Lonely Planet
Creating a travel community
When acquired by BBC Worldwide, Lonely Planet were embarking on a plan to grow substantially, increasing reach in established markets through new digital channels and building awareness and revenue in other territories. All of this growth needed to involve building and using the Lonely Planet brand, arguably the business’s greatest asset.
Challenges
Lonely Planet needed to develop a clearly agreed brand positioning strategy, to enable effective growth while reducing the risk of weakening the brand
They needed an audience segmentation to identify their priority segments and understand what messages they need
Actions
Conducted quantitative research, interviewing 3,600 customers in 3 markets (UK, US and Australia)
We identified 5 priority segments to target, who have a common attitude of curiosity and open-mindedness, but with varying degrees of adventurousness
We identified the core image attributes that drive recommendation and differentiation from competitors
Developed a new positioning statement and image goals
Positioned Lonely Planet from being a ‘travel guidebook publisher’ to a ‘travel community’
Enabled growth by bridging the need for inspiring those who are already adventurous with encouraging and engendering trust with those who are less so