Using girl power to disrupt the big boys of tourism.
Teresa Vaz Tours, a boutique Portuguese tour agency, was struggling to survive in a market being saturated by large, low-quality international operators. This influx created a race to the bottom on price, making it impossible for smaller, local businesses to compete. Our mission was to completely rebrand the company with a unique, defiant identity that could carve out a new, profitable niche and take on the global giants head-on.
CHALLENGE
The challenge was to save a boutique tour agency from being crushed by market commoditization. The tourism landscape was saturated with large, international operators driving down prices and offering identical experiences. As a small, local business, our client couldn’t compete on budget or scale. We needed to find a way to break out of the price war, create an entirely new category, and build a brand that would attract a high-value audience that the big players were ignoring.
APPROACH
Our research uncovered a profitable niche of affluent travelers—primarily women—who were frustrated with generic tourism. We repositioned the company as a female-oriented “Anti-Tour” brand for non-conformists. The new name, Missguided, was intentionally counter-intuitive to spark intrigue. We built the brand promise around showing travelers the darker, less frequented side of Portugal—the things they weren’t “meant to see.” This defiant, experience-first identity created a new market category and allowed the brand to thrive.
