Description of the problem

Global Brand Representation
The founders of FlyToday, with years of experience in the B2B travel and tourism market and partnerships with major international players such as Booking.com and Expedia, established the FlyToday brand in 2016 to address the needs of the B2C market. Their goal was to expand the online travel services market and capture a share of the offline market. In the initial years, their focus was on increasing brand awareness for FlyToday, and they conducted extensive environmental and digital advertising campaigns for this purpose.
Although the advertising activities led to the creation of brand awareness for FlyToday, due to the lack of consistency in messaging and visual identity, they were unable to create a unified mindset and coherent identity for their audience. For this reason, in 2022, coinciding with the dawn of a new century, FlyToday's management decided to define a comprehensive project for redefining and integrating all elements of the FlyToday brand.

Challenges and solutions

FlyToday needs to establish a mindset and determine its position relative to competitors in the eyes of the audience. The rebranding project for FlyToday commenced with the formulation of brand strategies. In the first step, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 key managers of FlyToday to understand and explore the brand's vision and internal space. Subsequently, qualitative research was carried out on two levels: perception of the travel and tourism market and perception of the FlyToday brand. This involved in-depth interviews and focus groups with both customer and non-customer segments, and the results were analyzed.
The research revealed that the audience's purpose for travel, whether business or leisure, significantly influences their satisfaction with the travel experience, from ticket purchase to accommodation reservation. The primary expectation from Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) is comprehensive assistance throughout all stages of this experience, benchmarked against global standards they have encountered through access to international OTAs.

Analysis of key players in the industry showed a division between those adopting a startup identity and those remaining in the traditional space. Managers aimed to position FlyToday alongside major international players like Booking.com and Expedia, building their business infrastructure accordingly. Consequently, a departure from FlyToday's previous startup identity was necessary, creating a well-established, distinct identity aligned with international standards. Brand strategies were then formulated based on studies, vision, and brand objectives. The core of FlyToday's brand strategy became "Creating a World-Class Travel Experience," developed across all brand dimensions.

In this phase, verbal and behavioral identity guidelines were also formulated based on the strategies. In the redesign of the visual identity, design strategies were formulated in alignment with the brand strategies. The yellow color was removed, and the brand's blue color was adjusted to reflect a Competent personality. The logo and logotype were updated, and custom super graphics were designed. Social media identity became one of the most crucial touchpoints, with guidelines for image and music selection updated across all brand touchpoints. The project's output, an online brand book, includes brand strategies, verbal identity guidelines, behavioral identity, and visual identity. These were shared with all FlyToday collaborators to ensure adherence and internalization, enabling them to create the right mindset for FlyToday in the eyes of the audience.

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Results and effects

With the implementation of the project, one of the primary objectives, which was to create consistency across all brand touchpoints, was achieved. The new visual identity of FlyToday resulted in complete differentiation from competitors and distancing itself from the startup space. Subsequently, an extensive advertising campaign was launched to unveil FlyToday's new identity, with the message "Iran; A Land in the World Class," focusing on the essence of the FlyToday brand; "Travel in World Class."

International faces were invited for photography and Iranian music to create this campaign. The campaign launch received very positive feedback in the digital space from the audience, indicating the correctness of the path FlyToday is on. In addition to the impact it had on educating colleagues about engaging with the audience, the behavioral identity guidelines also influenced the hiring process and its criteria.

Partners of FlyToday

Ali Sarookhani (CEO)
Sohail Sarookhani

Project Team

Touraj Sabrivand: Design Strategist
Jalil Nourbakhsh: Strategist
Reza Bakhtiarifar: Typography Designer
Dr. Ashkan Allahyari: Brand Strategist
Mitra Ferdowsi: Communications Consultant
Nazanin Ahani: Project Manager
Masoud Shahhosseini: Content Specialist
Mobina Nourelahi: Designer
Bardia Halat: Designer
Alireza Shahsavari: UI Designer
Sobhan Raziyani: 3D Designer

Other Production Colleagues:
Hossein Khoshdel: Production Manager
Hesam Inanloo: Music
Reza Nasiri: Video Creator
Vahid Abbasi: Photographer