How well you do depends on
how well you tell your story.
TICO CASE STUDY
A Study In Improvement
The Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO) is a not-for-profit corporation that regulates the Ontario travel industry on behalf of the provincial government. TICO has many roles but a core function is offering consumer protection to Ontario travellers. Explaining the protections offered by TICO and getting the public to take advantage of those protections had always been a difficult challenge for the organization.
It All Started With A New Web-Focused Logo
Our research clearly indicated that the public was confused about the role of TICO and that confusion could not be cleared up in a :30 second commercial or a newspaper ad. It was determined that the best way to educate the public about TICO was to get them to the organization’s website and this lead to the creation of a new logo that forever embedded the website in the brand name.
Old Logo
New Logo
Finding The Message That Motivates
We discovered that while people look forward to traveling, they harbour some fear that they might encounter problems if they book themselves or they might miss opportunities that a travel agent would be aware of. This insight was translated to a campaign message that promoted the knowledge, professionalism and integrity of TICO registered travel agents as the key to a better trip.
Creating A Campaign That Captivates
While travel is an interesting topic to most people, the work of TICO to protect their travel investment was not. We knew we had to grab the public’s attention if we were to deliver our message and motivate them to use a TICO registered travel agent. This lead to the creation of “The language of TICO”, a campaign centred around the message that “Ontario travel agents are FANTASTICO”.
Ads in travel magazines.
Digital Campaign
The digital campaign uses images from the television commercial and proposes a series of problems that can occur when traveling.
Television Commercial – Wild Suitcases
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The FANTASTICO campaign ran three times over a period of two years.
Using learning to improve the message
TICO conducts extensive consumer surveys after every campaign and the results indicated that the FANTASTICO campaign was catching the attention of the public and delivering the message that TICO registered travel agents could make your trip better. Research indicated however, that even more compelling than a better trip was the prospect of a ruined trip. The idea that a traveller could encounter all manner of problems if they booked their own trip was found to be an even more compelling reason to use a TICO registered travel agent. With this insight we developed a new campaign called “Icons” that focused on scenarios where a lack of knowledge caused the traveler problems.
“Icons” Television Commercial
Anchored by the line
“for all the information you don’t know you don’t know, look for a TICO registered travel agency or website”, the campaign was highly successful in causing consumers to “look for the TICO logo” when they booked their travel.