Transavia — Flying the low-budget airline, it’s a pleasure!
The rebranding of Transavia was prompted by Air France–KLM’s decision to strengthen its position in the low-cost market. The plan: transform Transavia from a charter airline aimed at holidaymakers, to a quality budget airline catering for a wider audience, including business travellers. The re-branding was an integrated process combining company strategy, e-commerce and brand design. With leading digital agency Mirabeau, Transavia began to work on a new e-commerce platform to increase ancillary sales, improve the conversion of flights and reduce operational costs. Having identified the need to redefine Transavia’s positioning and visual identity (in accordance with Mirabeau’s e-commerce strategy and concept) Studio Dumbar was invited to join the team.
Strategy
Air France–KLM’s ambitions for Transavia required a fundamental change, renewing everything from positioning and e-commerce, to the customer journey and visual identity. Studio Dumbar defined the positioning. The leading principle, it’s a pleasure, served as the central thought across an expansive rebranding program: a compass ensuring consistency across different projects. Transavia’s competitive edge lies in their ability to offer low budget pricing and a pleasant, welcoming customer journey. It’s a pleasure expresses the idea of ‘low fare with care’.
Design
The identity is very easy to work with – there are no complicated guidelines. Playful, accessible and flexible, the design is built around a system of graphic tiles (in various shapes and sizes), which contain words, icons, prices and other information. The tiles were combined with four colours and hundreds of custom-designed icons that are easily applied to all touchpoints – from websites, mobile phone screens and packets of sugar for your in-flight coffee, to billboards and airplanes. The results are always Transavia. A special feature is the application of icons to the underbellies of their planes, with a different combination of icons for each plane in the fleet. Another symbolic livery feature appears next to the cabin door, where the word ‘Welcome’ is written in all the languages of the countries served by Transavia.
Results
In a short period of time, Transavia achieved a new and more visible position in the airline market. Regarded as over-optimistic, their business targets for 2019 (announced by their CEO at the launch of the new brand) had already been achieved before the end of 2017.
Notable projects
For two decades, Transavia has been the driving force behind the Peter Pan Foundation (PPF) – a charitable holiday club offering rest and respite for children with serious illnesses. To celebrate this special partnership, Transavia dedicated one of their airplanes to the PPF and invited Studio Dumbar to create a special one-off livery design. Playful, fun and emblazoned with colourful icons (including the green Peter Pan symbol), the plane was launched with an emotional event, bringing together friends and former holiday club travellers; demonstrating the bond between PPF and Transavia.
