What you need to know:

• On March 18, Reflections Holiday Parks flicked the switch over to a new brand approach that’s been 12 months in the making under former agency leader and now CMO, Pete Chapman.
• The Reflections rebrand is vast and allencompassing, covering new name (dropping the ‘Holiday Parks’ to become ‘Reflections Holidays’), to fresh logo mark, new tone of voice, typography and colour palette, photography, design system and new employee uniforms, loyalty program, customer comms, owned magazine, mass market brand campaign and new partnership with sustainable fishing NFP, OzFish.
• It comes after a significant business transformation program that has seen Reflections adopt a quadruple bottom line, invest in centralised systems and shift from a manageroperated to employee-based park model.
• All of this is part of the 10year-old organisation’s quest for distinctiveness and difference in the sea of holiday and caravan parks nationally. It’s equally about elevating its profit-for-purpose structure overseeing 37 holiday parks and 43 community reserves on NSW Crown land.
• From a ratio of 95:5 performance media to brand, Chapman has completely reoriented marketing spend to 60 per cent brand and has 80+ per cent in his sights as he transitions from building a campfire based on quickfire kindling to slower but more consistent brand burn.
• Justifying the rebrand, which cost about 1 per cent of annual revenue, was helped by efficiencies gained via an inhouse first model that saw Reflections build the big brand idea and strategy internally, then use agency partners for more tactical and operational execution.

Over his 20-year agency career, Pete Chapman had his hand in dozens of significant rebrands. And he’d watch in frustration as many clients cut short different aspects each time.

So when it came to overhauling the $500m Reflections Holiday Parks social enterprise and park operator, he had a firm recipe for best-practice brand development process and rollout. Number one ingredient was keeping most of the work in-house. In fact, one of the first hires he made as marketing chief was in-house art director, Matt Plummer, to drive creative across product and brand.

“The old-fashioned way of doing it was to get the agency to do everything. Then the accountants said it’s a good idea to bring in MAC operators internally and do the rollout as we can save agency hours. This is a flip on that – let’s do the thinking internally, get a few really good people set-up internally, then we’ll partner on the stuff that needs to get made,” Chapman tells Mi3. 

“I looked after strategy; Matt was on creative. Then we collaborated with great talent outside the business to keep the process honest. It’s resulted in a brand that’s super authentic and modern.”

Rethinking the role of agencies is a transition Chapman has gone through switching to client-side CMO after holding full-service, agency of record, agency leadership roles.

“I came from believing in the power of one agency understanding your business really well. And I think some agencies do that: When I was there, Clemenger in Melbourne had an ability to look at each problem differently because of the scale of the business. They’d have 20 creative teams and one day-to-day team would bring in another to help. They’d create that super smart idea,” Chapman comments.

“But I’ve got to say, the more time I spend in this [CMO] seat, the more energy I’ve got for the idea you need to cast different talent for each problem. Otherwise, you inevitably get a bias in the thinking, because they have either had to constrain that thinking in the past with you, or the excitement of working on the product is extinguished through churn of everyday work.

“The key is how you then build with that village that same deep understanding of your business that is the benefit of working with one partner, if you get partnership right.”

Rebranding – all in the timing, detail and planning

The Reflections rebrand is vast and all-encompassing, covering a revised name (from ‘Reflections Holiday Parks’ to ‘Reflections Holidays’), to fresh logo mark, new tone of voice, typography and colour palette, photography, design system and new employee uniforms, loyalty program, customer comms, owned magazine, mass market brand campaign and new partnership with sustainable fishing NFP, OzFish.

“Two years ago, I’d talk to people who’d stay at Reflections for the first time who’d have a ta-da moment, realising it’s nothing like what they were expecting and heaps better. Part of that was the brand as it stood was framing it up as a holiday park, bringing all the stereotypes of the category with it – good, bad and indifferent,” says Chapman. “The holiday park category is about fun and amusement. And we’re not – we’re about connection, nature, getting outside, adventure.”

However, Chapman recognised he couldn’t shake-up the brand straight away. “With the transformation journey the business has been on, to throw a grenade like a rebrand in before we’d proven to the world we were different would have been a real mistake.”

These business changes include doubling the amount of parks under management by 2030, plus adopting a quadruple bottom line measuring success not only against profit, but environment, cultural and community impact. Reflections also rebuilt its core property management system, and shifted from contractor to employee model, going from 120 to 450 employees. And it’s thrown out the man-made waterslides and jumping pillows.

In all, the group spent $27 million in the 2023 financial year to improve parks for its guests and contributed $9.6m to communities and nature reserves. The group has the ambition of generating $1.3 billion in cumulative economic value to regional NSW by the end of 2030.

With 12 months to then plan the rebrand, Chapman’s had time to think thoroughly through all brand decisions. And marketing challenged everything.

