The Client
Founded in 2016, Final Rentals connects independent car rental businesses to global platforms such as Kayak and Skyscanner, giving them worldwide reach without losing their local character.
The Challenge
The existing identity wasn't broken, but it wasn't working hard enough either. It didn't reinforce the concept or message behind the business, and it wasn't built to support where the brand was heading strategically. This is often the moment a scale-up realises its brand has drifted from the business it's actually become.
There was also a wider category problem: car rental carries a reputation for slow service, confusing pricing and forgettable branding. The brand needed a clear brand positioning strategy to stand apart from that reputation, rather than simply refreshing what already existed.
The Process
We ran in-depth competitor research across the category, covering everyone from major aggregators to direct rental competitors, to map where the market repeated itself and where genuine gaps sat. What stood out was an industry with no personality: every player looked and sounded much the same, and none of them used a mascot.
That gap became the strategic opening: car rental doesn't have to be the low point of a trip, it can be part of the joy of travel. From there, we developed a rebranding strategy built around a personality that balanced two things rarely seen together in this category: dependability and warmth, drawing on a blend of heroic trust and playful charm to avoid the brand feeling either too corporate or too gimmicky.
The Solution
At the centre of the new identity is Ffin, a mascot created specifically to fill the standout gap the research uncovered. The name is Welsh, a quiet nod to the company's roots, and the character was built to flex across markets and touchpoints while staying instantly recognisable, something no competitor could claim.
A unified graphic system ties the mark and logo together, giving every application a consistent, joined-up feel. The result is a brand repositioning that finally matches the confidence of the business behind it: warmer and more memorable than anything else in the category, and built to earn trust with travellers, partners and investors from the very first impression.
