Brand Strategy

The sea, the sand and Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook, with 125 years in India, has come a long way in sending out a clear and concise brand message through its campaigns. Neeti Mehra explores how it has evolved

Right before the Second World War, a colourful pamphlet showcasing a bacchanalian procession advertised Thomas Cook's fully escorted tour to India, advertised at the cost of £402 for 120 days. It is unlikely that the tour took place, but Thomas Cook's advertising still resonates with clarity - best holidays at an honest price.

Speaking to Express TravelWorld, Aashutosh Akshikar, head of travel businesses, says "The campaign we are currently running is an extension of our earlier campaign. Thomas Cook has always stood for honest pricing which is best communicated through our baseline - Best Holidays, Honest Prices - reinforcing the brand position. However, the message has evolved since its inception five years ago based on the market conditions and the tactical requirements within the set brand parameters."

The focus is on the product and the quality with the underlying promise of an honest price. In a market that is traditionally a discount or a freebies-oriented market, the company has chosen to concentrate on quality instead. "Our belief is that there is always a segment among the target audiences that would choose a quality tour, even if it is at a slight premium, rather than compromise on what might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience," avers Akshikar.

Thomas Cook's campaigns are being handled by Network Advertising Pvt Ltd since the last eight years. This year too, the brief has remained the same with the communication focussing on Thomas Cook's brand attributes as the best possible group holidays at a price that is entirely honest. In an industry which is not upfront about the add-ons in holiday packages, honest pricing comes as a breath of fresh air, with the precept that on all advertising, prices will be stated as all-inclusive (in terms of visas, taxes, surcharges, etc) and this will be supplemented with quality sightseeing, centrally-located hotels, experienced tour manager, etc.

Brand Bible

The brand communication is hinged on strengthening brand awareness and reinforcing Thomas Cook’s brand attributes, benefits and attitude. With intensifying competition in both leisure and corporate travel and allied services such as forex and insurance, top of the mind brand recall was what it focussed on last year.

Akshikar explains, "As per Thomas Cook AG's corporate guidelines, we had to alter our brick red logo to blue and gold, which represented the sea and sand. This change occurred in 2003-2004. Thus last year, beginning January, we brought out brand-oriented advertisements across press and television that covered holidays, corporate travel, insurance and foreign exchange in totality. The visuals and the headlines single-mindedly communicated relationships and associated the brand of Thomas Cook with the category of holidays."

The campaign was based on a simple insight - for customers, a holiday is the only time they get to spend quality time with family in the midst of their regular hectic lifestyle. This was done by highlighting and bringing to forefront the guilt that the customer feels deep inside about not spending enough time with family.

The campaign concluded in June last year and a research was conducted to ascertain the result. "The results were tremendous. It had an extremely good recall value and it positioned us as the number two player in the outbound market," says Akshikar. In January this year, Dubai Financial LLC took over Thomas Cook International Markets Ltd UK, but the licence agreement continues. "In light of this development, we may take out another brand campaign in July 2006 to reinforce our image and uniqueness," he says.

Inbound, domestic and corporate

Thomas Cook has separate creatives for the leisure segment, which is divided into the inbound and outbound segment. For the outbound market the ads are designed keeping in mind each source market's peculiarity. For instance, in some cases, India is the central theme, in others the main idea is theme-based holiday such as beach holidays and resort holidays around which the body copy and advertising are woven. Akshikar says, "We prepare targeted advertising for places like Scandinavia from where we get high net worth individuals. Whereas for charter sectors, where spends are not high, we use the holistic India-based creatives." The ads are released usually in October and this continues till February. They target international travel exhibitions with mailers, special publications and magazines.

Within the domestic market where the source market is within India itself, special booklets are taken out along with advertisements, as it does for outbound. Domestic FIT travel is a segment it has always had but group travel is a segment Thomas Cook has just begun and will begin advertising it from 15 March 2006.

Advertising is not a preferred medium for the corporate segment as the media costs involved are high and the margins are low. "We service approximately 530 corporates. For this segment we rely on mailers and a fortnightly E-zine which targets different industries," Akshikar adds. The E-zines address critical issues like corporate travel costs and ways and means to curtail them, plus focus on the latest industry trends. This is handled in-house.

Outward bound

The outbound travel market is losing its seasonality aspect with the blurring of lines between the peak holiday season and consumers who are finding additional resources at their disposal for shorter holidays. Akshikar says, "The number of outbound tourists is going up and we are witnessing the increase over the months."

For the outbound segment, the communication is transmitted through the press, television and other promotional methods such as hoardings, danglers and mailers. The press advertisements are not restricted to one package or tour but cover a multitude of options with the prices and inclusions mentioned upfront. It also includes a body copy with a brief description of the tours and the logo of Thomas Cook with the distinct blue band at the bottom of the page, along with the tour itinerary. But during the low tourist season, it reaches out to its audience of approximately 7,00,000 previous travellers through mailers and call centres to retain visibility.

Advertisements are released in regional languages such as Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and English with a different focus for the FIT and the GIT segment. Currently, Thomas Cook's market for GIT and FIT segments is 70:30 in primary markets including Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Akshikar says, "We usually start earlier for our GIT segment as we aim to educate our audience for visa issuance times and advise them to book early. The advertising for this segment commenced in January this year and we have already released six rounds of advertisements with tremendous response. We arrange 40 tours in five continents from March to July. Our advertising serves as information to the audience. We have recently replaced the agents' names with a national toll free number and will also be adding a national mobile number after finalising talks with a telecom company."

As far as the FIT segment is concerned, the campaign will be launched in March. This year Thomas Cook has set up a separate FIT product development team and has added Latin America and Brazil to its destinations.

Market shifts

With the advertisement for group outbound already underway, Akshikar is gung-ho with the results. He exclaims, "We have done five times the amount of business that we did the same time last year. I anticipate a growth rate of approximately 35 to 40 per cent." Even with a change in the ownership, there will be no change in the brand position and the advertising strategy. “There is no higher ground with the transparency in our message and the value additions," he claims.

But what has surprised him in the outbound sector was the shift from the mainstream market to rural areas. "Last year, we got 40 to 45 per cent of travellers from the rural market, for instance in Kolhapur we carried 400 people, both groups and individuals, which previously would have been unthinkable. This year we have changed our advertising to cater to these markets and this is being supplemented with our network of agents and sub-agents," Akshikar adds.

Today, Akshikar claims, almost 40 to 50 per cent of its clients are repeat customers. It has now allocated 35 to 40 per cent of its budget for the rural markets. "The entire marketing budget for leisure travel is approximately Rs 16 crore for the year. With our 125th anniversary celebrations in July this year, we plan to engage an event management agency to release new creatives," he reveals, adding that Thomas Cook will not resort to explicit comparative advertising like it had three years ago that resulted in litigation. But whatever the campaign may be, the bacchanalian delight for the globetrotter will continue, with the best holidays at honest prices.