While the worsening economy continues to grab headlines in the travel sector, the travel agency world quietly restructures along new battle lines.
Most notably, the various consortia see a wealth of new marketing opportunities. Once the merger of the Travel Trust Association and Worldchoice settles down, there are plans to invest real money in the Worldchoice brand.
Meanwhile, Advantage Travel Centres and Elite are to work together commercially.
Today these are serious ‘businesses’. TTA Worldchoice has nearly 900 members and Advantage/Elite has a group turnover of £2.6 billion.
But how strong are the brands? Despite their size, they lag way behind the likes of Thomas Cook and First Choice. A straw poll in my office of young media workers drew blank expressions all round.
The harsh reality is that building strong brands usually takes a lot of money, a long time and some clever thinking. The travel industry is notorious for having too many brands, with too little cut-through.
Thomas Cook has the highest brand equity in this market, but it created the concept of the package holiday, has been around for nearly 150 years, and has run some massive – and very smart – ad campaigns over the years. Even so, people still confuse it with Thomson.
Good brands are like gold dust for businesses. Think BMW or Virgin. You are buying into a lifestyle, an attitude, and you trust them to deliver special products and services.
As such, it is certainly worth the investment. But of course you need to get the basics right. For me, Worldchoice sounds dangerously similar to First Choice, – a possible early obstacle in gaining understanding from consumers.
Even if you do have the right name, the proposition has to be fit for purpose. Lastminute.com is an interesting case study. This is a brand that has been around for 10 years, but has very high recognition among consumers.
Part of the reason is that it was one of the pioneers of the dot-com boom, with high profile leaders in Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman. In other words, the PR was good. Lastminute also invested millions in eye-catching advertising campaigns. But, above all, it has strived to provide a genuinely unique service.
Even then, it still has problems with its name, which does not really describe its service today. It’s tough work, this brand-building. But it’s well worth the effort in the end.
