Thomas Cook: Marketing Strategies to Attract UK Millennials

This report analyzes Thomas Cook's strategies for attracting millennial customers in the UK. It examines the company's use of digital marketing tools, social media platforms, advertising, and campaigns to engage this demographic. The report provides a micro and macro environmental analysis, exploring factors such as customer behavior, competitors, and political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental influences. The study evaluates the effectiveness of various marketing communication tools, including social media, advertising, and campaigns, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, it proposes a preliminary marketing communication strategy focused on integrating digital platforms and customer-centric approaches to enhance brand awareness and revenue generation. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding millennial preferences and adapting marketing efforts to meet their needs, with the ultimate goal of increasing customer engagement and loyalty.

THOMAS COOK GROUP AND
HOW THEY ATTRACT
MILLENNIALS IN THE UK

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This assignment is based on Thomas Cook and its relationship with the millennials of
United Kingdom. This company has adopted several tools in recent times to communicate in
more transparent manner with the millennials through social media platforms. Moreover, they
are consistently putting efforts to connect with their target audience. The ulterior aim is to target
the millennials to consume their services as they are the biggest influencer in generating
revenues and profit generation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................1
Marketing Environment..............................................................................................................1
Analysis of the marketing communication tools
.....................................................................................................................................................3
Preliminary draft for a future marketing communication strategy .............................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
In recent times, Thomas Cook is targeting the millennials to consume their services as
they are the biggest influencer in generating revenues and profit generation. At domestic levels,
the management is focusing on bringing changes to attract the local people for enhancing their
total revenues. This assignment is focusing on understanding the consumers' shift in generating
the awareness of Thomas Cook as the brand.
MAIN BODY
Introduction
Thomas Cook Group is one of the global travel and tourism companies founded in 2007
at Peterborough, United kingdom. It was a merger between Mytravel Group Plc and Thomas
Cook AG. Their operations are expanded in almost 21 countries with more than two lacs
employees under the leading B2B and B2C brands (Smith, Rees and Murray, 2016). Its major
agenda is to attract all age groups with proper resources' allocation to satisfy their existing
customers and attract the new ones as well.
Marketing Environment
Micro Environment Analysis:
Thomas Cook involves this analysis to gain an understanding for planning and
preparation in promoting their business.
Customers- Millennials is the target audience who are tech-savvy and falls under different
categories like local, international etc. and can add to the revenues of Thomas Cook in
forwarding direction (Baum and et.al., 2016). This Gen Y is inclined towards instagram-friendly
locations, going for solo trips etc. and can be attracted through giving discounts, special offers
and others.
Employees- These can be an asset in attracting the desired base by incorporating their own ideas
to produce or sell the product or service.
Distribution channels and Suppliers- They together manage the buying power of markets since
they have the ability to provide the materials and influence the investors (Porcu and et.al., 2019).
Moreover, it has affected the marketplaces at both local and global levels.
Competitors- This factor has a direct influence on the financial aspects in terms of forming loyal
customer base with respect to prevailing competition. High competition reflects upon demand
cycle and tourism has grown exponentially in last decade.
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Investors-They are the driving forces who provide solid assistance in performing the tasks and
business operations in more refined and legislative ways.
Media and the Public- Millennials being the target audience, this factor plays pivotal role in
expanding business of Thomas Cook and generate revenues and profits. Local media of UK
might be proved useful in enhancing the business image effectually.
Macro Environment Analysis:
Political Factor- With Brexit, its situation in UK is undergoing transformational phase.
However, they are exposed to risks of political systems of their operating countries. Parameters
like tariffs, pricing regulations, wages legislation, industrial safety regulations etc. are directly
connected to this factor.
Economic Factor- The infrastructure quality in tourism sector and other factors like inflation
rate, economic growth rate and exchange rates with stability as per the host nation's currency
(Campos-Soria, García- Pozo and Fernández- Gámez, 2018). Along with, this assists in
evaluating the consumers' spending and the impact on the trajectory of economic growth of
Thomas Cook.
Social Factor- It is one of the important factors that shed light on the expectation levels of the
demographics, culture and complete assessment with regard to environmental consciousness,
health etc.
Technological Factor- With advent of information systems and digitalization, there is a sudden
rise of taxis such as Lyft, Uber etc. and websites and applications which are available on various
platforms (Choi, Hickerson and Lee, 2018). This has posed problems for Thomas Cook and has
influenced their consumer services in adverse manner like cost structure. Value chain structure
etc.
Legal Factor- Thomas Cook is into this sector for so long that they have a robust framework to
protect their data and employment right. Additionally, they focus on protecting their IPR with
putting anti-thrust law, consumer protection, discrimination law etc.
