Brief
During 2005 we were commissioned by Active Hotels, which had recently been acquired by Priceline, to define a brand strategy to support their business objective of expanding their online hotel booking business across Europe.
Solution
We recommended that they create a multi-brand strategy to differentiate between their B2B and B2C businesses and use the Priceline brand for consumer-facing audiences across Europe. We recommended that hotel rooms remain the focus of the brand, as flights and bundled holidays were too complex or too low margin. We then evolved the brand for European tastes and developed a new proposition based on differentiated and sustainable values, summed up in the strapline ‘Look and book for less’.
Our work with the Priceline technical team resulted in an innovative website experience, with a simple single search box to ensure quick and relevant search results, without involving immediate onerous detail.
The multi-brand strategy then served the business well when Priceline acquired Booking.org in 2007, which subsequently adopted many of the Nucleus innovations, including the single quick search box.
Results
From launch on day one, the new website beat all targets set for it. Booking.org remains the fastest growing Online Travel Agency in Europe.