Travel Trends – Utah, Miami, Social Media Measurement

Well kiss my grits, that is a beehive.

Utah Rolls Out a New Look – Our neighbors to the West have introduced a new, and fully-functioning version, of Utah.travel…just in time for the ski season push in the Beehive State.  I know, beehive…look it up.  After using a heavily modified splash page, for what seemed like years, the team at the Utah Office of Tourism has built upon their unique look and introduced a very eye-pleasing and brand accurate site.  Here is what we like, or at least find intriguing:

• What appears to be a strong tie to the online (nxtbook) Official Visitors Guide in lieu of traditional website listings.  While we love this idea, we are also concerned about the paradox that it creates…going online to find listings, only to be sent to an online version of a printed book whose value and usability is declining as an actual printed version.  Yeah, crazy.
• The appearance and overall feel.  It feels like Utah.  Kudos.
• The weather icon and options.  Love that look, although, we think MSNBC had it first.
• Social Media integration.  Although it feels like the default for any ‘new’ site, you still have to admire the integration with Flickr and YouTube.  And, to a lesser extent, Twitter and Facebook.
• Testimonials from other sites.  Finally!  Someone else has heard the calls from the mountain top and responded.  We have talked about it before, travelers don’t trust DMOs and CVBs.  The answer, put testimonials from TripAdvisor and Virtual Tourist right on the freaking homepage.  Simple, but brilliant.

Overall, good job Utah.  We wanted a little more content, but can appreciate the strides you made in this update.  B+

http://www.utah.travel/

Miami Gets a Facelift…Literally – In speaking with a local colleague of mine recently, he pointed out the current version of the Miami site.  After regaling me with the story, I was intrigued.  Surely, this cannot be true….oh, but it is.  On the surface, the ‘new’ Miami (and Beaches) site looks good.  Great imagery, clean navigation…plus, I see some social links.  Good stuff.  But, as with so many things in Miami, the beauty is only skin deep.  One click, try ‘Visitors‘ for fun, takes you to an unfamiliar and haunting location of cluttered navigation, bright colors and too much information squeezed into a size 1 dress.

After learning how not to create blinking text, the next lesson in website creation school is not to change the wireframe of your site from page to page.  Users don’t like it.

Perhaps this is simply a measured roll out of the new Miami site, to be honest we are not 100% sure.  We certainly do not want to punish Miami for what could be a planned execution.  However, in either case, they might want to add a full website update to the ‘to-do’ list.

Oh, and P.S.  What is up with the intro graphics on the ‘splash’ page?  They look great, but upon closer inspection, the reflection of the models sunglasses actually moves and changes.  Free design tip to anyone and everyone in marketing, graphic design and website development:  stop it with the reflection in the sunglasses trick.  We have seen it before and you can stop using it.  Thanks.

http://www.miamiandbeaches.com/

Social Media Measurement Lags Adoption – Is there anything bigger in the marketing and advertising world right now than social media?  Everyone is trying to get as many friends as possible to follow them on facetwitspace.  While this euphoria of social wonderment continues on the fourth floor, up in the executive suite they really want to see some numbers showing the success of these programs.  The old ‘it’s branding’ line is getting old.  Alas, according to recent stats, no one has a clue on how to measure all these tweets.

Despite widespread adoption of social media, measurement still lags. Only 16% of those polled said they currently measured ROI for their social media programs. More than four in 10 respondents did not even know whether the social tools they were using had ROI measurement capabilities.

http://www.emarketer.com/

Travel Trends: State Tourism Best Practices, Digital Outlook Report & Time Spent on Screens

State Tourism Office Best Practices – The National Council of State Tourism Directors just released the results of its annual survey of state tourism office best practices. The report is an update on NCSTD’s 2004 survey and provides updated measurement of how tourism offices are using current technology in their marketing and promotion efforts. It covers a whole host of topics including web design and content; online marketing efforts; site management; website-related staffing and budget issues; analytics; and measuring effectiveness to name a few.  Some highlights of the report based on the responses of 40 state tourism offices are:

