Victor
“We went to Global Beach because they are well known for their expertise in the digital luxury sector. Their insights about our particular target market were invaluable, and their approach is to work very closely with the client throughout the development process. We trusted them to deliver the complex solution we required to make this business a success and we were not disappointed.”Jonathan Sumner, Managing Director, Victor
OBJECTIVE
Global Beach was briefed by Victor to develop a full-fledged digital strategy encompassing all areas from pre-launch brand awareness to bespoke back-end technical implementation of the world’s first real time Private Jetshare Community. This was a great opportunity for Global Beach to capitalize on its long-standing experience in the luxury sector, implementing a final product which had to deliver on different critical aspects of the project. First and foremost, to create a pre-launch strategy which would convey Victor’s value proposition to targeted high net worth individuals across Europe. Secondly, to build a website which not only had a luxury “look and feel”, but that was at the same time optimized for a demanding, time-poor audience. Thirdly, to deliver a technical leading-edge complex technical solution which would allow real-time bidding, eCRM and database integration, and a bespoke CMS.
Solution
Global Beach’s approach to the project is based on our tried and tested methodology. The primary challenge, creating a buzz about Victor in a much targeted community, was met with the implementation of an innovative affiliate program. Luxury hotels in specific locations were brought in as partners and the product could be offered by them directly with personalized landing pages. Users were then enabled to pre-register to Victor: this process was cross-language and cross-culture, given the European nature of the client.
The final product is the result of a great deal of user research drawing on Global Beach’s own experience of developing User Experience solutions for the luxury marketplace, including Focus Groups to gain valuable qualitative insights, paired with quantitative User Testing sections, with a major focus on usability and intuitive navigation.
Possibly, the hardest challenge was the integration of such an innovative product into a robust technical solution. This has required extensive work from Global Beach’s development team to ensure that all information flows were interacting properly with the database. Matching personalized interfaces with real time bidding processes was a hard task, while all of this had to be hosted on a robust and resilient platform. Global Beach has over 10 years experience of managed service provision and currently operates dual co-location facilities at diversely located data centres in the London area. The facilities – which are managed, supported and maintained by a dedicated team of full-time Global Beach employees – have been built to exacting enterprise standards, and enable us to offer clients unprecedented levels of performance, availability, scalability, security and – critically for today’s online applications and services – disaster recovery.
Results
The impact of the pre-launch strategy has proven very successful: as of now, Victor can count more than 500 qualified high net worth members with enormous outreach potential.
The design is also catering for the high net worth individuals market: considering how time-poor Victor’s customer base is, the extreme ease of navigation and intuitive interface is of utmost importance. The bidding process and each member’s personal page are optimized to make the overall user experience fast, engaging and straight to the point.
On the technical side, Victor’s platform is now able to handle a sophisticated database and to manage information flows in both directions. The system is capable of alerting each member on customized rules, across different channels (email, Victor’s community, mobile network, etc.)
Further areas of development are mobile applications and Social Media integration which are underway. Members will be able to indicate their preferred routes, book flights or individual seats, place bids for seats, monitor their requests on the move, be alerted on their personal smartphone or tablet, all with only two things, a Pda and a passport. Also, a niche-oriented social media strategy will increase the outreach of the product and contribute to spread Victor’s values across a segment of discerning travelers in Europe. All this will make Victor’s members experience a revolutionarily easy way to enjoy private aviation when they need it and how they want it. At a competitive price.