Lastminute Germany had a low-key
start in June 1999. Montgelas alone ran the operation
working out of a small office he found through a
friend. Lastminute had chosen Munich because of
Montgelas' strong contacts there.
In March 2000, the company ran
into a serious tangle. Germany's most established
travel company, L'Tur, dragged Lastminute Germany
into a Hamburg court for copyright infringement.
L'Tur claimed exclusive rights on the phrase "last
minute" within the travel industry. In Germany's
new economy, the lawsuit was treated as a landmark
case for the new economy. If L'Tur won, Lastminute
Germany would lose rights to its very name. Though
the case raised Lastminute's profile, getting sued
by a local player was not the best form of publicity.
Although the lawsuit was unexpected,
the "last minute" issue was not. Before going into
Germany, Lastminute discovered that four companies
held rights to the URLs Lastminute.de, Last-minute.com
and Super-Lastminute.com. And for years, the English
phrase "last minute" has had a very specific meaning
to German consumers: cut-rate, cattle-car service.
This posed a major obstacle for the U.K. company
- most Germans wouldn't click on Lastminute.com
expecting to find rooms at the Ritz Carlton, though
the site regularly offers deals at such luxury hotels.
Company execs long debated whether
to change its name for the German market - perhaps
the ultimate localization move. The strongest alternate:
Spontan.de, drawn from the German word for "spontaneous."
But ultimately, sticking with Lastminute.com won
out, for fear of diluting the company's brand. Globalizing
companies commonly face such choices, finding the
balance between what's best for a local market and
the needs of the larger company. Either way, somebody
loses - usually, the local entity. Even today, "every
time we do a big campaign, the metrics for Lastminute.de
also go up," says Anja Treskow, Lastminute Germany's
PR director. Journalists still write glowing Lastminute.com
profiles that mistakenly refer to the site as Lastminute.de.
To emphasize its brand, Lastminute
Germany's marketing material displays "Lastminute"
in white, with ".com" in the company's signature
flaming magenta. Earlier attempts to migrate its
successful U.K. campaigns yielded poor results because
the sardonic British tone didn't work. To help redefine
the term "last minute" for consumers, Lastminute's
new ad campaign sports a pretty model in stylish
gossamer clothes, with the tagline, "And I always
thought it was just travel ..." and a list of the
site's other categories.
On the upside, this June the
company won its first round in court against L'Tur,
which had one of Germany's top law firms defending
it. "We got very lucky," Treskow says. "Often German
judges don't know much about the Internet. But [our
judge] really got into the industry."
Though Lastminute Germany can
keep its name, its sales are dwarfed by L'Tur, TUI
and other established travel companies. But Lastminute
has managed to break L'Tur's long-standing monopoly
agreement on short-term flights with Lufthansa Airlines
by offering Lufthansa shares in Lastminute if it
meets certain supply quotas. "L'Tur had been very
conservative with Lufthansa," says Montgelas. "We
can sell their flights to our entire international
network."
Launching in October 1999, Lastminute
France faced a challenge opposite that of Germany's
battle for mindshare. "French people aren't used
to the concept of last-minute travel planning,"
says Denis Philipon, managing director of Lastminute
France. "We have to coax the market into emerging,
and convince people not to feel guilty about operating
this way," he says. The marketing campaign has hammered
at that point, as has the company's publicity with
the French press. French suppliers also had to be
sold on the concept. "The beginning was very difficult
- we had to start with the smallest operators and
only move up to the bigger ones later," explains
Philipon.