• Median budget for digital activities (excluding salaries) was $200,000-399,000 – note however that 8 respondents reported a budget of at least $800,000 (note to self – talk to our CEO!)
• While an expanded web presence has produced no incremental reduction in print costs, it has resulted in a dramatic reduction o f phone inquiries
• Median unique visitors was 500,000-999,999 visitors annually; conversely median time spent was 4-5.59 minutes (interestingly, this report also has facts on “hits”…not sure why ANYONE is tracking it)
• Most commonly reported “success” metrics are: pages visited, unique visits, length of session, volume of traffic from search engines
• The most prevalent “engagement” metric used appears to be “request for information” (be it print or electronic).  Most notably, a majority of respondents reported that they would like to see a “standardized definition of inquiries shared by all state and territory offices”.  Troy and I are predictably psyched about this one….this bodes well for the engagement work we’ve been doing (read more here)
• While the report was light overall in social media best practices, most states appear to be taking incremental steps in an effort to support their fans and curate a community; surprisingly however it still appears that state/regional organizations are having trepidations about social media.  They include: “lack of familiarity with social media, the amount of time it would take to implement and manage social media, and apprehension about the content of comments and / or photos that users may upload.”

To see how your state stacks up against the competition, order the Survey of U. S. State & Territory Office Website Practices report from U.S. Travel at: 202.408.8422.

2009 Digital Outlook Report –  Razorfish recently released the latest iteration of their annual Digital Outlook Report this week. The 2009 version is much like their last two versions; it tracks and prognosticates consumer behavior in the digital space and includes reports on client media spending trends, mobile web usage, social influence marketing, search, and behavioral targeting.   As usual, the report is a well-written, absorbing read that takes you on a magical but complex 180-page journey through all things digital.  Some of the big concepts were:

• The Web gets a pulse: Instant communication platforms such as Twitter and Yammer along with location-aware devicesis making the web “instantly reactive”
• Content Fragmentation: If you’re a content producer, your success and long-term sustainability will depend on your “ability to let content travel across a myriad of platforms, devices and lifestyles” and the will to “embrace new forms of measurement, data, technology and digital infrastructure to manage complexity”
• Doing More With Less: Use the current economic climate as an opportunity to experiment.  Forgo traditional buying methods and explore new avenues such as ad-exchanges; leverage your fans and dabble in social influence marketing
• Email Marketing:  Instead of sending email to a black hole, use analytics to develop a long term relationship with your customer; instead of a broad based e-mail newsletter, increase CTR and engagement through trigger and event driven e-mails.

Time Spent on Screens–  The average American adult spends eight hours a day in front of screens—TVs, cellphones, laptops etc.—and computer use has replaced radio as the second most common media activity according to a recent Council for Research Excellence study(FYI: Print was fourth).  Key findings include:

• Surprisingly, more than 99% of screen time is TV (for 18-24 age group, TV represented 98%)
• Almost every demographic surveyed engaged in “multi-tasking” or snacking on multiple screen simultaneously; people over 55 are markedly less likely to be multitasking
• 18-to-24-year-olds — generally college students and new entrants into the work force — watch the smallest amount of live TV of any age group (three and a half hours a day), spend the most time text messaging (29 minutes a day) and watch the most online video (5.5 minutes a day)

>>Full Story

Travel Trends – Tourism Websites, Logos, Twitter Age

22 Well Done State Tourism Websites – From the Build Internet! blog of Sam and Zach Dunn, a look at 22 ‘well done’ state tourism websites.  As many of you know we had own our informal and unscientific poll to determine the best travel website…the Great Travel Site Showdown…which Virginia won.  Stay tuned for the Great Travel Site Showdown 2009.  Anyway, a good post from Sam on the commonalities of tourism websites.  Of course, each of us have our own goals and objectives, but seeing 22 state tourism sites on a single page does reveal the similarities of the designs.

Sam’s comments / themes for the sites:

• JQuery or Flash animated headers
• Large image backgrounds
• Image intensive layouts
• Good white space, not too cramped
• Distinct accent colors

And his list:

1. Ohio
2. Utah
3. Rhode Island
4. Pennsylvania
5. New Hampshire
6. Idaho
7. Tennessee
8. Wisconsin
9. Washington
10. Maine
11. Oregon
12. North Dakota
13. South Dakota
14. Illinois
15. Missouri
16. Texas
17. Virginia
18. Georgia
19. Massachusetts
20. New York
21. Kentucky
22. Hawaii

We cannot argue with that list.  All of those 22 sites have a similar look and feel to them which is very pleasing ascetically.  However, the real answer to the ‘is my website successful’ question, is looking at your statistics and analytics to determine if you site design is accessible, easy and useful.  Of course, a nice design never hurt.
http://buildinternet.com/

State Tourism Logos – While writing for the post above, we came across another post from Sam, this time on the 50 state tourism logos.  Again, a great look at all of the logos side by side.  And be sure to read the comments section, some good thoughts in there as well.

