Perfect Moments

est. 1906

2

When we met with Remo Masala, director of corporate branding and marketing at Kuoni Travel, he was leading the 102-year old company through its most major rebranding to date. Sitting down in Masala’s ‘future lab’ – a funky office in the middle of Zurich, the hometown of Kuoni – he took us through the 12 month process which has not only resulted in a distinctive new identity for Kuoni’s, but has also changed the way the travel industry views branding and luxury.

The next level

Travel has changed a lot in recent years – and will change even more in the future. While Kuoni, the number four travel company in the world, has long been a market leader in travel, all at the firm realised that the company needed to change if it was to enter the next level of travel business. “In order to maintain in the long run Kuoni’s status as the world‘s leading travel company in the premium segment, we knew we had to do something rather radical“, Remo said. “The task was to reposition the brand from product orientation to customer orientation. We decided to get back to our roots by focusing also on the most discerning travellers and provide services that go far beyond conventional travels. It was about new product lines, new fields of behaviour and new cooperations.”

global branding power

But the brand was also in need of updating in another, basic aspect. Kuoni operated in 30 different countries, but had little uniformity in its branding across its various markets. It even had two different logos. The challenge, therefore, was to mould Kuoni into one distinctive brand speaking one language worldwide. “The goal is building global branding power”, Remo said.

thinking outside the box

For Remo, brand management is about three basic steps:

1. Define the promise – brand strategy,2. Deliver the promise – brand engagement,3. Communicate the promise – brand design.

Remo oversaw an extensive and innovative research program, targeting people within the company, and, more importantly, people outside Kuoni. While speaking to company employees and potential customers is all pretty standard in the field of market research, Kuoni broke the mould by going to speak to creatives and thinkers from different fields as well as to companies it believes best represent the values it respects, such as innovation. Kuoni founded the ‘Future Lab’ in order to find the developments, themes and moods that really shape our time – at present and in the future. And from there to create the new Kuoni. Moreover, Remo organised joint workshops between Kuoni and people from other innovative global brands, where innovation is the key driver. “These were very interesting sessions, for all parties, since they usually don’t mix with non-industry brands,” he said.

After both internal and external research had been wrapped up, the following brand values emerged: reliability, authenticity and passion. These values surround the core value for Kuoni: Perfect Moments. Kuoni therefore represents stable, timeless values such as reliability and the highest possible quality, which have coined the company for over a hundred years. On the other hand Kuoni stands for authentic, intense experiences while travelling, for innovation, creativity and passion. However, the core value deliberately does not highlight any single aspect of Kuoni but rather the subjective, individual experience of each and every client. This way the core value – perfect moments – will keep its relevance also in the future and under a changing environment.

4

w

the new kuoni

One of the most important steps for Remo when creating the new Kuoni was the development of new key product and service lines. These included amongst others:

• Cultimo: Cultimo offers short trips to cultural highlights as well as in-depth cultural expeditions to the peoples and their festivals around the world. And it arranges fascinating encounters with interesting personalities such as artists, authors, winemakers and chefs, thus providing opportunities to look exclusively behind the scenes.

• Ananea: Ananea offers responsible and sustainable travelling – another growth area. Ananea is made for people who value local traditions, different ways of life and unspoilt nature. The catalogue features hotels and round trips which are special in some ethical way and which ensure harmony with the natural world, other cultures and one‘s own values.

• Kuoni Concierge: This personal point of contact for the high profile customer manages and shares access to inside track information, special occasions and events, experiences and locations. It ensures that complex luxury trips run smoothly, and generally makes the impossible possible. This service caters to bespoke travelling and is a step towards a general service and lifestyle provider.

Remo also changed completely the look, feel and contents of the company’s catalogues. “About 90 percent of the existing catalogues was external content, hotels and special offers and things like that,” he said. That’s why a new visual image was developed, including a new logo, a completely revised picture style, and a uniform design for all Kuoni catalogues worldwide. The newly used pictures resemble the aesthetics of high-class lifestyle, portrait, and travel photography. The elegant logo was designed by Zurich-based MetaDesign, one of the internationally most renowned companies for branding strategies. Moreover, the Kuoni Worldclass Catalogues have been designed by Herbert Winkler, the art director of Wallpaper magazine. All these different elements work together to create a modern, high-end and authentic visual language which is unique within the travel industry and complements Kuoni‘s status as a premium brand. It is supported by the opening of flagship stores around the world which are characterised by extra-ordinary interior design and the use of high-quality materials.

With Kuoni’s new brand and look defined, the task now was to get everyone – all 9,000 employees – reading off the same page. To achieve this, Kuoni set up an internal ’Brand Campus’, tasked with immersing staff in this new company language. Workshops and training courses were conducted around the globe and all fixed employees went through the company’s branding awareness program.

With these novelties Kuoni is positioning itself in a changing market and with respect to a different definition of luxury, which has become more complex and embraces new meanings. In the 21st century new themes will prevail, which can be understood as developments away from the little reflected consumption of expensive goods towards an intangible understanding of luxury.

Kuoni recognises that the luxury travel products of the future are those that convey experiences of a great personal value and the participation in a sophisticated lifestyle that is connected with up–to–date but yet substantial trends in art, fashion, design, food or architecture, but also with responsibility, sustainability and time.

welcome to the new world of luxury travel

For over 100 years Kuoni has been among the pioneers who have decisively coined the history and culture of travelling. In order to continue this tradition into the future and to continue its journey off the beaten track, Kuoni has to profoundly understand the needs and latent wishes of tomorrow’s most demanding travellers.

That’s why the Kuoni Getaway Council was founded as a platform for exchanging ideas and fınding new ways to innovate and to deliver relevant conclusions on the future of travel. The Kuoni Getaway Council is an international assembly of highly regarded

personalities from different fıelds and disciplines: entrepreneurs, scientists, architects, cooks, authors, designers and explorers of new trends.

Members are amongst others Kjell Nordström, Peaches, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Nigel Barley. The meetings of the Kuoni

Getaway Council will give rise to films, books and other publications.

Kuoni also set up cooperations with Osman Yousefzada, Hans Ulrich Obrist and the Serpentine Gallery in London, which bring Kuoni into the heart of contemporary global culture and which can also open up new vistas on many different aspects

of travel and culture.

The new Kuoni world is delivering more and more an extensive experience of luxury and modern lifestyle.

“Volume in premium markets is a compilation of niches and individual services and not of standards”, Remo explained.

So Kuoni’s future is all about diversification and congruent brand extensions that allow for more individual travel experiences. “This will allow for

Kuoni to differentiate itself from the competitors,” Remo said. Welcome to the new world of luxury travel – Kuoni style.

CEO Peter Rothwell - CFO Max Katz is speaker of the Group Executive Board | Director of Corporate Branding & Marketing Remo Masala | Number of employees 8,826 | Company turnover (2007) CHF 4,699m | Company values Reliability, Authenticity and Passion | Brand promise Perfect Moments | Primary target group Positioning Target Group: middle to upper class Value Position: post modernists, upper liberals, social eco, social climbers | Primary advertising media Print, TV, sponsoring

Coolbrands: M

aarten &

Anouk in d

iscussio

n w

ith r

emo m

asala

6

The Kuoni-design, in collaboration with roman schellmoser, Büroecco Kommunikationsdesign GmbH