Unlike last year’s promotion, the new multi-channel initiative has moved away from featuring household stars, and is focusing instead on what customers are likely to experience during a Cook holiday.
A new TV commercial will debut on Boxing Day featuring the strapline “Real Good Times”, accompanied by the Queen song Don’t Stop Me Now.
The new campaign represents something of a break from the past, with Cook seeking to put customers at the heart of everything it does. Gone is actor James Nesbitt who starred in recent commercials, while this year there will be no separate Hotels4U campaign.
UK managing director Salman Syed said this year’s campaign focused on three key differences: “First is on the campaign itself, which is very much focused on customers and emotions.
“So reflecting the adventure, reflecting togetherness, reflecting moments of happiness that you experience in a holiday,” he told TTG.
“Second is the amount of integration - we’ve had probably more then we’ve ever had before and [these are employees] who’ve gone through 10, 15, 20 years of peaks at Thomas Cook.
“The third thing is around the Retail Connected [staff training] events that we’ve had, where we’ve pooled our entire network of 1,000 people at four locations and had them immerse themselves in the messages and the values and the proposition [of the company].”
Unlike its rival Tui, which offers varying prices for the same online and offline products, Cook is banking on consistency winning over holidaymakers.
Behaviour-driven
“This again is manifested by our customers’ behaviour,” Syed said. “They might search for a holiday online but then a large proportion of them still want to go to the retail store and either get that assurance or be able to book. So our customers think of us across the channels as one, and that’s what got to reflect. Why try to be different to how the customers view us?”
Four TV adverts in total will air from December 26 in prime-time slots across terrestrial channels, with the launch commercial broadcast between 9-9.30pm on Boxing Day.
“We wanted to create a simple message which reiterates the real good times our customers have when on holiday with Thomas Cook,” said Jamie Queen, marketing and e-commerce director, Thomas Cook UK and Ireland.
Meanwhile, Cook has also released 20 new brochures, reflecting the company’s new “good, better, best” product portfolio featuring Airtours, Thomas Cook and Signature from Thomas Cook. New destinations include Canada, Italy and Croatia. There will also be more exclusive Concept hotels on offer.