Sam’s comments / discussion topics:

• Best/Worst Designs
• Most Fitting/Inappropriate
• What was Kansas thinking?
• Any additional thoughts, feelings, or concerns. Dreams too.

Sorry Kansas.

Favorites seem to be Georgia, Oregon and Kentucky.  Which, in the case of Kentucky, spent a lot of time and energy developing the logo and brand behind the logo, prior to launch.  Kudos Kentucky.

See their PowerPoint presentation on the branding effort:

So, off the record, which one of us has the worst logo?
http://buildinternet.com/

Twitter Age – Speaking of informal and unscientific polls, Twitter user @TheBusyBrain is currently conducting a quick poll to determine the demographic age of Twitter users.  Again, completely unscientific, but still, interesting…so far, 64% of respondents (Twitter users) are between the ages of 30-59.  We won’t jump to any conclusions, but that is an encouraging stat on the adoption of these ‘social media tools’ among anyone over the age of 23.

Current results:

If you are a Twitter user, what is your age bracket?

30 – 39 years (33%, 473 Votes)
20 – 29 years (28%, 401 Votes)
40 – 49 years (21%, 304 Votes)
50 – 59 years (10%, 147 Votes)
16 – 19 years (5%, 67 Votes)
60 – 69 years (2%, 23 Votes)
10 – 15 years (1%, 13 Votes)
80+ years (0%, 7 Votes)
70 – 79 years (0%, 6 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,441

http://blog.thebusybrain.com/

Travel Trends – Display + Search = Clicks, Email, Smart Web Users, App Graveyard

Display + Search = Clicks – Before we dive into the numbers, realize that the results are from a company that sells display ads. The numbers are probably not skewed in their favor, but they do have an interest in display advertising.

With disclaimers out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. According to a new study from Specific Media, utilizing comScore data, display ads increase the volume of searches for a specific product or company.

Display and search are directly correlated, judging by a Specific Media study of comScore data. Brand- and segment-related searches (for cars, automakers and vehicle classes) jumped by more than 100% in several categories after consumers were exposed to display ads for those brands.

Search clickers exposed to display advertising were 22% more likely to produce a sale than those who were not exposed, according to a September 2008 study of Microsoft’s Engagement Mapping system by Atlas Solutions.

In a ClickZ article, Microsoft’s Young-Bean Song said the study results suggested that search alone was not a cure-all for customer acquisition.

Clearly, the interesting stat for everyone reading the Travel 2.0 blog is the huge lift that display ads deliver to searches in the travel and tourism industry.  Should this come as a surprise?  Display ads have quickly become the online equivalent of a print campaign, providing a good opportunity for branding, but low results and CTRs.  Until now data showing the effect of display on search was not clear, although most assumed a correlation was probable.

As for all of those articles and discussions about the death of the display ad, it appears that the display ad is still just as healthy as it’s printed brother.  When used and measured correctly (engagement!), the display is still an important piece of an overall interactive marketing campaign.

And, apparently, it drives searches in the travel space.
http://www.emarketer.com/

Email – Shocker! Old people like phones and email.  Young punks like text and social sites.

Personally, the stats about the boomer generation and communication preferences are not surprising.  What is surprising is the realization that the younger demographics…Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials, whatever…are rapidly changing their communication habits.  We have heard these stats before and even discussed them on the blog, however seeing charts such as this one should cause one to pause.  Look at the drop off in email usage from 25-34 to 15-17, nearly half in a span of 10 years.
http://www.emarketer.com/

Congrats Online Users, You Are Smart(er)! – For years, digital marketers had to keep track of broadband penetration rates, browsers used, and other signs that campaign messages would reach their intended targets. Now it’s largely taken for granted that most Internet users will be able to watch an online video, forward a link, or otherwise perform the tasks required in the average digital campaign.

http://www.emarketer.com/

Apps: The Newest Brand Graveyard – Ah, the promise of Facebook and all it’s possible applications.  Let’s do the math, Facebook has 130 million users + a cool app = success!  If only it were that easy.

…Nike global director of digital media Stefan Olander explained how the brand saw its mission as building community through applications. He highlighted a new initiative: the Ballers Network, a robust Facebook application built by digital shop R/GA for basketball players to find games and manage leagues. On its Web site, Nike promises it will “revolutionize the way players around the world connect online and compete on the court.”

