Real Holidays

re-working a unique and personal travel experience brand

Real Holidays was established in 1989, and its highly knowledgeable staff specialise in crafting unique, personal travel experiences for loyal clients.

Insight:

After nearly thirty years, and as part of a new website project, it was time for a brand refresh. The current brand was started to look dated, and wasn’t punching at the same weight as the other specialist travel operators in the category. The capitalised typeface and colour palette evoked Real Holiday’s heritage as specialist in Greece, but this was no longer relevant to their global footprint and stylish customers.

Our approach:

Many of the Real Holidays experts had been part of the team since the start, and there were some similarly long-standing customers, so getting everyone on board with the new approach was crucial. We ran a workshop (in a charming North London pub) to extract people’s thoughts about the brand, its values, what it stands for, where they see it heading, and their loyal customers’ expectations.

As part of the workshop we analysed the competition, from offering through to use of colour, branding and straplines, as well as discussing how Real Holidays stacked up against new entries in the space.

This gave us some clear priorities (as well as no-go areas) and foundations from which to build the new brand.

The Results:

The new logo was a bold departure from the classical serif capitals from 1989. The scripted font for the word ‘Real’ introduced some feminine elegance, whilst conveying a sense of personalisation and approachability. It also gave a natural emphasis to the word ‘Real’; something that was lost in the white capitals of the previous logo.

The bright blue of the Aegean Sea has been updated to a much more sophisticated colour palette.

The new strapline, ‘Travel Made Personal’, gives a concise description of the offering to help draw in new customers.

Meanwhile, the logo has the flexibility to work as an icon that can be used in different media formats, for example on mobile or letterheads.

The new brand has given this established operator a new lease of life, and helped them to stand proud in a competitive market.

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