The same Club, just better...

Was it not Nero who was out changing signs when Rome flooded?  Or was that another time?

Just back from the show and whilst there, along with the better half, we spent a good half hour chatting to a couple of staff manning the CAMC stand. We both gave our blessing to the rebrand and had a good chat about how it was being received at the show. In the time we were hanging out on the stand we witnessed numerous new members being signed up.

This much I can pass on from our chat today...

There will be no revoke of the rebrand.

The club know that in recent times they have been losing new leisure vehicle owners to the C&CC, they have seen the C&CC increase its membership whilst the CC membership has been in decline, the rebrand is in response to this trend.

The average age of CC members is considerably higher than that of the C&CC, with this in mind the Club felt a need to modernise in an effort to balance this out to sustain future growth

There has been considerable growth in the sale of leisure orientated vehicles, for example VW T6 conversions and activity style caravans. The Club are looking to attract this new breed of owner by way of modernising it's appearance and outlook

There have been surveys carried out, not exclusively with current members but with leisure vehicle owners and potential owners in general. The overriding response being that the Caravan Club was considered as stuffy, outdated and regimental. The Club want to change this perception.

What a lot of marketing waffle - does anyone know how much this re brand will cost??  I have a young family and a caravan I am constantly frustrated that the caravan club wifi never works and the booking web site only works on a laptop and not a tablet.  

Maybe investing in the essentials on sites might draw in the younger folk.  

If the club truly want to embrace more people to enjoy the outdoors - perhaps we should have included the campers and let the tents in we could have renamed ourselves the caravan and camping.....Oops !!!!

Have to agree with all of this

To the young ' uns caravans are not cool. (research conducted with 25 fellow university students last year)

They tell me MH's on a VW Transporter are cool but because they cannot afford them most don't go camping at all they go on a flight to the med for £30 or a flight to Mexico for £300.

Despite being taken all over Europe in both MH's and caravans for years my now grown up daughter thinks all camping is naff. This idea of risking everything just to appeal more to the young people is a risky one.

I really think that by wazzing off (technical term) existing loyal members the club has shot itself right in the foot and will drive members to the other club or they just won't bother and use the independent sites

I asked on Facebook for a plain English reply to what changes us members would see on the ground apart from new signs, this was the response, I will let you make up your own mind 

Hello Janet.
Previously the imagery was mainly that of the sites themselves which a lot of our members are already aware of. We are not stopping this however we are also adding imagery of local attractions and scenes of outstanding beauty a stones throw away from the sites - hence using the word inspiration in our new branding. In addition to this we are building up more member offers with companies providing outdoor adventures for our members to utilise and create your own experiences.
I hope this is a little more plain English for you. ^Dean

and will drive members to the other club

It looks like I'm a trailblazer    

Thankyou for reporting this back to us. Perhaps if this had been communicated by the Committee to the members in last month's magazine a lot of upset would have been avoided. 

I don't disagree that the other club is more attractive to younger campers and most of this is down to the stuffy image of this club. 

However surely nobody seriously thinks that a new name and logo will change the image?  It's the whole culture of the club that has to change. There needs to be a can do approach. Better communication, listening to members, passing updates out in a timely fashion etc. The last year or so has been dire and this rebrand could have been more exciting if there was some meat on the bones. 

It's just smoke and mirrors at the moment and I hope some proposals are due very soon indeed. 

One thing that really needs sorting out is the IT side. It's shockingly bad at the moment. 

Is that a serious response?  They aren't promising much are they?  It's also rather patronising