Wilderness's Brand & Digital Transformation Agency

Wilderness

Celebrating Earth’s Ultimate, Untamed Places

Designing a New Wilderness to Last a Lifetime

Live Site

www.wildernessdestinations.com/

Engagement

2020-Present

The Challenge

Brought to life in Botswana 40 years ago, world leading conservation & hospitality company Wilderness has always been a pioneering force for lasting, positive impact — protecting over 2.3 million hectares of land across the globe, with aims to double that figure in the next decade.

Each camp is a beautiful extension of the landscape and community it calls home — combining utmost luxury with local culture. With views in abundance, intimate wildlife encounters on your doorstep, unwaveringly thoughtful service from their 3000-strong team and immersion in local cultures, communities and conservation activities, Wilderness’ hospitality is unrivalled.

Previously, their comms were exclusively B2B with experiences only bookable via travel advisors. To become more independent and solidify their status as leaders in their field, the brand wanted to reclaim a direct relationship with guests, bringing each and every Wilderness camp under one master brand with a strong, instantly recognisable visual identity.

In line with these ambitions, Matter Of Form was brought on to craft a distinctive, global, guest-centric brand coupled with a complete digital transformation and content and messaging strategy that will stand the test of time, distinguishing them as industry leaders who cut through the noise and cultivate a conscious community of diverse, adventurous clientele.

MOF have been instrumental in completely elevating our positioning, and doing so in a manner which is strategically on point for where we want to take our beloved brand. I am beyond thrilled with the end product, & want to extend a heartfelt thanks & congratulations to the entire team...

Mike Stone, Chief Investment Officer, Wilderness

An Edgier Look & Feel, Same Story & Ethos

Following an inspiring discovery phase, our strategy team captured the spirit of Wilderness through a bold new name, positioning, creative direction and content strategy, placing their pioneering conservation-tourism model and mission at the forefront and setting them apart from the ‘stereotypical’ safari messaging.

Previously ‘Wilderness Safaris’, strategic, search-supported insights resulted in dropping the latter term to reflect the brand’s ambitions to explore and protect more than African savannahs — offering them the potential to expand into coral reef conservation and every other landscape that deserves to be protected.

After trip-of-a-lifetime site visits, rigorous qualitative research and the creation of audience personas, we developed a messaging system spanning five key content pillars — untamed, oasis, collective, intent, story — which speaks directly to those personas while strengthening the new brand.

The brand’s new logo represents the raw, limitless nature of Wilderness’ destinations and now adorns over 4000 pieces of marketing collateral from planes and jeeps to hundreds of team uniforms. Mirroring blades of grass, guests are invited to look beyond the expected into the beating pulse of untamed places and feel how far Wilderness can take them.

Raw Experiences, Refined Designs

Reflective of the curious, carpe diem attitude taking over luxury travel, Wilderness’ new website acts as a portal for exploration, education and insight into their once-in-a-lifetime experiences, including gorilla trekking, rhino tracking, guided quad biking and helicopter safaris.

An UX & UI overhaul alongside a CX innovation mapping process has only elevated the brand’s experience, empowering both prospective and actual guests to venture deeper into Earth’s ultimate, untamed places, once again nurturing Wilderness’ rare community of curious clients consumed by wanderlust.

Liberated Content for The Unleashed Guest

The ‘wild’ has become softened and sanitised, captured in voyeuristic art direction — passive, posed, still, glossy and gauzy — pulling cues from the worlds of wellness, spas and magazines. They lack personality, often feeling like stock imagery. Flat and prosaic.

Wilderness is anything but. So we untethered their content from the category’s dominant semiotics, redirecting the visuals toward pillars we crafted; reflective of the untamed, storied aura of Wilderness — still an oasis rooted in local culture and a luxury touch.

Rich video content and imagery celebrate these pillars, teasing viewers to go deeper into the wild and farther within themselves. Simultaneously capturing Wilderness’ signature sense of adventure and the calm that comes with transformational travel.