Taking Scandinavian Airlines to new heights
Scandinavian Airlines is the leading airline company in Scandinavia and one of the regions strongest and most recognized brands. However, when Bold started working with SAS at the beginning of 2014, their identity looked like any other of the low-price competitors. The brand was suffering from declining sales, a fading reputation and a lack of direction both internally and externally.
The brief was to provide a more coherent, premium and Scandinavian SAS expression that would create a sense of community for the SAS customers.
In today’s competitive landscape filled with low-cost carriers, SAS had begun to lose customers to airline companies providing cheap tickets for people who only valued getting from point A to point B. Over the years, their existing design had become a hybrid of their cheaper competitors. It made SAS look just like any other airline, despite having a higher prices.
The Solution
Based on data collected by what drives sales a new target group was identified and focused on; the Scandinavian frequent travelers. Meaning those who travel 5+ times per year. This group only represented 12% of the market, but responsible for a staggering 70% of the airline’s overall revenue. To increase willingness to pay in this group would be extremely profitable for SAS, so that became one of our main goals.
We named our new target group “The True Travelers” and the primary purpose of the new identity was to attract them, by creating a brand and community they would like to be a part of. To succeed the brand needed an upgrade in every sense. We needed to make SAS more premium, aspirational and adapted to our digital age.
The Result
The new visual identity has helped transform SAS to be perceived as a premium and credible brand whose community the target group wanted to be an active part of. Since launch this has meant an increased willingness to pay by 26%, equivalent to a brand value increase of 167 million Euros.
”Bold has successfully managed to create an identity that unites the entire SAS brand on all platforms and in every channel. Something we have been working towards for a long time.”
- Stefan Hedelius, Global Vice President, Brand & Marketing