When a country singer who built his entire persona around a signature fringed mask loses it mid-tour, panic sets in. For Orville Peck, that nightmare became reality—and the perfect setup for the latest episode of W Hotels’ ongoing “Hotel Tales” campaign, created by TUX Creative House.
Chelsea Matthews, Creative Director at TUX, and her team captured the race to recover Peck’s iconic mask at the newly transformed W Austin. The episode follows Peck’s frantic search before a W Insider tracks down the mask and returns it on a silver platter. It’s the kind of “you had to be there” moment the campaign was built to capture.
How Hotel Tales became W Hotels’ cultural reset
TUX Creative House won the W Hotels business in 2024 and has since built a campaign that positions the brand as a stage where stories unfold and interesting people collide. The Montreal and Los Angeles-based agency landed this creative platform through a project-based pitch, then delivered results that turned skeptics into believers.
The numbers tell part of the story: 140M+ impressions, 13M+ video views, 25M press impressions across previous episodes featuring actor Chloë Sevigny and multidisciplinary artist Miranda Makaroff. The campaign earned a Shorty Awards’ 2025 Gold Honor in Hospitality. But the real win? Reaffirming W Hotels’ relevance and reclaiming its role as cultural tastemaker in a luxury hospitality space that had gotten boring.
The Orville Peck fit
Peck was the perfect subject for Hotel Tales. The South African-born country singer wears a different mask for every performance—it’s part theatricality, part authenticity tool. He’s built a career breaking boundaries in country music as an openly gay artist who refuses to fit into Nashville’s narrow definitions.
For the W Austin shoot, director Dana Boulous captured Peck recounting the moment he realized his mask was missing. The story unfolds with the urgency of a thriller and the payoff of a love letter to hospitality excellence. It’s 47 seconds that work because the talent, the moment and the brand all aligned.
“Landing these short and curious stories that align tightly to our choice of talent isn’t easy, but the hard work to get there is fun, thanks to our collaboration with the team at W Hotels,” Matthews said.
Timing and transformation
The episode shot in and around W Austin just as the hotel completed its multi-million-dollar transformation. The timing wasn’t accidental. W Hotels had disrupted luxury hospitality in the ’90s with bold design and vibrant energy, then spent years watching competitors copy the playbook. This campaign signals a return to form.
TUX partnered with W Hotels to design a global video series that dramatizes what makes staying at a W Hotel different: compelling encounters with unforgettable characters that make you wonder who they are and what they’ve been up to. Each episode features stories so unexpected that guests are invited to “next time, be there.”
The creative runs through December across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. The 47-second face-mask adventure has been cut into one 15-second spot, four 6-second versions, four behind-the-scenes videos, 10 stills and four social assets. A hero trailer featuring all seven global episodes drops in late October.
Why TUX keeps getting it right
TUX Creative House brings a different approach to agency work. The B Corp and LGBTQ+ certified shop operates out of Montreal and Los Angeles, blending strategy, creative production and media without the silos that slow down traditional agencies. They acquired Los Angeles-based agency Another Creative in 2024, doubling their U.S. team and adding clients like Nike and Perry Ellis to a roster that already included Levi’s, Ralph Lauren and Lancôme Paris.
The agency’s founders, Dominic Tremblay and Ludwig Ciupka, built TUX on the belief that the traditional agency model was too heavy and slow for the digital era. They’ve implemented a four-day work week, maintain a 3,000-square-foot studio in their downtown Montreal office and focus on what they call “active rest” to keep creativity high.
For W Hotels, that philosophy translated into a campaign that feels effortless but required precision casting, authentic storytelling and the confidence to let the guests be the heroes. The Hotel Tales series doesn’t spotlight W Hotels’ features—it spotlights the people who choose to stay there and the moments that happen because of that choice.
Where cultural energy meets hospitality
W Hotels positioned the campaign as a call to live luxury through the lens of cultural energy—exclusivity defined not by opulence but by the quality of human experiences and creativity. In an era where 60% of objects, items and materials are now black, white or grey, W Hotels wanted to reclaim color, energy and the unexpected.
TUX worked with photographer Clara Balzary and director Dana Boulous to craft images that feel cinematic yet effortless. Writer Pat Regan collaborated on extracting memorable anecdotes from talent. The result? A campaign that sparked curiosity and encouraged audiences to wonder: Who are they? What have they been up to? What story will I have when I check in?
The Orville Peck episode cements that energy. His mask disappears, panic ensues, and W Hotels saves the day. It’s storytelling that understands the assignment: make people want to be there when the next interesting thing happens.
Learn more
TUX Creative House
Chelsea Matthews LinkedIn
W Hotels
Orville Peck
Contact: in**@*ux.co
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