Ramblers Walking Holidays
“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking” (Nietzsche)
AMBITION
Despite 74 years of successful worldwide walking holidays, Ramblers Walking Holidays had a problem.
The ‘R-Word’ (Ramblers) had become a burden with the perception of boring, old fashioned, types in bobble-hats. This was a challenge for a brand looking to grow its footprint with modern walkers.
They were losing consideration and not connecting with their audience, and sales were in decline. Our challenge was to attract new customers, increase call volume, drive web searches and grow year on year sales by 10%.
And we needed to do it at pace.
SOLUTION
INSIGHT
We had to make a new and compelling emotional connection for the brand. By literally walking 30kms in our customers’ shoes (including 1000m elevation gain over 3 peaks!), during a 36-hour immersive research expedition with real customers, our insight became clear.
It’s not (just) the walking that really motivates these passionate hikers, it’s the sense of belonging which comes from experiencing things with like-minded people that really matters.
CREATIVE
Creatively we embraced this desire to be with people and (literally) stopped turning our backs on the audience. Whilst the category was obsessed with people looking out across epic vistas, we turned the camera 180 degrees to focus on the walkers themselves, capturing the shared spirit which makes these trips special.
We combined this with an impassioned call to arms for the right type of people to join us and created a hardworking campaign that connected across every channel and touchpoint.
SUCCESS
Through sharing experiences with real customers, we unpicked their real motivation and completely redefined the businesses understanding of what is important to their customers, defining a new strategic and creative platform which delivered;
– A 115% year-on-year sales uplift
– 230% revenue lift
– Winner of the ‘Outstanding print advertisement’ category in the Silver Travel Awards
