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Case Study: CWT

Business traveler . . . to traveling employee.

Changing the conversation around corporate travel.
The Issue

As the world’s largest corporate travel company, with over $1.5B in revenue and over 18,000 employees, CWT struggled to differentiate their offering. After decades of industry attention on streamlining the transaction and lowering costs, a host of smaller tech-savvy upstarts began focusing on improving the traveler experience and pushing the model towards a B2B2C offering, where the more nimble competition had the upper hand.

The Insight

The industry push to provide a better booking and traveler experience, one on par with the consumer-grade experience that today’s travelers now expect, ignored one major factor: These were not just travelers, they were something far more important to CWT’s customers — they were employees, traveling on behalf of the employer for important business goals.

The Solution

The new perspective of travelers as employees first allowed us to shift the conversation from “how can our travel program help us cut costs and save money?” to “how can our travel program help us engage, retain and enrich our employees?”. This paradigm change was summed up by changing the model from B2B2C (to consumers) into B2B4E (for employees).

B2B4E Business to Business for Employees
B2B4E diagram

“I know that if I’ve got a dilemma or challenge, I can talk Spyglass through the problem, and they can help me diagnose it . . . They understand us as an organization, and can apply creativity to our challenges.”

Patrick Andersen
EVP, Chief Strategy & Commerce Officer
CWT

CWT B2B4E Trade Show Booth Mockup
CWT Conference
CWT Conversation
CWT Fly First Class
New name. New brand. New attitude.

The company had been operating under the name Carlson Wagonlit Travel for over fifty years, and the current logo for over forty. When the decision was made to shorten the name to CWT, the goal was to modernize the look yet retain as much of the brand equity as possible. The clean typography with the streamlined “flag” fit the bill perfectly.

Results

The B2B4E concept was embraced by the CEO and senior leadership as THE defining strategy and rally cry to move the company forward — and affirming validation of our thinking.

Molly Rice and Andy Slothower at CWT

Seeing the logo brought to life in the office — especially at 3 feet tall — was an exciting milestone for both the CWT and Spyglass team.

Deliverables
  • Global Positioning Platform
  • Key Messaging
  • Logo
  • Launch campaign
  • Trade Show Marketing
  • Targeted Marketing Campaign
  • Sales Deck
  • Sales Training