Project Overview
Holiday Specialists is a specialist holiday company. They had built a great business on the basis of providing wonderful family holidays for Australians. But their market was changing as consumers, more and more, book holidays online and they needed to re-think how they got their message across to Australian holiday goers.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Principals
Sandy Belford - Strategy Director; Ed Elias - Strategy Consultant; Simon Wright - Executive Creative Director; Darren Swain - Creative Director; Martin Hopkins - Design Director; Anna Wallis - Account Director; Ashling Withers - Account Manager; David Ing - Artworker; Darlene Ward - Artworker; Claire Gallagher - Internal Brand Director.
XXVI
Hamish Cargill - Director of Brand Language; Carrie Dennes - Writer; Jared Bedford - Writer.
Project Brief
We were asked to question all aspects of the Holiday Specialist’s identity – the name, their proposition, their look and feel and their messaging. We are asked to reinvent their brand and create stand out for them in the increasingly competitive and diverse holiday market of travel agents and online providers.
Project Innovation/Need
They key to what Holiday Specialists offer is the knowledge and commitment of their staff. They know destinations really well and they have the on the ground know how to turn a good family holiday into a great and memorable one. They are natural ‘holiday champions’ and the new identity (name and look and feel) had to communicate that core brand idea – and position them as a business that knows that holidays really matter to Australians. We want them to become Australia’s most loved family holiday company. We concluded that all of the above could only be achieved by changing their name and repositioning the brand completely.
Design Challenge
We had to create a new name that differentiated them from their competitors and create a supporting language, tone of voice and visual identity that communicated brand idea of being holiday champions.
There is a prevailing style to holiday marketing that emphasises happy shots of holiday destinations. We had to observe that and create something unique that featured their business partners, positioned them as a family holiday company and played up their role as a holiday champion.
Effectiveness
We created the name, Hoot, a word that instantly evokes the ideas of fun and excitement. It’s supported by the energetic tagline ‘Let’s hear it for holidays’ that is as much an internal call to action as it is an invitation to clients. And the new visual identity is equally vibrant, bold, engaging, and memorable – just like Hoot.
The new identity was launched 1st February 2014 and is already working hard to establish Hoot as Australia’s favourite family holiday company.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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