2012 Bronze Travel and Holidays

Client Thomson – TUI UK

How did the campaign make a difference? This programme builds on previous work, building experiential holiday aspiration with timely, tailored recommendations to push holiday seekers up the value chain, driving more profit. Upselling these customers has delivered a 103% year-on-year increase in incremental revenue.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? Thomson's strategy is to move away from commodity holidays and focus on unique experiences, such as couples-only resorts, live entertainment and soccer schools, which are only bookable through Thomson. Package holiday consumers invest time in evaluating their holiday options. They dream of, and look forward to, the special experiences they’ll enjoy. This persuasive eCRM strategy, fed by propensity models with millions of rows of digital engagement and purchase data, builds their aspiration for unique holidays. After identifying potential customers for each differentiated product, the programme creates aspirational emails that deliver specific rich content, user-generated reviews and social media content. Offers are dynamically tailored, based on what’s already known, web-browsing behaviour, for instance. Close to purchase, reminders and persuasive upselling techniques with tailored offers are used. This builds on previous award-winning work, but delivers a big leap in precision.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? The eCRM programme encourages dreamy holiday planning moments and creates desire for Thomson’s differentiated product. It nudges prospects and previous customers up the value chain by dynamically serving up aspirational product-led content at appropriate times during the holiday planning process. Each differentiated product has its own branded visual sign-posting, imagery and copy that highlights core attributes. Content, creative and tailored offer pricing deliver tailored recommendations. This approach pushes up aspiration, builds brand preference and turns commodity product bookings into more profitable differentiated product sales.

Results This programme has delivered a 103% increase in incremental revenue year on year, with email metrics of open: 58%, click: 30%, action: 51% achieved. Analysis shows that holiday seekers who received these differentiated product recommendations have a 47% conversion uplift against those receiving generic content. This investment sets Thomson’s approach apart from other UK holiday eCRM programmes, which tend to promote generic lowest price offers to popular destinations.

Team Dan Ridler, Jeremy Gidley, Steve Cathcart, Davenia John, Allan Tran, Dan Martin, Daniel Stan, Mark Brennan, Dinesh Hirani, Steven Lennon

Omniture – Web analytics integration