“We made each element fight for why it’d stay in,” Chapman says. “It was also about how far we could push the market – we have talked about the idea of redefining camping, but we also don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater as there’s equity there. We had wild ideas right up to presenting our thinking to Nick Baker [MD, Reflections Holidays] and the board. That was healthy – it meant we felt really confident on why we were keeping any one element, instead of begrudging the fact we were restricted to stick with something.”

Over the last two years under Chapman’s lead, Reflections has switched from a 95 per cent performance spend model to redirecting more funds to brand campaign work using the tagline, ‘Life’s better outside’. This tagline forms part of the new brand positioning. And despite interrogating everything, the fundamentals of the fresh brand approach were landed very early on.

“Matt came up with an idea and we were almost scared by how much we were excited by it, being so early. That’s part of him being in-house – we didn’t have that usual dance of getting to know the brand or company properly through the first few rounds of creative development,” Chapman claims.

The central idea embraces a ‘gathering circle’ theme and a name that might be drawn in the sand. The design system is modelled on all the shapes consumers see across Reflections parks, while the colour palette is swatches from different greens in its parks, waterways and bush. Photography was shot onsite and avoided traditional tropes of tourism marketing, Chapman says, such as “over-saturated, overly positive, dream focus” imagery. Instead, Reflections has decidedly gone more natural and candid.

“We commissioned a photographer to go on the road for three months, shooting in our parks with real people. We now have this suite of 3,000 images that are a slice of life in our parks, which feels honest. The photographer is a huge talent and camper, so he knew the feeling,” Chapman says.

Win them over with film, uniforms and planning

Across the top, Chapman concentrated on what he believes are two often “underrated” things in rebrand work.

“A brand will live and die on its ability to grow from the inside out, to have your people fully believe in it before you take it to the world,” he says. “Secondly, it’s your ability to execute the detail. That is where people interact with the brand. It’s no good developing a logo and slapping it on stuff without consideration and changing everything fundamentally – it’ll fall over.”

Why is why launching with employees, in-person, was critical for Chapman. The new brand debuted at the annual team conference in Coffs Harbour in March with staff, board and stakeholders via an 11-minute film. And it was infused through keynotes across the two days positioning Reflections as a more wilderness, nature-based outdoors company.

“We made a huge deal of the brand launch with our people – like other brands would do to the external market,” Chapman says. “I spent 90 minutes going through the detail – from redesign of our rewards club into the loyalty program, development of our launch campaign, and changes in customer communications and marketing automation. But then it was about stuff that’s really important to employees.”

Key was the new-look uniform, which launched with a catwalk featuring people from Chapman’s team. By the time afternoon tea came around, an onsite pop-up was ready for staff to check out sizing, materials and kit.

“The rebrand can be a vehicle to rethink things you’ve wanted to rethink for a long time,” Chapman says. “We thought, if an outdoors company was doing this, and we’re an outdoors company, what would we create? How would our guest experience officers look like? It wouldn’t be a uniform you might see on a bank teller, it’d be more like what you’d see on a trekking guide. And what is really functional material to wear in the far north when it’s 40 degrees, 88 per cent humidity and you’re mowing? It is not 300 threadcount cotton King Gee.

“To be able to announce with the rollout that come Monday, this stuff sitting in the warehouse can be ordered from the portal online, as well as new welcome packs for guests and other collateral, was where we won the parks. They said this is really legit, it’s not the marketing guys wanting their ads to look different. This is a ground-up, whole-of-company change which in many ways is the platform for us to be the company we already know we are.”

Preparation was paramount for Chapman, which meant pre-preparing tens of thousands of assets including 2,400 wayfinding signs, 180 re-skinned vehicles, 420 staff uniforms with 10 pieces from winter to summer and for climatically different regions, marketing collateral, banners and sponsorship assets. Internalising work and executing via a small business design partner and a SaaS workflow management process allowed Reflections to do this quickly, efficiently and directly.

“It’s not the sexy stuff, but it’s these kinds of things that will change your life often in these roles [CMO],” says Chapman. 

New brand advertising started on the Sunday night; and the brand switched over Monday via the Reflections’ website. Employees could order from a bunch of online platforms centralised on the intranet immediately and uniforms were drop shipped in. That same Monday, the signage rollout team, already equipped with collateral, were on the road installing park by park.

“We will have a transition period, but it’ll be six weeks. Typically, a transition period for a business will take six months,” Chapman says.  

Advertising and channel investment

For six months prior to going live, Reflections had been working on its hefty social media presence and engaged Enigma plus Bread to help. Led by teasers, social was ready to roll from 18 March. The 820 pieces of customer comms used had also been fully rewritten. A series of EDMs is running to tell the story incorporating a mix of film, photography and copy.

A mass media program was teed up to launch the new brand too. The advertising campaign runs across peak-time TV and out-of-home including wraps of the B Line Northern Beaches buses in Sydney, supported by performance media and social, and is designed to tap ‘brand mental availability’, says Chapman.

While he wouldn’t be drawn on exact dollars spent, Chapman says Reflections spent about 1 per cent of total annual revenue on the rebrand, and expects to pay it back within the first 12 months.

