Inside Summer in the Square: Creating an Exclusive Dining Experience
Luxury retail is changing.
Across Asia, successful retail destinations are no longer defined solely by the brands they house. Consumers increasingly expect places that offer meaningful experiences, encourage longer visits and become part of their lifestyle. For destination owners, this means shifting from managing retail space to creating places people genuinely want to spend time in.
This was the challenge Hubert & Partners was invited to solve with Union Square, one of Ho Chi Minh City’s most iconic luxury destinations.
Rather than launching another seasonal marketing campaign, our objective was to introduce a new chapter in Union Square’s evolution – from a premium shopping destination to a luxury lifestyle destination.
The Challenge
Union Square had already established itself as home to many of the world’s leading luxury fashion and jewellery houses. However, attracting prestigious brands is only one part of building a successful destination.
The next challenge was creating stronger reasons for people to return beyond shopping.
Our strategic thinking centrally around one key question:
How do you transform a luxury retail destination into a place where people naturally gather, connect and spend time?
Our Strategic Approach
Hubert & Partners developed Summer in the Square as more than an event. It was designed as the first expression of Union Square’s new destination strategy.
Instead of focusing on retail promotions, we built the campaign around three strategic pillars:
Community: creating meaningful connections between guests, creators, media and luxury brands.
Lifestyle: positioning dining, hospitality and culture as equally important parts of the luxury experience.
Content: creating stories designed to travel organically across both physical and digital channels.
Every touchpoint, from guest invitations and creator partnerships to the private Summer Dinner and editorial storytelling, was designed to reinforce Union Square’s new positioning as a destination people visit for experiences, not only purchases.
Summer Dinner:
Creating Experiences
Worth Sharing
At the centre of the campaign was an intimate Summer Dinner, bringing together media, creators, partners and key stakeholders inside Union Square.
The evening showcased a specially curated collaborative menu by NOI Dining and Vietnam House, reflecting Union Square’s vision of bringing together international quality and contemporary Vietnamese hospitality.
Rather than hosting a traditional launch event, the dinner encouraged genuine conversations, relationship building and authentic storytelling—creating content naturally through shared experiences instead of scripted promotion.
Our strategy recognised that today’s luxury experiences don’t end when guests leave the venue.
Creator partnerships, editorial features and social-first storytelling extended the campaign well beyond the dinner itself, allowing audiences to discover Union Square through trusted voices and authentic personal perspectives.
The campaign engaged leading creators, lifestyle media and luxury publications including Robb Report, Đẹp Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, L’Officiel, Z News, Saigoneer, TravelSig+, Wow Weekend helping reinforce Union Square’s repositioning within Vietnam’s luxury landscape.
The Results
The first edition of Summer in the Square successfully demonstrated how a carefully curated experience can strengthen both brand positioning and community engagement.
Highlights included:
1. Approximately 1.3 million total campaign impressions
2. Nearly 198,000 verified audience reach
3. 12.4% engagement rate
4. Collaboration with 7 KOLs & creators, generating 55 stories and multiple feed posts across social platforms.
Beyond the numbers, the audience profile closely aligned with Union Square’s target positioning, with strong interests in fashion (77.6%), beauty (58.0%), luxury (53.6%) and travel (52.1%), validating the campaign’s ability to reach an affluent lifestyle audience.
Beyond a Campaign
For Hubert & Partners, Summer in the Square was never intended to be a one-off activation.
It represents the beginning of a longer destination-building journey – one where retail, dining, culture and community work together to create lasting value for both visitors and brands.
As luxury retail continues to evolve, we believe the destinations that succeed will not simply be those with the strongest tenant mix, but those that create the strongest emotional connection with the people they serve.
Because the future of luxury is not just about what people buy.
It’s about where they choose to spend their time.