Environmental Factor- Tourism is crucial for generating awareness and make the populace,
especially millennials to become responsible towards the sustainability factor in terms of
maintaining the climatic changes, recycling, adopting regulations for mitigating water pollution
and waste management.
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Analysis of the marketing communication tools
Marketing communication tools are at disposal for Thomas Cook in order to bring
awareness and assist in improving the efforts of buying power of customers'. It consists of tools
such as social media, advertising, emails campaign, seminars or conducting trade shows and
using catalogues or newsletters. This adoption of wide range of tools help the company to
convey the messages with more reliability and clarity to their customer base and support in
selling efforts in relation with the product or service (Pluta- Olearnik, 2018). Moreover, these aid
in bringing effective changes regarding the understanding levels of the parameters affecting the
sales cycle. There is a need to centralise the marketing communications as it is refereed as a great
engagement tool.
In regard to the above, the current official marketing strategy for this business is based on
using digital platforms and the conditions are fruitful in addressing millennials queries and
fulfilling their interests. Thomas Cook's inclination towards employing digital assets like social
networking sites like Facebook,Instagram, websites such as Tripoto etc. re-inventing their
website and make it more user-friendly to have a one to one interface between the authorities and
the customers'. The management have laid the foundation of customizing packages to target the
geographical location and the set audience, that is millennials. It is evident that this set of people
are more into adventurous and Instagram friendly destinations. Thus, Thomas Cook has extended
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Illustration 1: Micro and Macro factors
(Source:The Impact Of Micro and Macro
Environment Factors on Marketing, 2019)

their capacities in terms of data driven techniques of the marketing to boost its sales among the
millennials. For instance, their marketing team has incorporated the agenda of inclusive booking
for the set target where 85 percent of the planning would be undertaken by their employees'
(Buratti, Parola and Satta, 2018). There has been shifts in the approachability and idea of
holidaying among the generation Y and generation Z as well.
Strengths: There are number of positive impact which includes instant connectivity with the
millennials as they are spending majority of their time on smartphones and stay online. Their
technological dependency has led Thomas Cook gain their attention at faster speed and
conveniently. This method is affordable and efficient ways to reach the people from all around
the world. For instance, Google Analytics Premium helped Thomas Cook to collect their
customers' database so that they can use double click for the delivery of personalized interactive
sessions and address the queries effectively.
Weaknesses: It has related to privacy issues of the customers'. Their information is available in
this company's database without any control and thus, it might lead to misuse of this information
for any illegal activity. Along with, it emphasized on visibility to feedbacks, reviews and
complaints made by the customers' and is open to everyone. Overexposure sometimes leads to
ineffective measures like high expectation levels, proper allocation of budget oriented plans to
attract the millennial and leads to affect the quality and delivery of services in real time
scenarios.
Furthermore, advertising is another marketing strategy which has been used by the
marketing team of Thomas Cook. When Thomas Cook came with the iconic tag-line of “Don't
just book it, Thomas Cook It”, it directly hit the families and the involved millennials who are
looking for reconnecting with their roots and cultural values. Therefore, this company is focusing
on outbound tourism which focuses on using the mobile internet and use of billboards, television
so that B2B and B2C are promoted among the targeted audience. Their aim is to sell their
products and services with great exposure to their image branding in the global competitive
marketplaces such as China, Germany and more (Xiang, Magnini and Fesenmaier, 2015).
Herein, Thomas Cook uses its own podiums like mobile application, customer friendly website
and along with it emphases on collaborating with third party agencies.
Strengths: This helps Thomas Cook in introducing about any special offer or discount to the
customers. Additionally, it would eliminate any ambiguous sources which sometimes leads to
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fraudulent or scam and helps in maintaining the quality and delivery of products or services.
There is also accessibility to know about the latest updates in more reliable manner and would
support the employees in selling propositions.
Weaknesses: This lacks the lasting minutes because it might lead to short lived impact on the
young minds who are mostly distracted and do not believe the word of mouth publicity.
Moreover, it is an expensive technique and takes time and resources to implement it on larger
scale. In addition to the above, it is more prone to risks and associated mistakes and impact on
the available choices which leads to confusion and more choices for the customers to choose
from.
Next tool they adopted is conducting campaigns and trade shows to gain the customer'
attention, this has been adopted by Thomas Cook from time and again to optimize the
effectiveness of their time, energy and resources. Their team initiated a campaign called
“HELLO Holiday” to garner appropriate revenues in the peak season for bookings in January.
Nevertheless, their ulterior purpose is to renew their brand image on focusing customers to strive
for authenticity and productivity at both local and global millennials to bring uniformity in their
services (Ahmed and Abdelkader, 2019). Recently, they launched “no place for plastic” to
remove the use of plastics and substitute it with more organic and sustainable alternatives.
Strengths: It is easy technique to gain attention from all age groups and different demographics.
