Travel firms named among ‘top challenger brands’

Airlines, OTAs and accommodation platforms make Trouble Making 100

Ryanair, Airbnb, easyJet, lastminute.com and Booking.com have been named among the UK’s ‘top challenger brands’ in the inaugural Trouble Making 100 Report.

Creative and media agency Trouble Maker, which is behind the report, said ‘the travel industry is rewriting the rules of brand behaviour’.

The report finds that, despite their global scale, these brands still embody the ‘rule-breaking, customer-first spirit that defines true challengers’.

Budget airline Ryanair came third in the top 100 rankings, with rival carrier easyJet in 53^rd. OTA lastminute.com ranked 70^th, and accommodation booking platforms Airbnb and Booking.com were listed in 18^th and 72^nd respectively.

Virgin was also included in the top 100, but not specifically as any of its travel brands Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Holidays or Virgin Voyages.

The ranking, which is set to become a multi-year event, uses consumer perspectives. Its methodology combines prompted awareness scores with ad spend data over the last 18 months. Some 400 brands were identified, which were narrowed down to the top 100.

Trouble Maker says ‘there’s no single way to be a challenger brand’, that ‘the characteristics of successful challenger brands evolve across life stages’ and ‘different generations react and respond to these factors in different ways’.

Chief creative officer Jonathan Fraser said: “Creativity without courage doesn’t cut it anymore.

“The TM100 shows that trouble-making isn’t just a nice-to-have attitude, but reinforces what we already know - that it’s a real driver of business value.

“Few brands win solely through media scale and even fewer are market leaders. The rest can only win hearts (and wallets) by being brave enough to break category rules, take risks and stand for something. That’s both the challenge and the opportunity for marketers today.”