Wolff Olins reviews Time Out brand

Time Out magazine has appointed Wolff Olins to look at its brand positioning as it seeks to expand its offering beyond its listings magazine roots to a global travel information business.

‘We have given [Wolff Olins] all our publications and asked the team to look at everything,’ says Time Out marketing director Christine Cort. The magazine sector is becoming increasingly competitive and Time Out ‘needs to maximise what it has got’, she adds.

‘Our challenge is to clarify what the brand stands for so the “experience” is distinctive and coherent wherever Time Out appears and in whatever medium,’ says Wolff Olins senior consultant Jane Wentworth.

Details on the branding work remain under wraps. Cort says Wolff Olins has not been ‘specifically requested’ to look at the Time Out logo, designed in-house by Pearce Marchbank in the 1970s, but is keeping an ‘open mind’.

Time Out founder Tony Elliott says: ‘Wolff Olins will advise us on a long-term brand positioning in an ever-changing multimedia environment.’

Wolff Olins’ work is due for completion in October.

Time Out New York magazine already exists, and the company’s expanding book publishing business includes bar, restaurant, and shopping guides, plus travel books about 32 cities around the world.

The website, www.timeout.com, has partnerships with lastminute.com and toptable.co.UK, and with Expedia, through which it offers on-line booking for flights, hotels and cars.

Wolff Olins won the work without a pitch.