There is easy targeting the set audience and reach them on more profound manner. Nevertheless,
it brought revolutionary changes on sensitized subjects and let their customers gain profits
through considerations. Customers are in contact with the salespersons directly and are on good
communication levels by building relationships with investors, customers and public in general.
Weaknesses: It is expensive methods and the success rate sometimes is fluctuating and leads to
unauthorized access. This also has impacted the complexities like direct competition with respect
to other competitors. There is a risk of copying the content and use of trademarks or logos might
come under the legal cases where reputational risk takes place.
Preliminary draft for a future marketing communication strategy
A marketing communication strategy is the systematic plan to enhance the awareness of a
brand with worldwide recognition to reach the targeted revenue management and profit
generation for an organization. The focusing area is to implement the different channels,
methods and tools to laid the foundation of an efficient and wholesome modes (Font and
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McCabe, 2017). Moreover, it leads to interdisciplinary connectivity between the customers and
the company for bringing coordination while performing operations. In regard to this, Thomas
Cook needs to adopt a marketing communication strategy to gain the attention of all the
millennials in United Kingdom. Their focus is to bring awareness regarding their offers,
discounts and packages. Their marketing team and IT (Information Technology) team were
merged together to work in combined forms to bring transparency and viability factors. It helped
in establishing an integrated framework to centralised their resources in a systematic mode to
ensure optimum profitability and productivity in reaching the technology dependent Generation
Y population.
Thomas Cook has been using a variety of digital marketing tools and platforms which
brought the required attention of the millennial in using their services while travelling. Digital
marketing is essential in this context due to the targeted audience. Its reach is faster, convenient
and beneficial in all the ways that impact the young minds of this targeted population
proficiently. Moreover, this medium would be proved useful for Thomas Cook to enhance their
brand reputation by generating awareness and increasing the credibility factor (Tölkes, 2018). It
has also assisted in letting these competitors to stand out with respect to their prevailing
competition in the markets. This company's ranking had been pushed to third spot in recent times
due to ineffective and scattered advertising techniques and this led to a disorientation from the
millennials segment. For instance, the advertisements were not specific, were bit vague and did
not convey any message on any theme based concept.
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It is clearly demonstrated that marketing communication strategies are useful in voicing
the concerns of this company to the millennials who spend a substantial amount of time on
online platforms. The execution of this strategy which underpin the different aspects of the
digital marketing will reflect today's adult lifestyle in more profound order. Millennials are using
the digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for communicating, connecting,
voicing their opinions and gaining insights on the worldly affairs. Henceforth, Thomas Cook
must plan and design an outline in terms of making aware the millennials about their decade
consistency and several offers that are constant throughout the year. Their objective is to fetch
their undivided concentration when travelling and become the number one travel and tourism
sector's organization. Social listening is vital for Thomas Cook's teams to meet the expectations,
needs and demands in accordance with the taste and solitary required by the adults from
generation Y. The exchange of information and businesses using these digital marketing goals
must accomplish Thomas Cook's vision to successfully reach their customers in less time and in
the highest efforts.
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Illustration 2: Channels for marketing communication strategies applicable for
businesses
(Source: Herhold, 2018)

However, Thomas Cook must adopt the IMC Strategy that is the mnemonic for Integrated
Marketing Communication. This is one of the most effective concepts of promotion and
advertising a plan to curb any challenging situations at the workplace. This is beneficial for all
types of communications and messages that are in relation at some or other point and aids in
finding solutions to connect with the overindulgent millennials and Thomas Cook Groups.
Moreover, this strategy is the most basic landmark to avoid the isolation and negative publicity
that comes in association with rise of digital marketing tools. It also lays emphasis on boosting
sales and revenues with building a relationship between the consumers and the chosen company
so that cost effectiveness can be realised and minimise the time and stress that leads to
hampering effects on the overall growth.
In addition to the IMC strategy, this model helped in integrating the consistency with
credibility to reduce the risks attached with the messages and support in flourishing the relevancy
and validity to connect the millennials with their brand (Fyall, 2019). This company has been
operating in more than twenty countries and has a great customer base, and now their focus is
shifted to the students and mainly the millennial population. In context to Thomas Cook, their
organizational approaches are obsolete when it comes down to using online marketing tools and
need a new perspective to garner attention from the generation Y population from both local and
global set. There is a need to re-invent their campaigning structure to meet the demands of
millennials as their focus must be fixed to capture this targeted audience and hold them and
convert them into loyal base for better rankings as one of the effective tour operators.
