Thomas Cook unveils new ‘sunny heart’ branding

Holiday company Thomas Cook is launching new ‘sunny heart’ branding, with new logos replacing the incumbent globe graphic.

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook says that the new visual identity and branding looks to reflect the ‘warmth and approachability’, ‘trust and personalisation’ and ‘message of High Tech, High Touch’ of the brand.

The new look replaces the previous identity, which was designed by Futurebrand in 2001.

According to Thomas Cook Group, the sunny heart was originally designed last year by Swedish consultancy Happy for the company’s Northern European businesses, in a rebrand project that unified three Nordic brands under the Thomas Cook Group umbrella.

Thomas Cook Group

It was then ‘refined in-house’. Thomas Cook says, ‘We have not paid expensive consultants or spent lots of money on this brand unification, although we have used additional resources where necessary.’

It adds, ‘We did the majority of this ourselves as we strive to develop the company into what we want it to be and what we want to be known for.  This has been a hugely collaborative effort across the Group reflecting the positioning required in each part of the business as we drive our strategy forward.’ 

A new strapline, ‘Let’s go!’ is also being introduced, replacing the ‘Don’t Just Book it. Thomas Cook it’ message.

Thomas Cook

The new logo will be used across all platforms including online, international stores, the airline fleet and throughout its headquarters and overseas offices.

Harriet Green, group chief executive of Thomas Cook Group plc, says, ‘This isn’t just a rollout of a new logo, it’s about a promise. What we’re announcing today is a renewed promise to our customers, our people and suppliers. A promise that we’re putting them at the heart of our transformation it’s the essence of who we are.’

The previous Thomas Cook logo, introduced in 2001
The previous Thomas Cook logo, introduced in 2001

Brands under the Thomas Cook Group include Neckermann in Europe, Ving in Sweden, Condor in Germany and Airtours in the UK. The Group says that ‘in most cases, [the brands will] carry the heart as some part of their logo’.

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Comments
  • Stuart Smith November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    It looks like a plaster that you might find in most holiday swimming pools. A coincidence?

  • Stephen Mortimer November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    I hope they didn’t spend too much money on this

  • Philip Ainley November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    I quite like it. But to spend money on a rebrand after letting over 3,000 members of staff go to cut costs is a bit insensitive.

  • David Clarke November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Not sure the font is now the right choice particularly in grey. The heart device is a little too techy for me and though I dislike logo cliche could a little too removed.

  • Punit Pattni November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Its awful! I thought the old logo was bad, but this means nothing. I see it also comes complete with the bevel & emboss circa 2002 filter.

    It also rips off the heart in the Liverpool Victoria LVE insurance logo. I wonder what they think?

    Also losing the brand’s unique and memorable Don’t just book, it Thomas Cook It is a huge mistake. How ownable is Let’s Go?

  • Gaston Ramirez November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    This has too similar a sentiment to Bulletproof’s 2011 Kenco Coffee rebrand, perhaps an inspiration?

    For me the loss of blue is a huge mistake. For me Thomas Cook owns blue (with a hint of yellow) as much as easyjet owns orange in the same market.

    With that in mind I hope that they don’t overuse the yellowy orange across the brand expression otherwise where’s the distinction between them and other orange airlines[which also now cues budget airline]?

    Agree with the above post the heart has long been the generic ‘go-to’ execution for brand who want to “inject personality” or warmth into their identity. On the plus side it’s nicely executed.

  • Simon Deutsch November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Nice choice of clip-art for an already overused heart symbol and the grey type suggests rain clouds to me. First you see the bright sunshine heart symbol and then you’re quickly brought down by the gloomy coloured name (and bad font choice). Not the aspirational identity I’d expect any decent agency to create for sure.

    Also, just because the business has to let go 300 staff members, doesn’t mean that they should stop spending all together on forward facing strategic marketing. They’ve got a hole to drag themselves out of and a cheap identity like this, that psychologically turns you off, isn’t going to help much.

    I hope Hariet Green’s other rejuvenation ideas are better than this kop-out.

  • Richard November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Punit Pattni, the logo was not made with any filters but drawn from scratch using illustration programs.

  • Punit Pattni November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    @Richard – I stand corrected! OK its off-set vector path in Adobe Illustrator… Nice one Richard.

  • Richard November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Neither off-set path Punit. It’s all vector graphics drawn from scratch in Illustrator.

  • Richard November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    @Punit – as I said, drawn completely as a vector image without any off-set paths or special effects other than gradients and masks.

  • David Wilson November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    @Richard – I think the original point was that this logo has the bevel & emboss 3D effect that was so common with identities and graphics made to look like buttons or look objects from a few years back…

    Whether it was drawn from scratch in Illustrator, with gradients and no off-set paths or special potato shop filters is a moot point.

    With more simple ‘flat’ design marques, such as google and Apple’s logo and iOS7 as good examples, I have to agree with the other posts of how long this Thomas Cook logo will last..? Even the incredibly similar LVE Heart (Liverpool Victoria) logo went from a bevelled 3D look to flat… Take a look yourself.

    The bigger picture is that its another overused ‘touchy feely’ heart device that has little relevance to a travel brand – at least the old blue marque looked a little like a globe. It feels like the heart is almost too generic and easy as a solution, whether its drawn from scratch or not.

  • Gareth Edwards November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    W T F?! Seriously, I actually though this was a joke article on theonion or thepoke. Er, what can you say, er, I like the colour yellow in it. And then that’s about as far as I can go with this.

    It’s like a bastard child of LV(Liverpool Victoria Insurance) and some sort of we;;being product like a tub of Seven Seas cod liver oil.

    It’s always nice to take apart of logo and really dissect it carefully but in this case I think it’s probably wiser to just state the obvious. “It’s shit” and move along.

    What a stinker. Anyone responsible for this carbuncle want to defend it? Please, feel free, we all like a good fantasy yarn.

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