Thinking Louder with Skyscanner
Skyscanner started out with an intention to do things differently. Today, they're a global leader in travel with over 100 million users across the world. But how did they land there? We asked brand and creative experts, Victoria Best and James Bradley, to talk through their flight path to success.
Creating a strong, impactful brand is one thing. Keeping it both exciting and consistent is where it can get tricky. With customers all over the world, Skyscanner’s advertising needs to stay true to their mission, vision and values, while still working for different global audiences. So we invited them to share some of their top brand thinking and advice.
Principal Global Brand Marketing Manager Victoria Best and Principal Creative Lead James Bradley both believe in creating meaningful brand experiences that bring people together. Like the viral Greenock Granny moment with Scottish Rugby and a Cannes Lions winning billboard that really took off (despite being so disruptive it was taken down).
Key to their success is building a strong and solid brand base through reliable and tested blocks of design and copy that then allows them the freedom to play a little more. Flexing to suit different contextual surroundings and big culture moments, keeping everything feeling fresh, but crucially, still on brand.
“There’s no point of brand just living in the brand team, it needs to be clear across the company so that everyone’s working and representing the brand in the same way.”
Victoria Best, Principal Global Brand Marketing Manager at Skyscanner
An expert brand-builder, Victoria also believes it’s key to get internal buy-in for your brand. Ensuring every team fully understands every element – even the parts that they don’t work with directly – allows them to fully invest in the brand.
And a team that’s passionate about what they do creates bigger and better ideas. Creating safe spaces to share and grow these ideas then ramps up the possibilities. The trick is to move fast to capitalise on key culture moments.
Principal Creative Lead, James believes that as platforms get busier and nosier, tying your brand back to culture, and things people really care about, is where the magic really happens.
“You’ve got to really care about what you’re doing. Because if you don’t care about what you’re doing you’re not going to put the attention, craft and detail into every part of it.”
James Bradley, Principal Creative Lead at Skyscanner
Victoria Best is Principal Global Brand Marketing Manager at Skyscanner. Building the Skyscanner brand globally, working closely with in-house creatives, producers, channel specialists and external agencies to deliver omni-channel campaigns that generate awareness and consideration. Previous to Skyscanner, Victoria worked in marketing roles at Leith, The Union and Proctor & Gamble.
James Bradleyis Skyscanner’s Principal Creative Lead. Passionate about creating engaging and benefit-led brand experiences that connect people with brands and products, ensuring consumers get value at every stage of the brand funnel. James specialises in visual direction for global brand campaigns, product experiences, brand design systems, creative tech and more. James has previously worked at Digitas (Publicis Groupe) and The&Partnership (WPP), delivering campaigns, creative tech and brand systems for major clients like Kellogg's, Honda, Graze, Visa, FormulaE, NatWest, The Glenlivet, and many others.