The marketing communications strategy for Thomas Cook is an important step for overall
development and progression at worldwide levels. This is crucial to make their future more
sustainable and enhancing their visibility among the competitors with a strong web footprint to
influence the millennials in consuming their product or service. With respect to the same, there
are several phases in which this development of a future communication strategy would be
adopted for employing marketing in millennials of the United Kingdom (Iglesias- Sánchez,
Correia and Jambrino- Maldonado, 2019). Thomas Cook must try to be mobile and hard-wired in
contacting the millennials through chatbots and using other information systems like customer-
friendly interfaces on mobile apps and websites. Their focus must be in recruiting skilled and
professional people like writers, spokespersons who can directly interact with the millennials
through their distinctive behavioural approaches. The main outline refers to the purchasing
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power parity of the millennials and their psychology to develop the understanding in context to
shaping the mindsets and behavioural attitude.
Furthermore, there is a need to understand the marketing strategies and establishment of
social communication through using social media platforms effectually for gaining insights on
their lingos, social norms, updates and cultural aspects. United Kingdom has always been the
hub for higher education and thus flock of both regional and international students are coming in
good amount. However, Thomas Cook must concentrate on increasing their credibility by being
supportive and cooperative towards the need of such students. With Brexit and unstable pound
sterling currency in the world, it is important for them to offer some facilities and provisions to
lure the millennials in greeting linked with this company for travelling purposes. For instance, by
providing medical insurance and travel insurance as well, it will add additional features to the
customers of Thomas Cook to travel from both the sides conveniently.
In addition to this, they can try to put a customized packages for such millennials which
will prove pocket-friendly to them and assist in bringing them together with adventure, sports or
nature. Moreover, Thomas Cook must try to establish a safe and secured plans when in groups
while travelling the world without compromising on their privacy and other such related issues.
For example, millennials have the tendency to check ins or outs their activities while travelling to
any exotic country or place. However, it is important to be safe by making a set of guidelines to
keep their relatives and family members informed about their whereabouts (Tölkes, 2018). This
would help to bridge the communication gaps which sometimes is misleading and impact in
some criminal activities and would be helpful in assisting in preventing any accident or uncertain
crisis.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarised that Thomas Cook has adopted several tools to communicate in
more transparent manner with the millennials through social media platforms. Moreover, they
are consistently putting efforts to connect with their target audience. Lastly, a pre-defined
marketing communication strategy is proposed in regard with gaining attention of the millennials
of the United Kingdom and assist in flourishing their revenues, growth, profits and expansion
plans.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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relationship Between Electronic Integrating Communication Marketing (E-IMC) and
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analysis. Sustainability.8(8). p.809.
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B2B services. The TQM Journal.30(5) pp.490-529.
Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Strategic planning and the marketing effectiveness audit. In Travel
Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 117-135). Springer, Cham.
Campos- Soria, J. A., García- Pozo, A. and Fernández- Gámez, M. Á., 2018. Environmental
engagement of costumer in the tourism industry.
Choi, Y., Hickerson, B. and Lee, J., 2018. Investigation of the technology effects of online travel
media on virtual travel experience and behavioral intention. Journal of Travel &
Tourism Marketing.35(3). pp.320-335.
Font, X. and McCabe, S., 2017. Sustainability and marketing in tourism: its contexts, paradoxes,
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Fyall, A., 2019. Tourism Destination Re-positioning and Strategies. In The Future of
Tourism (pp. 271-283). Springer, Cham.
Hassan, A. and Dadwal, S.S., 2018. Search Engine Marketing: An Outlining of
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Engagement: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 843-858). IGI
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Iglesias- Sánchez, P.P., Correia, M.B. and Jambrino- Maldonado, C., 2019. Challenges of Open
Innovation in the Tourism Sector. Tourism Planning & Development.16(1). pp.22-42.
Pluta- Olearnik, M., 2018. Integrated marketing communication—concepts, practice, new
challenges. Marketing of Scientific and Research Organizations.28(2). pp.121-138.
Porcu, L. and et.al., 2019. Analyzing the influence of firm-wide integrated marketing
communication on market performance in the hospitality industry. International Journal
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Smith, L., Rees, P. and Murray, N., 2016. Turning entrepreneurs into intrapreneurs: Thomas
Cook, a case-study.Tourism Management.56.pp.191-204.
Tölkes, C., 2018. Sustainability communication in tourism–A literature review. Tourism
management perspectives.27. pp.10-21.
Xiang, Z., Magnini, V.P. and Fesenmaier, D.R., 2015. Information technology and consumer
behavior in travel and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the internet.Journal
of Retailing and Consumer Services.22. pp.244-249.
Online
Herhold, K., 2018. The Importance of Digital Marketing in 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/the-importance-of-
digital-marketing-in-2018-02101555>.
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The Impact Of Micro and Macro Environment Factors on Marketing. 2019. [Online]. Available
through:<https://blog.oxfordcollegeofmarketing.com/2014/11/04/the-impact-of-micro-
and-macro-environment-factors-on-marketing/>.
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