Flight Centre has launched a new look and a global brand campaign that poses a tongue-in-cheek challenge to Australian travellers.
The launch also marks the brand’s first global campaign across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada and South Africa, highlighting Flight Centre’s collective travel expertise.
Created by Flight Centre Australia’s in-house creative team, There’s Nowhere We Haven’t Been proves that Flight Centre’s network of travel experts have really been everywhere and have the knowledge to help its customers get there too.
The Flight Centre brand has over 1,800 people in Australia with more than 14,000 years’ combined experience.
The campaign hero is a 30-second TVC that also unveils a new Captain, but not just the one.
Flight Centre’s main Captain will appear alongside a whole crew of diverse co-captains, both male and female, who represent each country the brand operates in around the world, and the diverse backgrounds of its people.
Rather than employing an actor to fill the role, Flight Centre’s very own Tom Walley was chosen, who with 19 years at Flight Centre, embodies this experience, as well as the brand’s irreverent internal culture.
Walley trained as a commercial pilot and qualified just before the GFC hit, then reinventing himself at Flight Centre where he is also the general manager of Flight Centre Travel Group’s Corporate Traveller brand.
Like Walley, all of the new co-captains are real-life Flight Centre employees.
As part of the launch, the brand’s new positioning tagline has evolved from ‘Best in the air, and everywhere’, to the new ‘Experience our experience’.
"This is the first of many global brand activations we are planning moving forward," Flight Centre global head of brand and marketing Darren Wright says.
"The culmination of a lot of very talented people across many regions coming together to build a unique positioning strategy that captures the fun and joy of travel and shifts the brand from a bit daggy to a new savvy approach targeting a younger traveller as well as 'being there' for our existing brand advocates.
"With the new positioning line of 'Experience our Experience' replacing 'Best in the air and everywhere' line, we wanted to capture the zeitgeist and pose a question and a challenge to the traveller, the line 'there is nowhere we haven't been' is both a statement and a question and the retort, 'been there', is the answer and question in many cases.
"It showcases our collective travel brain of the thousands of years of experience of our employees and customers alike, plus underlines that we are there for our customers and always will be.
"Now more than ever is the time to use the skill, expertise and trust of a travel agent/advisor and our new campaign talks to that clearly.
"We have designed the campaign as a series of Vignettes, or very short films, that showcase our captain and co-captains from all regional and diverse backgrounds in situations, experiences or travel locations that resonate with various customer segments, these vignettes can be swapped in and out of the campaign based on customer feedback, social metrics, trends and seasonality to build new creative over time as well as keeping the campaign relevant, targeted and fresh."
Flight Centre Australia general manager Kelly Spencer says the work illustrates how the company will meet clients wherever they want to speak.
“Customers will always enjoy the expertise of our Flight Centre travel experts, wherever suits them best," Spencer says.
“Our new Captains represent the pride that Flight Centre has in the diversity of its people and the countries that Flight Centre operates in globally. They illustrate the brand promise to bring the joy back into travel."
Flight Centre worked with Flip Creative to further immerse customers in the new Flight Centre look and feel with the creation of a dedicated microsite hub.
The site guides online travellers through a variety of travel scenarios, lets them find out ‘What type of captain’ they are, watch exclusive travel advice videos and engage with fun and educational travel facts.
The full funnel campaign is further brought to life with a bespoke hashtag challenge #BeentherewithFC which encourages social media fans to share their previous Flight Centre holiday experiences for the chance to win one of three Flight Centre travel vouchers.
In a first, this campaign sees Flight Centre launch its worldwide TikTok account this week featuring Flight Centre employee created content.
The integrated brand campaign launched on April 19 across Flight Centre owned assets, social media and interactive microsite with broadcast television, BVOD, OOH and digital running from April 25.
Credits
Flight Centre Global Brand Manager: Darren Wright
Flight Centre Head of Marketing Australia: Clinton Hearne
Flight Centre Marketing Operations: Megan Henderson
Flight Centre Art Director: Justine Morgan
Creative production: In Three Production
Microsite & website takeover: Flip
PR Agency: PEPR
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