Reflections reported $72.4m in revenue in the 2023 financial year, pegging costs at between $500k and $1M. Modelling for the board focused on both growing the market with people who don’t see themselves as holiday park people, as well as upping market share. 

“If we can grow our pipe by about 2.25 per cent of next year’s revenue through marketing growth, and 0.5 per cent growth in market share, that’ll see us pay that back,” Chapman says. “And it’ll compound – in five years’ time, the cost of the rebrand will 10x itself.”

Helping justification of spend was doing work more efficiently in-house, plus recognition it was time for asset renewal, which tallied up to 80 per cent of the cost.

Having runs on the board from prior brand campaign efforts also helped with the advertising spend. Off the back of its first 2022 ATL campaign, which emphasised regional media and centred around radio, peak TV and out-of-home on major arterial roads, Reflections saw 20 per cent growth off the back of a prior record year. It also saw +40 per cent in prompted brand awareness growth against an original benchmark of +10 per cent, and all health metrics all shot up through to consideration. Simultaneously, ‘likely not to consume’ or ‘likely not to stay’ figures went down.

Slow burn: From performance media skew to brand investment

Creating a line in the sand brand moment for Chapman also led to producing a 100-page travel and lifestyle magazine called ‘Outsider’ which celebrates destinations, the outdoor lifestyle and experiences and connections awaiting those eager to explore. Reflections has printed 40,000 copies and will use these across sites, sponsorships and other activations.

“You do need some sort of line in the sand, brand moments, and things you haven’t done before or feel bigger than the brand itself. One of those for us was Outsider magazine,” says Chapman, adding the edition is “almost like a visitor economy job”.

More than one person asked Chapman why he didn’t just “do a digital version” but he believes they’ve missed the point. It’s also indicative of the major shift Chapman is making towards brand investment over short-term performance advertising and media.

“We have a true belief building a brand is more important than gains through performance media, and you’ll see us do more of that and make that fundamental switch into brand next year,” Chapman says.

When he arrived, spend was 95:5 in favour of performance. “It’s now probably 60 per cent performance; from here, it’s going to be 80-85 per cent brand, and 15-20 per cent performance,” Chapman says.

“Within brand, we invest in things like SEO as well as proper content and research that’s going to enrich people’s discovery journey. That for us is important, rather than just being there waiting for when they want to book a holiday and they don’t even remember who they booked it with.”

Chapman employs a useful camping analogy to sum up this increasingly brand-first view.

“You build a fire with small sticks and kindling and the beautiful thing about those two elements is they catch light quick and go hard. The problem with them is as soon as you stop throwing sticks on, it goes out. That’s performance media – it’s great while you feed it and it’s immediate, so there’s a temptation to keep throw kindling on that fire,” he explains. “But the moment you stop throwing kindling, the fire goes out.

“We needed to build brand growth through performance media and the kindling; but once you have that going, you must start putting pieces of hard wood on. It’s a little slower to ignite, but it burns way longer. That’s brand.

“The things we’re doing now and foundations we’re laying, will pay dividends long term. Ideally, the work we’re doing now is laying the foundation for someone to book a holiday with us in three years’ time.”

Having grown at a record 15-20 per cent in the last two years, Chapman is expecting to see similar growth this financial year against category of about 8-10 per cent, outpacing the market. “We have seen significant growth by doing simple things properly – system fixes, building a central reservations team, getting much better at converting every lead coming into the business.

“This next phase is about growing the pie – both our portion of current market and growing the market. It’s kind of weird for us – we’re the biggest in NSW but one of the small groups nationally. We shouldn’t see ourselves as growing the category but while no one else does, we see it as a big opportunity.”

Loyalty program overhaul

In complement, Chapman has re-engineered Reflections’ member program on more democratic lines and to celebrate the camper, not just the bigger spenders. To help, the group brought on Insider’s CDP platform last year.

Previously, guests would receive $25 stay money for signing up, then $100 for every $1,000 spent. Under the new scheme, guests get $25 for every week they stay with us, regardless of where they stay – a nod to loyalty first and foremost. To encourage additional park visitation, guests also get $25 when they stay somewhere new.

Creating a two-way relationship through personalised content is another piece. “We have been learning lot about our rewards club by the different things, products and times they engage with our business and we’ve segmented them in the back-end into a whole collection of different interest groups,” Chapman says.

Early access to new parks, experience and merchandise is the third loyalty pillar. A top ‘Explorer’ tier will be based on spending 28 days in parks and give customers a unique boom gate code to use at any park, plus hats, kit, collectibles and stickers.

“We have fundamentally changed things, thrown out half of our name, reinvented the logo. The thing that gives me confidence is everyone who sees us and knows us says yes, I love it, but that’s how it should have been,” Chapman concludes. “That’s exactly what you want in a rebrand; you don’t want super new news, you just want it to look the best version of you – you on a good day.”