Reflections Holidays is a brand after our own hearts. In 2023 they did a bold re-brand to own the position of nature and adventure – holidays that lead with experiences in nature not jumpy pillows. Amen. They’ve got guts, and it’s paying off in spades.
They are the largest holiday park group in New South Wales, with 2.1 million guests each year, 450 employees and contribute $126 million in economic benefit to regional NSW. They have grown at a record 15-20% in the last two years (category is 8-10%).
This purpose-driven brand is also measuring success via a quadruple bottom line not only against profit, but environment, cultural and community impact.
We chatted to their CMO Peter Chapman about going against the grain to win big, the secret to their competitive advantage and how the most valuable stuff is not measurable.

Key insights:
• Understand your organisation before you re-brand, then push it further - nailing the roll-out is even more important than the brand
• The opioid that is performance marketing doesn’t drive brand growth long term
• Moving their marketing mix to 90% brand, 10% performance marketing is driving growth while rest of market is in decline
• The board doesn’t care about what tactic you use ,they just want effectiveness
• Regional TV, out of home, organic SEO, eDMs and their Outsiders loyalty program are a winning marketing mix
• If you follow the herd, the only thing you can expect to do is average

1. What are your top three tips for any marketers about to approach a re-brand?

• Get know the business first. I wanted to do the re-brand on day one. I was a loyal customer, but I didn’t know the team or the history. I took two years to understand the brand and what it meant to customers so we knew what to keep. Otherwise you throw out brand equity.
• You can push it further than you think. Visually, strategically, understand what is baby and what is bathwater. There’ll be plenty of both. Lose the bathwater and the rest you can push. Instead of tweaking every couple of years take the time to push the boat out as far as you can. The core elements of the re-brand should last for 10 years.
• Nail the roll-out - in some respects this is more important than the brand development. Invest commercially but also energy and effort to roll it all out smoothly.
  There were four people in the whole world who knew about the re-brand: me, my in-house Creative Director Matt Plummer, our CEO and our Aboriginal Engagement Officer. We took it to the exec and the marketing team in stages of buy in. Finally, we took it to all our people at our national conference when it was fully resolved.
  We had a pop-up boutique to try on the uniform, Outsider mag on their seats, goodie bags on their table. Parks signage was being updated for when they came back to work. The tangible parts are so important to the on the ground staff.
  The biggest win of the whole re-brand is that we won our people. Part of the two years is that you’ve got to build trust.

2. What’s a brand you most admire and why?
Patagonia have built a brand that’s as desirable as you can think of, through a focus on purpose. They’ve proved that being good can be really good for business.

And Intrepid travel. They also have an incredible purpose, but they’re highly commercial. Intrepid believe we need to do well. A great Australian brand that’s done well by doing good.

3. You’ve done a complete 180 on the marketing mix at Reflections from 10% brand 90% performance to now 90% brand building and 10% performance marketing, why?
For the simple reason it’s more effective. There’s nothing altruistic about it. If you follow the herd and do what everyone else is doing, the only thing you can expect to do is average. Because if you rely on performance media, you’re just following category conventions. It’s the opioid of marketing.
It’s like building a fire – if you use kindling, it lights fast, burns quickly. The problem is to keep it going you’ve got to keep chucking the kindling on. The moment you stop it fizzles out because they don’t give a shit about your brand.
Brand marketing is like putting hardwood on the fire, it lasts longer. The truth that people don’t have the balls for, is that the fire will go down a little bit in the short term. You’ve got to ride that out.
We’re now 3.5 years in and we’re proving categorically that focussing on brand in our sector works. Others don’t have the confidence in their team to deliver it. It’s the only competitive advantage left.

People hide behind their boards and CEOs, worried that they don't want to see a dip in ad marketing metrics but in my experience, boards don't focus on what tactic you use or what the micro measurement tools like marketing metrics. Looking at those is our job. Boards and CEOs want effectiveness and are looking at company metrics. Manage expectations on when your effectiveness is going to take place, take them on the journey and you’ll win.

It’s been a two-year journey. Before that we were buying goggle AdWords for our park names and locations!! Paying for terms where people would find us anyway!

4. What does your brand marketing mix include and what’s delivered the greatest ROI?
We’re investing heavily in SEO. Our organic search traffic is now x 10. Branded search traffic has doubled (people typing 'Reflections' into Google). Our brand awareness has grown.
For us in truth you can’t beat TV. 65% of our audience are in regional NSW, we have twice the customers there vs. city. And our competitors aren’t playing there. So already we’ve got a double, double share of voice, we go hard in Out Of Home and TV there.
But the best ROI for us is building a meaningful membership base. We have 300k people in our ecosystem. We’re pulling 2mil in revenue via that.
Our CRM is really valuable in delivering insights into the customer journey. And eDMs! That’s where we do our bonkers deals. They’re so much more valuable to us than a Facebook campaign!
The riskiest thing we can do is stuff that’s measurable in the short term because everyone else is doing it. The most valuable stuff is not measurable. Bet the pig, not the farm. Try new things.
Our lifestyle mag Outsiders is 100 pages and has not one ad or offer. It’s full of fishing spots and camp recipes and bike trails, the stuff that people want to read!
And we’re in growth, while rest of market is in decline.

5. If you could afford any brand ambassador for Reflections dead or alive, who would you choose and why?
I’m thinking who’s good enough to fit with our brand?
Chris Hemsworth – he’s got good energy, believes in the importance of the outside, and is ambitious. He’s popular too, we can’t pretend that’s not important for mainstream brands.

6. What are some of your most valuable brand assets in building brand equity, what’s non-negotiable?
The line: life’s better outside
The word Reflections
The colour green: it’s crazy how much it’s not used in the category
And our focus on nature and adventure is such a strong point of difference for us.

7. Biggest marketing fail?
I did a billboard launching that we were the most dog friendly park group in Australia and the visual I used was Seal Rocks - one of only three of our non-dog friendly parks in Australia. All the staff let me know multiple times about that one and I had to change it!
And we launched a new website on 13 Dec. We do more business in Dec and Jan than half a year combined. It resulted in me and the whole team working Christmas eve and boxing day ironing out stuff that didn’t work properly.

8. What are you looking at for 2025 in terms of innovation in marketing?
It’s definitely not technology. The biggest innovation in marketing in my mind is really smoothing out the customer journey and customer experience. To use technology (AI) not to just replace the stuff we’re already doing but to do stuff we never would have had the ability to. Predict trends, aid people’s journeys. I’m excited about being able to do that better.

9. Advice for budding CMOs?
Choose to do less and you’ve got to stick to it. And don’t hold onto your mistakes.
Proper brand building takes time. That’s hard when CEOs are around for an average of 2.5 years. The relationship between the CEO and CMO is everything.