Re-branding ExerciseTraveline Cymru2009

Author:

Jo Foxall Marketing Manager, Traveline Cymru T: 029 2034 4593 E: jfoxall@travelinecymru.info

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Introduction

PTI Cymru Ltd was formed in 1999 and is a not-for-profit business primarily funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, whose core purpose is to provide impartial travel information about all forms of public transport in Wales.

The company does this under the brand name Traveline Cymru, by collating information from local authorities, bus, coach and train operators, and then making this information available to the public via a call centre, a journey planning and timetable look-up website, a text messaging service and a newly launched mobile internet service.

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PTI Cymru Ltd vs Traveline Cymru

In 2008, after 9 years of operation it became apparent that there was some confusion surrounding the relevance of PTI Cymru Ltd next to the Traveline Cymru brand. One pretty much was the other but each had a separate identity – Traveline being customer facing and PTI Cymru Ltd being more of an industry linked brand.

Evidence of this confusion could be seen through some local authorities, regional consortia and bus operators promoting Traveline Cymru for public transport information and some promoting PTI Cymru Ltd.

This became a problem for us in terms of marketing as it confused both internal and external customers (both within the industry and the wider general public). Employees of PTI Cymru Ltd did not see themselves as on the same team as employees of Traveline Cymru and vice versa. Industry partners knew the company as PTI Cymru Ltd yet the wider general public had no idea which was which and indeed why it mattered anyway. The confusion diluted our promotional messages, encouraged a lack of understanding and trust, and also meant that the company became its own competitor in the market place.

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Industry Examples

This situation is seen elsewhere with brands such as Ariel (parent brand Proctor & Gamble), Kenco (parent brand Kraft Foods) and BMI Baby (parent brand British Midland). Where this situation occurs, the companies promote the public facing brand far more than they do the ‘parent’ or ‘industry’ brand.

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Traveline Tim

In 2007 the decision was taken to change the national Traveline telephone number from 0870 608 2 608 to 0871 200 22 33. At Traveline Cymru we saw this as both a challenge and an opportunity to raise the profile of the company. We felt that a new concept, mascot or personality was required to deliver the message of the number change to people in Wales.

From this process, the Traveline Cymru mascot Traveline Tim was created. And he and the number change were officially launched by the Welsh Assembly Government in Swansea in July 2007. Early examples of Traveline Tim can be seen in the logos and artwork shown.

Love him or hate him, Traveline Tim has become the public face of Traveline Cymru and public transport information in Wales. A marketing review carried out in late 2008 established that the use of a mascot or brand personality has a proven successful track record in the market place demonstrated by brands such as Churchill, 118 118, Kellogg’s and Lloyds TSB.

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The re-brand meant that Traveline Tim needed a new look to fit in with the new brand image, so a new 3D look Tim was developed. This new Tim was far less ‘cartoon-like’ and far more credible and his debut in his television advert for S4C was very popular. See examples of our new Tim below:

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Former PTI Cymru branding, Traveline Cymru website & promotional material

We took the decision to re-brand the entire company to Traveline Cymru in order to remove confusion and to strengthen and build the Traveline Cymru brand. The Marketing Manager established a project to include a re-design of the existing Traveline Cymru logo, website and stationery and the changing of all communications (email addresses, email footers etc) to reflect the new brand. This would then be communicated to all employees, stakeholders, partners and customers through press releases, newsletters, mail shots, emails, presentations and events – no mean feat!

Original PTI Cymru Ltd letterhead Later version of the Traveline Cymru leaflet

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Process

The process the re-brand took was as follows:

Recognise the problem

We already knew there was a problem with the two conflicting brands and the resulting confusion that this caused.

Get stakeholder feedback

Stakeholders were asked if they felt that a re-brand was necessary and relevant. The answer was a resounding ‘yes’.

Obtain funding

There was funding available within the marketing budget and the Marketing Manager deemed that it was necessary to spend this on the re-branding to ensure quality and integration of all future marketing and communication.

Produce brief

A brief was developed by the Marketing Manager highlighting requirements for all elements of the brand, including website and stationery. We decided that existing brand colours would be adhered to, but the rest of the brand mark (or logo) would be developed.

