Direct Ferries are the ‘Booking.com’ for ferries. They’re the world’s biggest online travel agent (OTA) for ferry travel, aggregating ferry times and prices for 3,300 routes and 200+ ferries around the world – from mainline routes like Dover to Calais, to bespoke trips around Greek islands. They’re the first port of call for ferry travel in 25 languages all around the world.

But unlike Booking.com, Direct Ferries has low brand awareness, despite being around since 1999 and selling over 3 million tickets a year. Even previous customers aren’t often aware of the Direct Ferries name: passengers who booked via a Google ad, end up clicking on a Google ad to find them again.

It hasn’t helped that the ferry market is more fragmented than other travel markets (many ferry companies are still independently of family owned), so it’s not as joined up as, say, airline travel. On top of that, the ferry travel market is awash with functional-looking websites with muddy colour palettes. And then there’s a wider image problem of ferries in general. Despite being a low-carbon alternative to flight travel, images of bulky ships and tired design don’t present travelling by ferry as an attractive option.

We All Need Words (strategy and words) and NotOnSunday (design) set about creating a brand for Direct Ferries that showed ferry travel in a more aspirational light. They swapped images of ferries and facilities for sea air and views of the horizon; and cheesy photos of models for travel magazine-style photography.

As well as repositioning ferry travel itself, the wider strategy was to confidently present Direct Ferries as the ferry brand: more destinations and all the fares, times and routes. To convey this new go-to confidence, We All Need Words developed an overall line: “Wherever you’re sailing, start here”. Which, in turn, was also part of a wider, adaptable brand system using chevrons (in the shape of a ship’s bow). These are sometimes standalone, paired with ‘A to B’ couplet headlines, mirroring the overall ‘wherever you’re sailing’ line.

Direct Ferries: How do you rebrand ferry travel?