The Virgin Hotel recently announced that it would be opening its Chicago location in December, but the multinational conglomerate wants everyone to keep guessing about everything else. Virgin has been tight-lipped about its new project in Chicago since it began transforming the Old Dearborn Bank Building over two years ago. During construction, they covered all of the windows with red tarps, and even asked Hotel Chatter to remove a rendering that they had stumbled upon and published online. At the beginning of the year, Chicago Magazine listed the hotel as one of the most anticipated openings of 2014, and wondered whether the new hotel would be clad in Virgin's trademark neon purple and red. The project has also been delayed numerous times, leading to some speculation about what is happening with it. So, Virgin's having fun with keeping media people guessing, but now they're taking their trolling to the streets of Chicago.
The company recently launched a guerrilla marketing campaign where they place floor mats with little messages (or "rumors" as their PR people prefer to say) on them throughout the city. The mats have been placed outside of competing hotels such as the Wit and the Hard Rock Hotel. Previously, Virgin launched the campaign with a series of videos of Sir Richard Branson himself reading off a list of supposed wild rumors about the hotel (cheeky bugger). Anyways, Virgin is clearly having fun keeping everyone in Chicago's Loop out of the proverbial loop about what the heck this new hotel will actually be like. Guess we'll have to wait until December to know for sure.
·Chicago's Mysterious Virgin Hotel to Open this December [Curbed Chicago]
·Much Delayed Virgin Hotel to Delay Opening Yet Again [Curbed Chicago]
·Previous Hotel Boom Town coverage [Curbed Chicago]