FRANKFURT, GERMANY--(Marketwired - Oct 1, 2013) - Building on Thomas Cook's already strong brand heritage, and as part of its Transformation, the Thomas Cook Group plc, @ThomasCookGrp has today announced its plans to unify its brands and market activity under one common symbol, the 'Sunny Heart.' The 'Sunny Heart' is being rolled out from today, and will replace the current 'Globe' in the Group's websites, international stores, the airline fleet, and throughout its headquarters and overseas offices.
The essence of the new brand captures who Thomas Cook is, and what it promises -- a high tech, high touch experience across all customer touch points with an omni-channel approach.
The Group has many leading brands including Neckermann in Europe, Ving in Sweden, Condor in Germany and Airtours in the UK that will all carry the 'Sunny Heart.' The intention isn't to rebrand all with the Sunny Heart, but they form part of the Group architecture and will, in most cases, carry the Heart as some part of their logo.
"It's a major milestone in our high tech, high touch transformation," said Harriet Green, Group CEO of Thomas Cook Group plc. "This isn't just a rollout of a new logo, it's about a promise. What we're announcing today is a renewed promise to our customers, our people and suppliers. A promise that we're putting them at the heart of our transformation, it's the essence of who we are. The unification of our brands under the Sunny Heart is three fold; it will make it easier for our customers to understand the full strength and end-to-end value of the entire Thomas Cook Group coupled with our full innovative offering of our services and products; it will show more clearly what differentiates us and how we provide a total experience along every touch point -- from research, to booking, to anticipation, to the holiday itself; and importantly, it will clarify our customer promise -- a complete range of inspirational experiences for our customers."
"The Heart will appear on the web, in brochures, in our aircraft, in our concept hotels, our other hotels and in our stores: in short, everywhere that our customers connect with us," continues Harriet Green, Group CEO of Thomas Cook Group. "Our new brand essence will show our customers the breadth and depth of the Thomas Cook Group. It will inspire and assure our customers, showing that everything through our brands is connected at every level ensuring a unification of care for our customers, through every step of their journey with Thomas Cook."
"We are building a simplified and strengthened portfolio that incorporates the 'Sunny Heart' essence into our brands, this is more than a design refresh, it is leveraging the combined strength of our Group to maximise our presence in the mind of customers," said Michael Healy, CFO of Thomas Cook Group, plc. "This brand unification is part of our new profitable growth strategy announced in March this year. Having already piloted this approach in our North European businesses, we know first-hand that it increases both early bookings and online bookings with the added benefit of heightened brand awareness. The brand unification has been developed internally, and we are rolling it out appropriately for this stage of our transformation in a way that complements the normal, planned refresh of materials including our planned brochure runs, maintenance and store refreshes."
The aircraft of the Thomas Cook Group Airlines will also obtain the Sunny Heart to their tails. They will be revarnished in the new corporate colour scheme grey, white and sunny yellow. On the aircraft, an elegant wave along the aircraft, culminating in the Sunny Heart on the tail will symbolise the unification of brands within the entire Thomas Cook Group. To express their identity and to forge even stronger bonds with customers all Group Airlines are uniting under this symbol.
Christoph Debus, Chairman of the Thomas Cook Group Airline Management Board and Head of Air Travel, said: "The heart also expresses our philosophy: Our employees put their heart into every flight and let the customers' holiday start as soon as they board their flight to their holiday destination. The Sunny Heart is therefore the perfect symbol for our passion to create memorable holidays for our guests."
In order to be recognisable for our customers everywhere, the heart will guide all customers throughout their entire journey -- from initial enquiry, on board the aircraft, during their stay and all the way home. It will simplify their choices by providing assurance, flexibility and a visual reminder that they are in good hands.
This new, mutual identity going with the Thomas Cook Group is the next step for the Thomas Cook Group Airlines on their way to become Europe's leading leisure carrier. By offering new destinations, flexible bookings, obliging service and a good product, the Thomas Cook Group Airlines will increase their attractivity and offer a hearty vacation to their customers.
About Thomas Cook Group Airlines
The Thomas Cook Group Airlines consists of the four airlines: Condor Flugdienst, Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia and Thomas Cook Airlines UK. The airlines carry 17m passengers per year. The combined fleet consists of 86 aircraft that are maintained by the joint Group Maintenance Organisation (GMO) of the Thomas Cook Airlines Group.
For more information and pictures visit: http://www.condor.com/download.
About Thomas Cook Group plc.
Thomas Cook Group plc is one of the world's leading leisure travel groups with sales of £9.5 billion and 23 million customers in the year ended 30 September 2012. Thomas Cook is supported by 31,000 full time equivalent employees and operates from 21 countries; it is number one or two in all its core markets. Thomas Cook Group plc's shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange (TCG).
For more information visit: http://www.thomascookgroup.com.
Contact Information:
Contact Details:
Johannes Winter
Group Airlines Head of Communications
Condor Flugdienst GmbH
Phone: +49 6107 939 7804
E-mail:
