Addressing delegates at the Barrhead conference in Ibiza, Tempest-Mitchell said the brand would be updated with "a new look and feel" next summer, one she said would propel the company – which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025 – "into a new era".
Tempest-Mitchell said despite people’s loyalty to what she described as "the very reputable" Barrhead brand, the agency was keen to tap into what it is about the brand that makes people keep coming back.
"We’ve got to evolve and modernise," she said. "We want to understand what is unique about Barrhead in our customers’ eyes, in our people’s eyes and in our partners’ eyes – and we want to amplify that in our marketing.”
Speaking earlier in the conference, Tempest-Mitchell said the rebrand would "propel Barrhead Travel into a new era".
Tempest-Mitchell stressed to TTG the historic name would remain in situ, central to the brand identity. Barrhead is the suburb of Glasgow where Bill Munro founded the agency in 1975.
Barrhead has hailed its focus on social media marketing, particularly via Instagram, as a cornerstone of its 12% year-on-year growth in revenue.
With the agency’s following on Instagram now standing at 104,000, it has set up a dedicated social media sales team to harness this potential customer base, which has so far achieved more than double its revenue prediction.
"Instagram reaches whole new audiences that maybe haven’t heard of Barrhead Travel and that’s what we’re excited about – building our brand among that audience,” Tempest-Mitchell told TTG.
She described Instagram as a “lever we need to be serious about", but cautioned it was unlikely to become the agency’s main driver of sales and revenue.
“Instagram allows us to emotionally connect with customers through video and really great content,” Tempest-Mitchell added. “But will it be the number one driver? No. Our branches will always be our number one driver – it’s where we have the human connection.”
Barrhead’s 50th anniversary celebrations will get under way next year, and will feature a Dragons’ Den-style initiative inviting people from across the business to pitch ideas worthy of winning a share of a £50,000 pot of marketing spend and special projects funding.
"Our people are so creative and we’ve not always been able to fulfil those ideas because we’ve had to stay really focused on some of the other big projects we have been working on,” Tempest-Mitchell explained. “So we came up with an idea to give away some marketing money and allow our people to become entrepreneurs.”
