Flight Centre has shaken up its approach to marketing, with a new strategy that puts the customer in the centre of the brand. It has a new campaign to match, coming to a screen near you, but promises that its iconic Captain isn't going anywhere.
The reboot of its strategy has been hinged by the promotion of Darren Wright from head of brand and marketing to head of customer experience, putting him in charge of a new marketing team, which covers content, creative CRM, digital and product.
The marketing team, which is comprised of five new roles, is part of a push by Flight Centre MD Graham “Skroo” Turner to move the brand from a travel agency to a “world class retailer”.
Speaking to AdNews, Wright said the changes are a skew to better match changing consumer purchase paths.
“The way the business had been operated for many years was about inquiry, so pushing the message through normal ad channels, whether that be press, advertising or TV,” Wright said.
“But the world has moved on quite dramatically from those days, so to meet the new world Flight Centre needed to create a new team.”
The new team gives a clear indication of where the retailer is heading, and includes CRM and loyalty manager Jeremy Medina, head of digital experience Tiffany Apatu, product analytics manager Kuber Narula, and Keith Stanley, who was initially head of customer experience in Wright's place, but has since been promoted to a more product-led role.
In addition, former News Limited travel editor Brian Crisp has been appointed editor-in-chief of Flight Centre’s new content team and its newly formed creative studio, which manages creative for the brand, is headed up by Luke Wheatley.
Wheatley and his team will be working with newly appointed media agency Ikon in a soon to be revealed campaign. Ikon was appointed in place of Carat last year, with the partnership to be finished rolling out in early February.
Already Flight Centre has released some early advertisements which point to the direction the retailer is heading including pre-rolls and an outdoor campaign; and yes there are no plans to veto the Captain. In Queensland Flight Centre released an outdoor ad around the state election which an image of The Captain saying “Vote 1 the Captain, bringing you the lowest airfare guaranteed.”
“Over the next two months there is an interesting shift ahead in terms of our tonality and the channels we play in market,” Wright said.
“We're in the middle of writing our brief for the brand at the moment and our creative guys are starting to think about outcomes to market. It won't be a quantum change in terms of how the brand looks, we're basically injecting a bit more life and humour into the brand.”
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