Welcome to repurposed news – that’s when ‘day old news’ is rejigged & refreshed to reach more readers… much like what the Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) is doing with Student Flights.
In case you missed the jaw-dropping reveal (because you were returning from a fam-trip right?!), Flight Centre Travel Group announced yesterday that after twenty-something years it had decided to rebrand Student Flights to Universal Traveller.
*Gasps*
UT is the acronym FCTG is using for the new brand. We’re all thinking the same thing right? It’s only one letter away from…
Unfortunate acronyms aside, the decision to rebrand was made with the positive intentions of expanding the chain’s reach from mostly university students to the wider 18-35-year-old market.
An “exciting brand enhancement” were the words FCTG’s Managing Director, Graham Turner, used to describe the rebrand, along with “significant”.
“We believe Universal Traveller more accurately reflects the brand’s specialisation and will resonate with the broader customer base of students, backpackers and young professionals that its core products are targeted at and will appeal to.”
Graham Turner, Flight Centre Managing Director
We know Turner loves it and we’re definitely feeling it, but what does the industry say?
WHICH DO YOU PREFER (and why): Student Flights OR Universal Traveller…
Posted by KARRYON on Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Well, thousands of you read, liked and shared the news delivered by KARRYON yesterday, indicating that there was much love for the group’s decision. This was backed by a KARRYON poll, which found that as of 11.55am on 29 May 2019, some 60 percent of our readers are in favour of the change.
Readers like Tamara saw it as a “pretty exciting” initiative…
As did Daniele…
Steve saw the rebrand as an opportunity to open Student Flights up to a larger market…
While Zoe can’t wait to change public perception of the brand…
Of course, not everyone was on board with the change as some 40 percent said they’d rather FCTG stuck to the original name.
When asked why they had such an aversion to Universal Traveller, Alex said he doesn’t see why they need to fix “something that isn’t broken” but admitted that he’d support the move regardless…
Sammi was concerned about how the move away from Student Flights could impact the other FCTG brands…
While Ethan didn’t hold back with his concern around the word ‘Universal’…
What do you think of the news…?