Brand experience as competitive advantage

Virgin Holidays don’t sell exclusively online. A key part of their value proposition is the in-store experience and expert call centre advice. Alongside a unique brand voice and extensive Caribbean experience, Virgin were well placed to stand out from the competition online.

This strong value proposition was not being effectively communicated online. There was an opportunity to better communicate Virgin's unique selling points (USPs) through fresh content and design. An early collaborative effort would result in a content compass, our shared vision for better destination experience content.

The team held interviews with destination reps to understand the unique Virgin island experience. Visits to a Virgin Holidays store helped the team understand how destinations are sold - with the human touch - by Caribbean experts. Interviews with call centre staff demonstrated how destination advice is given to new and repeat Virgin Holidays customers.

Armed with a new knowledge about the Virgin experience, the team could explore solutions with a confident understanding of the opportunity. Competitor analysis would help create benchmarks for quality and provide inspiration ahead of the ideation phase.

Facilitating divergent thinking

A shared vision and a solid grounding in research enabled the team to go into creative mode with confidence. Diverging in their exploration of how to harness better content, the team explored and reviewed ideas through structured exercises.

Not only did these sessions throw up interesting and novel solutions to explore further, they demonstrated that thoughtful ideas can come from anywhere in the business when the right techniques are employed. Leaving the Virgin Holidays team with the confidence to pursue future ideas in this way was a key outcome of the engagement.

Bringing the vision to life

High fidelity prototypes would be needed to accurately test our new design and content. Customer response to brand application and quality of execution were important areas to measure, so rough wireframes would not cut the mustard.

The team's prototype showcased three key areas: the unique character of each island, Virgin's expertise at the destination, and the benefits of travelling at various times of the year. Video would play an important role in communicating island character, selling these dream destinations with soaring beach views and guided local tours.

Virgin's design team worked closely with developers to bring the experience to life for testing with customers. Early customer feedback would help de-risk further investment. Insights from these sessions would provide valuable feedback early in the process, allowing the team to iterate with confidence before the end of the sprint.

Selling the concept to the wider business

A fundamental step in this engagement would be presentation of the concept, process, and recommended next steps to the wider senior stakeholder team. Many of the team were new to presenting their work in this way, so myself and Heather would help coach the team in this area.

Building a business case for further investment, the success of the sprint would unlock further budget and business buy-in to take the initiative forwards.

Positive outcomes and next steps

Having achieved the sprint goals, we would leave Virgin Holidays with tangiable next steps to take this work forward. Virgin Holidays would launch their new destination concepts by May 2019.

A test strategy and analytics would allow the team to closely monitor and compare performance of the new concept. Having launched with a re-imagined Antigua destination page, the team have subsequently rolled out a similar experience for Barbados and future launches are in the product roadmap.

Clearleft would also extend their content strategy engagement to continue improving the content creation processes. You can read about the next phase of this work through their own case study.