brand ‘Here’ for the F&B offer, carrying the central idea into the lived experience
• Partnership: Slater Design. Graphic design and signage by Sinead MacAleer, assisted by Kelan Ó Nualláin.

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