Branding Studio Teak & ZaneRay Reimagine City Pass Brand

Brands are always trying to find and solidify their voice, and there are many different ways to go about that. But it can often be a complex and difficult process, especially when there are few single agency resources that can truly “do it all,” and do it well.

As an attractions marketing company that provides significant savings on admission tickets to the top 78 tourist attractions in 12 North American destinations, City Pass decided to take a collaborative approach to re-imagine its brand. Hiring the team of San Francisco-based branding studio Teak along with Whitefish, Montana-based The ZaneRay Group, the goal was to create a more modern look and feel for the brand in order to better capture the attention of travelers and increase CityPASS sales.

“The challenge was to consistently and elegantly brand City Pass without overpowering—or being overpowered by—the strong attraction brands in each City Pass partner destination,” said Paul Rogers, design director for Teak.

The branding concept originated from a simple notion: that City Pass identifies and curates the best spots (visitor attractions) for its customers in each destination. From that idea, Teak developed a simple red dot to be the central branding element, visually representing the “iconic spots” for a particular destination.

Inspired by “The Iconic Spot,” Teak worked with City Pass to develop:

• Brand identity (logo, brand colors, and typography)

• Brand standards manual

• Visual assets library

• 12 destination-specific videos to communicate each destination’s top attraction offerings

As part of this new branding effort, City Pass also sought a full redesign of its website. ZaneRay creatively and effectively interpreted the new visual language for the brand and incorporated it into a new responsive site design, creating a customer-driven experience that represents the brand and its attraction partners as well as emotionally connecting it to customers through photography and content.

Most importantly, the success of this redesign has manifested itself through significant increased order conversion rate and unit sales – and it has also received industry recognition.  The new CityPASS.com website was honored with the Best User Experience award at the eTourism Summit recently held in San Francisco, CA.

“Our collaborative approach and attention to detail are what make the site so easy to use”, commented Henry Roberts, VP of Creative at ZaneRay.  “We share with the City Pass team in the excitement of receiving such a great acknowledgment from travel industry leaders."