The brief

Riviera Travel wanted to strengthen its brand perception as a premium offering, selling its tours and cruises on value not price, alongside an ambitious objective of 20% YOY growth. They needed a new brand positioning to resonate with an audience of older travellers fed up of being pigeon-holed. Achieve this and Riviera Travel could talk authentically to an engaged, loyal audience with messaging able to cut through a sea of sameness.

The Insights

Riviera Travel’s customers, despite their age, maintained a desire for learning and exploration. They sought connections with new places and people. Our research showed that Riviera’s travellers were not holidaying to ‘switch off’, sit in deckchairs and watch the world go by as portrayed in other category advertising.

The insights meant we could forge a new community of customers and employees united by a curious mindset, celebrating being young at heart. The new positioning was embodied in the line “Forever Curious”.

Our Approach

The Forever Curious positioning fed into campaigns tailored to connect with 64 customer segments in Riviera’s database, ranging from soloists to couples and inter-generational groups and friends. 

The resulting creative campaigns provided powerful assets designed to feed and continuously update an omnichannel campaign across broadcast, print and targeted social media and digital activity. 

The fresh impetus and messaging for 2024’s tactical campaigns put the wind in Riviera’s sales (pardon the pun). 

Results

A 37% revenue increase versus pre-Covid performance (the last ‘normal’ year) on a 25% lower marketing budget tops the impressive sales metrics for the campaign. And the future river cruise order book at the end of 2023 was 53% ahead of revenue versus the same time in 2022.

Consideration scores for river cruises and tours jumped, with a 9% and 13% increase, respectively. ‘First choice’ position improved for rivers by 45% and tours by 27% by year end.

Brand awareness rose to 89% from 84% by year’s end and the company’s share of search increased by 11% year on year. 

The new tone of voice with its accompanying suite of TV and radio ads scored an Adalyser response rate 46% better than Riviera Travel’s pre-Covid ads. Brand trust increased by 14%, quality perceptions by 19% and the ‘old-fashioned’ perception of the brand dropped by 50% (6% to 3%).