Picture the scene - more than a thousand people taking part in a flash mob dancing to a version of Don’t You Worry Child, originally performed by Swedish House Mafia. Popping champagne corks and confetti cannons add to the special effects. The location is the high street of Kilwinning, a small town in Ayrshire. Central to the action you have a bride in a wedding dress, a small child with a teddy bear and a ship’s captain. These are the main characters in Thorne Travel’s advert, filmed over a weekend in May.
The point of the advert is to show off the agency’s personality within the close-knit town. “We’re known locally as the pink ladies, because of our pink uniforms,” says owner Shona Thorne. “Our customers used to say, if people could just see you, they’d know how different you are.”
She adds: “It started off as a wee small video, but now it’s an all-singing, all-dancing proper advert, about us, our town and how it has supported us.”
The bride, the child whisked away to Disneyland by Mickey Mouse, and the ship’s captain show the breadth of Thorne Travel’s expertise, from arranging weddings to cruises and family holidays. It was a real team effort for the townsfolk, explains Thorne, who had no shortage of volunteers after she spread the word.
“I sponsor everything, from bowling and running clubs to scouts and football teams. It keeps them all involved with us. I’m also part of a local committee responsible for promoting Kilwinning so it was easy to speak to local traders. The owner of the wedding shop supplied the wedding dress, and the town’s hairdresser is our ‘camp’ captain.”
“It started off as a wee small video, but now it’s an all-singing, all-dancing proper advert, about us, our town and how it has supported us.”
She says they all played it up for the camera, the captain in particular relishing his role. “It’s meant to have a funny side to it. We want the advert to reflect us, and we are fun.”
On the day of filming, Thorne says some 200 people were in front of the shop, cheering the agency and volunteers on and watching the action. “It was brilliant,” she says.
In fact it was so busy, Thorne adds, that three of the staff had to open the closed shop and serve customers, resulting in seven bookings.
As well as promoting the agency, it’s a tribute to the town, which has gone through a period of regeneration. “Since we opened, there have been another seven new shops, and now there are only two empty shops left. They are all successful independent businesses which followed our model.”
Against the odds
Thorne set up Thorne Travel five years ago. Hers is the only travel agency in Kilwinning, but there are other agencies a short drive away. She brings a lot of experience to her business, having worked as a sales manager in a Thomson call centre and a customer service manager in a large bank. But when it came to setting up on her own it was only ever going to be travel, she says: “I have loved travel since I was a child and always travelled.”
She admits that people thought she was mad, setting up a travel agency in a recession, but she had a strategy from the start: “We offer something for everyone, no matter what their budget. We started with day trips and theatre breaks. We built a loyal customer base and as their budgets have increased, they have started to trade up.”
The business has gone from strength to strength, with 89% of bookings coming from repeat customers and referrals. Five years ago Thorne had one full-time member of staff and two part-time. Now she has nine full-time and six part-time. “Last year we moved across the road into considerably bigger premises,” she says.
Spreading the word
Having blown her year’s marketing budget on hiring a professional crew for the video shoot, Thorne plans to hold a preview event in a local hotel and is keen for the video to go viral.
“We’ll post it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and our website. We’ll also run it on the TV screen in our window. We’re creating smaller vignettes focusing on each holiday theme, and we’ve done an outtakes clip too!”
She adds: “People think agents are dead, but we’re alive and thriving and our video shows that.”