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Pitches stage

Agencies were invited to pitch their web development ideas to the Marketing Team and some key partner ‘experts’ in the marketing field. From this, our agency partnership SpinDogs & Celf Creative (later SpinDogs & limegreentangerine) were chosen. The contract was awarded and timescales were decided.

Development

The website was the first element of our brand identity to be developed. The re-design of the logo, Traveline Tim and the stationery was a natural progression from this project. The re-brand was done by the agency limegreentangerine.

Feedback from customers

During initial development stages of the website, there was a link to a static image of what the new site was going to look like on our old site. Visitors were asked to comment and make suggestion – feedback about the new site was very positive.

Following ‘go live’ of the new site, a ‘Tell Us What You Think’ tab was added to the website and again feedback was very favourable.

Finally we took the website on the road to a number of different Bus Users Surgeries and asked members of the general public to take part in monitored user sessions. Everyone agreed that the development of the website was much needed and a great success.

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Website

The first phase of development was the new website look and feel and improvement to the functionality of the site. Three agencies were asked to pitch their ideas to the Marketing Team as well as representatives from key partners such as Cardiff Bus, First Cymru and Stagecoach in South Wales. The agency who won the contract was a partnership between Celf Creative (later limegreentangerine) and SpinDogs.

The old website was functionally very good, but let down by its amateur design, mish mash of content and lack of editorial control within Traveline Cymru. It was a site which had been designed based on what ‘industry experts’ felt customers wanted, rather than what customers had actually said they wanted.

Guided by the Traveline Cymru Marketing Team, the approach to the re-design of the site was a completely fresh new look, with plenty of white space, lots of non cliché Welsh imagery and far more customer interaction.

This coupled with a complete overhaul of the content has resulted in the Traveline Cymru site being considered one of the best Traveline sites in the UK and receiving plenty of really positive feedback from customers and stakeholders alike.

Original home page

Redesigned home page

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Comments from web users

“ I think your new website is fantastic, thank you for the change!”

“ It looks wonderful and is very easy to use. Well done!”

“ Brilliant new site. Extremely useful, easy to use and looks great. Hopefully leading the way for improved Welsh public transport.”

“ Much better, more user friendly. Others have found they can use it now.”

**Original comments available on request.

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New Traveline Cymru Brand Logo

The development of the website helped the Marketing Manager understand how the new Traveline Cymru brand should develop. So, the next stage began with a new logo. We were looking for something new and striking without losing the link to the national Traveline brand.

We decided that the new logo required a new strap line which represented that Traveline Cymru was widening its remit to include other forms of travel information such as walking, cycling and car sharing and to expanding to be the only choice for travel and transport information in Wales. The new strap line was brainstormed internally and ‘Trouble Free Travel Info’ was decided upon.

The new logo retains the Traveline colours, telephone number and web address but includes a high shine, 3D look to make it look more modern and stand-out, appearing professional and competitive in the commercial & digital marketplace. Where the 3D version is not suitable for replication (e.g printed on bus stops), there are two and one colour versions available.

Previous colour Traveline Logo

Previous mono Traveline Logo

Redesigned colour Traveline Logo

Redesigned mono Traveline Logo

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New Traveline Cymru Brand Brand Guidelines

As part of the logo and brand development, strict brand guidelines were produced for use by the Traveline Cymru Marketing Team, any agency conducting design work for us, any stakeholder or partner wishing to use our artwork and branding. These guidelines (available on request) explain how the logo should be used, in what context, at what size, what Pantone colours should be used etc. They also identify how Traveline Cymru adverts should be structured. This is to ensure that all Traveline Cymru communications are of the same high quality and standard.

Stationery Next to be redesigned was the suite of stationery to include letterheads, invoice paper, compliment slips and business cards. This was a particularly important exercise because this is the information received by our stakeholders and it is important that they understand who and what Traveline Cymru is.

Examples of old and new stationery are shown.

The old stationery was confused and tried to mix the PTI Cymru Ltd branding with the Traveline Cymru branding. This led to a change of logo colour and loss of relevance. The new stationery is clearly branded Traveline Cymru and stakeholders will now understand that any correspondence received on this stationery is relevant to the Traveline Cymru services.

Original PTI Cymru Ltd letterhead

New Traveline Cymru letterhead

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New Traveline Cymru Brand Literature

The final print elements to be developed were the Traveline Cymru and Traveline.txt leaflets. We had fairly been criticized in the past because all elements of the brand didn’t match up. That was why it was important that our new leaflets reflected the branding on the website and in the stationery.