Six months later, Nike is confronting a dilemma familiar to many brands that charged headlong onto Facebook: very few people use Ballers Network. Despite its global ambitions and support in three languages, the application has a mere 3,400 users per month. According to Nike, it’s still testing the application.

3,400 is a pretty small number and if my calculations are correct, only about 0.002615% of Facebook users interact with the app.  What happened?  How does an organization such as Nike, clearly one of the leaders in the social media marketing (and marketing in general) field fail to take advantage of 130 million people on a social network?

The theory is that branded applications are, well, too branded and too complex for daily use.

“It’s pretty clear building [brand] applications isn’t working.”

Application experts pointed to several other reasons so many top brands have fallen short. In some cases, they said, brand apps are too complicated. Some provide little worthwhile interactivity and are overly branded.

“Marketers want to build something that’s product and marketing first,” he said. “The developer wants to provide utility, functionality and better someone’s life.”

Marketers have an agenda, a goal, a target, while developers are simply trying to make something easier for the end-user.  So far, those two factors do not mix well…regardless of how many people are using a social network.
http://www.adweek.com/

State of the Industry Conversations: Shelli Johnson, Founder, YellowstonePark.com

The YellowstonePark.com team, supposedly at work.

I had the pleasure of meeting Shelli at the recent E-Tourism Summit in San Francisco, where she was speaking about her (and her team’s) awarding-winning website, yellowstonepark.com.  Two things stuck me about Shelli after meeting and listening to her.  One, she is very humble about the success of yellowstonepark.com and happy to share her best practices with the industry (hence the post) and two, unlike a lot of organizations, the design, layout and methods behind yellowstonepark.com have been driven by research and the consumer.

So, we were thrilled to have Shelli join us for our ongoing State of the Industry Conversations series.  She was even good enough to work on the Q&A during a brief vacation.  Thanks Shelli.

How would you describe the goal of yellowstonepark.com?

Our goal is to inspire people to vacation to Yellowstone, the world’s oldest national park, and to have a vacation of a lifetime.

Because of its remote location, a Yellowstone vacation is a road trip. Even for visitors who fly into a regional airport, it’s a drive vacation. As a result of this reality, Yellowstone is only the carrot; it’s only the beginning. We also (enthusiastically and quite thoroughly) promote regions and activities that are up to 1-2 days away from the Park in all directions because we view these as important parts of a Yellowstone vacation experience.

Once we have succeeded in persuading our site customers to vacation to the Yellowstone region, we provide a total trip-planning resource for them. We do this by providing logical information that visitors need to plan a trip to Yellowstone, but also interesting content that is provided in several formats. Some of our most popular sections include: Interactive Maps & Itineraries, a Things to Do section that has a wide range of interesting and useful activity-oriented content, a Regions to Explore section, an extensive Where to Stay (accommodations) Directory, more than 60 podcasts, videos, an RSS news feed, consumer-generated “Yellowstone Trip Notes,” a Wildlife-Viewing Guide, a Photography Guide, enewsletters, online magazine, and more. In addition, YellowstonePark.com’s main sections are also translated in German, French and Italian and we have international online trip planners and an international blog-like product, called The Western Traveler.

Talk a little bit about how you have researched your audience and the effect of that research on the current version of the site?

We love market research because of its educational value and the insights it provides. We are serious when we say we want to help people have a vacation of a lifetime to Yellowstone. This motivates us every day. As a result, we’re always thinking about ways to provide this for our customers.

We all remember the saying “The customer is always right.” I always bought into this, even at times when it was difficult to. I knew that taking care of our customers was of critical importance to our success.

Well, thanks to advancing technology and the internet, generating market research is no longer a several-hundred-thousand-dollar undertaking with limited results that aren’t always as unique or qualified as we need them to be. So in 2005 we implemented a survey on our site, and today, we have almost 12,000 extensive customer surveys from people considering or planning a Yellowstone vacation. Depending on the time of year, we’re generating 100-250 new surveys every week. This online market research is invaluable to our business. We can run filters and cross tabs to drill down on particular segments. The research educates us about our customers.

