Pionair: Oceania ‘Affluent Travel’ booklet

Attention to detail and exceptional service was Pionair’s speciality; Pionair was simultaneously a ‘best in class’ tour operator and an airline that specialised in private air charter. Pionair Unparalleled Journeys’ travel brochure offered exclusive, tailormade travel for the discerning First Class Independent Traveller (F.I.T.) market from North America, Europe and South America. Every UPJ vacation was put together with care, thought and attention to the individual needs of couples, families and small groups.

Project scope

The scope of the brochure was Oceania region wide; New Zealand, Australia, the South Pacific and Papua New Guinea. The booklet was both a direct mail piece and a core component of Pionair’s top-of-the-line Affluent Travel Agent’s sales kit. The kit contained an in-house digitally printed manual and other printed marketing communications collateral.

The consistent application of the UPJ “all black” visual theme united print and web on the  Pionair website.

The name of the F.I.T business unit, “Unparalleled Journeys” was one that I originated in 2005. UPJ developed into the name for the standalone Affluent Travel firm which arose after Pionair was wound up in New Zealand in 2009 as a knock-on effect of the economic collapse at the end of 2008.

Brand communications strategy

The front and back cover images of the booklet are set against a rich black background. The cover image is a striking signature photo composite of the road to Mt. Cook rendered in the UPJ brand signature theme of an ‘all black’ sky. Aside from the obvious dramatic effect a black sky has with regard to intensifying the colours in landscape photos, this was also a pragmatic choice in order to assert a strong point of difference between our printed sales collateral and those of the competition. The rationale being that, like our competitors, Pionair leaned heavily on the likes of Tourism New Zealand and Australia’s State Tourism image libraries for sourcing royalty-free high quality images. The industry -wide use of great quality but generic images has the predictable result of making travel brochures appear generic, and printed collateral that lacks clear brand differentiation from competitors.

Industry response

This was the fourth in the series of 32-page landscape booklets I art directed, designed and produced over four years for the primarily U.S. Affluent / Luxury Travel market. The response to the brochure from Pionair’s exclusive Affluent Travel agents in the States was consistently complimentary about the beauty and utility of the design and enthusiastic about the high production values and impeccable print-craft quality and finish achieved by Propellor Studio’s preferred print provider, Croft Printing of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Giving credit where it is due

Credit is due to the lead in-house clients for this projects, head of the F.I.T. business group, Ana Haase, Pionair CEO Tim Scott, and Ana’s colleagues Kelly and Roz. Between them they wrote the brochure story and provided critical review and ongoing constructive contributions to the staging of the document content. The merit of this document rests on the unique benefit of working as an in-house designer—where your clients are your colleagues and, in this case, the intellectual horsepower of one designer is multiplied by a factor of four more clever people collaborating constructively to solve one knotty visual communications problem.

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Credits

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Printer: Croft Print Limited
Type Credit: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica Neue Condensed, Helvetica Neue Extended