The new Traveline Cymru and Traveline.txt leaflets both follow the new themes laid out by the strict new brand guidelines. The leaflets use clear typography, plain English and again plenty of white space. The leaflets also feature an updated version of Traveline Tim which shows him in his new 3D form.

The new leaflets are distributed to tourist information centres, bus and rail stations, local authorities, bus and rail operators, universities, colleges and hospitals as well as many more of our key partners to ensure that they are made available to the general public when they need the information.

Early version of Traveline Cymru general information leaflet

Later version of Traveline Cymru general information leaflet

New version of Traveline Cymru general information leaflet

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Original Traveline.txt leaflet

New Traveline.txt leaflet

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New Traveline Cymru Brand Other Elements

With the print and website element of the brand development completed, our next job was to look at the hearts and minds of our internal and external customers.

Internal Customers

At the beginning of the project, employees at Traveline Cymru were given a briefing by the Marketing Manager to inform them of the re-brand. Their help was also enlisted to ensure that any printed materials referring to PTI Cymru Ltd were taken out of circulation.

Once the re-brand was complete, all email addresses had to be changed to @travelinecymru.info and all staff using the telephone had to answer “Good Morning / Afternoon Traveline Cymru…”. As slip-ups could be made, an incentive (or dis-incentive!) of a ‘swear tin’ was put in the office and everyone caught referring to PTI Cymru Ltd was asked to put a 10p fine in the tin, the proceeds of which went to charity.

This exercise was particularly successful and understanding the confusion first hand, employees at Traveline Cymru fully embraced the re-brand.

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External Customers

Our call centre, website and text customers all know the service as Traveline Cymru, so it was our stakeholders and partners we needed to target to inform of the change from PTI Cymru Ltd to Traveline Cymru. These partners included public transport operators, local authorities, Welsh Assembly Government, regional consortia, suppliers etc.

This was communicated through emails, via newsletter and the new ‘Members Area’ of the new website and through visiting stakeholders and attending events. Traveline Cymru employees were also asked to request that partners referring to PTI Cymru Ltd or using PTI Cymru Ltd email addresses would be asked to change to Traveline Cymru.

This was a slightly more difficult exercise and is more on-going, but with the help of some of our key partners, fewer and fewer people are referring to PTI Cymru Ltd.

Student bus stop campaign

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Costings

The costs for the project were broken down as follows:

Element Cost

Brand Development: £2,190

Design of 3D Tims: £360

Print: £2,356

Website: £13,233

Focus Groups: £80

Total: £18,219

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Lessons Learned

The brand development process was a lengthy one and had its problems. The main problem was people (both Traveline employees and partners) continuing to use old PTI Cymru Ltd / Traveline Cymru branded material as they felt it was a waste not to. This was dangerous as it compromised the consistency of the message that Traveline Cymru was re-branding and also made the process far more drawn out than it needed to be.

If we were to complete this exercise again, a far wider and more intense ‘hearts and minds’ programme needs to be carried out explaining to all parties the importance of ceasing to use old material, to ensure that every employee and stakeholder is on board with the process.

‘New leaf’ door drop, streetliner, bus back & 48 sheet campaign

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Conclusion

The re-brand of Traveline Cymru was a necessary part of our development as a business into a more proactive, customer focussed organisation but the process is by no means complete. The process has been a resounding success so far with customers, stakeholders and partners alike congratulating us on a job well done and asking why it hadn’t been done sooner!

We continue to develop the brand through our integrated, coherent marketing campaigns, the building of robust relationships with partners, promotion of the brand through events and conferences, and continued consistent communications with our internal and external customers.

The plan for 2010 and beyond is to develop the back-end of the Traveline system which powers the website and the information available from the call centre. This will improve and increase the information available to the travelling public. The new system will include the ability to provide fares, information on forms of travel such as park and ride, cycling and car sharing and will also allow for greater personalisation of the journey by the user.

This coupled with the development of the Traveline Cymru brand will improve information available to the travelling public in Wales, will assist people making the switch from the private car to public transport and other alternative modes and will make Traveline Cymru the first choice, one stop shop for travel information in Wales.