Advantage Travel Partnership has rebranded for the first time in more than 20 years, launching a new logo, strapline, consumer-facing website and mission statement.
Unveiling the new brand identity at its conference in Malta this week, CEO Julia Lo-Bue Said announced: “This is not just a logo change, it’s a fundamental change for the business.
“It’s a change of our corporate identity, and the introduction of new internal and external values.”
Julia said the new website, which includes a better travel agent search function, will help ‘revolutionise’ the business, attracting both new members and customers. “We want to grow. We want to be at the centre of the global travel industry,” she added.
Marketing Director David Forder said holidaymakers will be able to find their five closest agents by postcode, while corporate clients will be able to find a business travel agent by specialism.
In the future, the site will be improved to allow consumers to search for agents by holiday type or destination, he added. “Our target is for a 300% increase in searches in year one.”
He explained the new logo incorporates the A T and P of its name, and the triangular shape from the previous logo has been kept, in a nod to Advantage’s heritage, while a circle has been added to represent the global nature of the business, and the design is forward-leaning to ‘represent forward-thinking’.
A new strapline, ‘We’re here for your journey’ has also been introduced along with the new logo, which will replace around 30 other logos currently used by Advantage, including that of Advantage Managed Services, which will remain but as part of the Advantage brand. The only separate brand being retained ‘for the time being’ is Advantage Financial Services.
“Until now, we’ve operated with multiple brands and visual identities, creating potential confusion in the marketplace”, said David. “This really is a simplification of our branding, so we will have a really clear message going forward, both for existing members and for others who haven’t come across us before,” added David.
Members will be encouraged to incorporate the new branding into their businesses, while retaining their identities, but Julia said Advantage had yet to decide who will be pick up the bill for agents making the switch. “We don’t know how many members are using the existing branding, so we’ll do an audit and then take a strategic business decision about the best way forward,” she said.
She declined to say how much Advantage had spent on the rebrand, which has been two years in the making, but revealed it was a ‘significant investment’.
