Creating a brand story.
The brief to re-position Inntravel away from an increasingly lookalike competitor set of walking and cycling tour operators was a three-way pitch. The 'Slow' holiday proposition and creative, (conceived and led by Stanley’s Robert Crampton when he was Partner & Creative Director at Orchestra) helped the York-based independent holiday operator find a brand story that was true to its 30 year old values that found, connected with and engaged new customers.
The key insight? It wasn't the means of holidaying (walking and cycling holidays) but the emotional rewards these holidays brought – and the moments of delight delivered – that were important. A ‘Slow holiday’ could help refresh, revitalise and re-energise by immersing you in a slower, more authentic holiday experience where you'd see more, discover more, and remember more.
The creative idea was expressed across magazine, TV, radio, cinema and digital display advertising, and fed through across web, brochures, and direct marketing. And in the two years after launch, new-to-brand customers increased by 40%.
The campaign won Campaign of the Year (under £250k spend) at the 2013 Travel Marketing Awards.
After a brief hiatus, Inntravel asked Robert to re-engage with the brand in 2016, when The Stanley Studio took over the creative relationship creating advertising, films and photography – including a campaign on Sky VoD, magazine advertising, brochure and web imagery and content, and radio campaigns on Classic FM and Jazz FM. The most recent campaign ran across The Observer, Good Housekeeping, The Simple Things and Waitrose magazines.
A new creative direction, ‘Take Yourself Away From the Everyday’, was due to launch in 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic has postponed activity until 2021.
Sixty seconds of Slow.
As part of the campaign we created a sixty second spot to support the key messaging. Filmed on location in Portugal and Spain, the film was used as is in a cinema sponsorship deal, and later on VoD across Sky channels as a 30” cutdown.
The Stanley Studio has since created all the ‘Slow’ films for Inntravel, which can be seen on the Inntravel website. This has included filming in Norway, Switzerland, Italy, France, Croatia, Slovenia, and most recently in Spain.