About the same time, we began hearing about the “Web 2.0” from Tim O’Reilly, and other industry leaders. It referred to a next generation internet where users would be able to do more than retrieve information. The internet would be the platform and there would be sharing and contributing of information. From everything we were learning at that time, one thing was very, very clear to us about this thing called “Web 2.0,” and that was that the customer would be increasingly empowered and engaged. So, even though YellowstonePark.com had won the People’s Voice Webby in 2005, and we had a pretty good site already, we felt a sense of urgency to develop a site that was built more for the future – a Web 2.0 site ¬– that was geared more with our customers in mind.

The first thing we did was drill down and carefully review our extensive customer research. What our customers told us in the surveys guided our information architecture/user experience design of our new site, as well as the content our site would feature. Many companies solicit and generate customer data, but seldom do they listen and respond. But for us, this was a no brainer. We think we’re pretty smart, but at the end of the day, we knew our customers had the information we most needed to ensure our success. So we surveyed, reviewed and responded by building a site whose architecture and content was based on what our customers told us.

You mentioned two groups of visitors to the site during your presentation at E-Tourism Summit, could you tell us a bit about those groups and how you speak to them on the site?

One things that sets YellowstonePark.com apart from other destination sites is our aim to serve two audiences, what we call the Decideds and Undecideds. The Decideds are those people who have already decided they’re going to travel to Yellowstone, and they look to our site for information from which they’ll plan their trip. How to get to Yellowstone, what to do, where to stay, routes to travel, events, etc. The Undecideds refer to those people who are going to take a vacation but they haven’t determined the destination yet. Will it be Disneyland? Colorado? Or Yellowstone? Our goal on YellowstonePark.com, starting with the home page and its strong visuals and compelling design, is to inspire and convert the Undecideds into Decideds – actual Yellowstone visitors.

How have you targeted content to those groups?

We have not targeted the content to the two groups because there is much overlap once we succeed in converting Undecideds into Decideds. So, instead we built a site that serves both. The trick is striking the perfect balance between fantastic design and a clean layout, complete with straightforward navigation and ease of use, and compelling, extensive content, provided in a variety of formats.

How do you define success for the site?

I think if we’ve inspired people to embark on a Yellowstone vacation, or to strongly consider one, we have succeeded. But of course there are many additional, more specific ways to measure a site’s success, such as time spent on the site, the viral/sharing component, repeat visitation, use of our interactive features, lead conversion, traffic volume, the successes of our marketing, advertising and lead generation partners, etc.

For such a small staff, you have quite a bit of content online…videos, podcasts, etc…how do you manage the work?

Well it wasn’t easy producing the amount of content we have, that’s for sure. And it didn’t happen overnight. The content of our site is a work in progress. We’re always adding to it. The podcasts and video clips were produced by our management team. If any of us is traveling for advertising sales, or magazine deliveries, or news reporting in Yellowstone, we simply take our camera, video camera and podcast recorder with us and capture moments here and there. Our initial podcasts, which a team of three of us created over a 4-month period, for the most part involved us divvying up the various events in the regions surrounding Yellowstone.

We were able to stop in and see our advertising partners in these destinations and attractions, take them to lunch and then act like a tourist and attend their various events. Only we did it with camera and recorder in hand. It certainly doesn’t hurt that in this customer-oriented Web 2.0 landscape, polished and commercial is not in; amateur and authentic is. So that takes the pressure off of us when we want to capture and create content, regardless of the medium. In addition, much of the Things to Do content comes from our print magazine, so we’re simply repurposing for the web. And then we have a user-generated Trip Notes section where visitors to Yellowstone can post their own experiences and notes. This section is always growing and is original content. Our site customers love it, and the search engines do, too.

What portion or feature on the site are you most proud of?

Probably the Things to Do, Podcasts and Trip Notes sections. Things to Do because people determine their vacation destination based mainly on the things to do in an area. We are blessed with an abundance of activities that can be enjoyed and that help create a vacation of a lifetime. So it’s easy, and fun, to promote and provide extensive Things to Do content. And it’s a gold mine of useful information. I’m proud of our podcasts section because Ryan Johnson, Florian Herrmann, and myself – just the three of us – one day said, “let’s do 50 podcasts in the next 4 months” and we did it. It was a lot of fun to play tourist, and we did this while patronizing our advertising partners, and creating content in a new media format. It was a very worthwhile experience, and we had great content and improved partner relationships as a result of our efforts. And finally, Trip Notes makes me proud because it’s written by past visitors. These are their shared, “feel good” experiences about my favorite place in the world. I’ve been to Yellowstone more than 300 times, and still there are nuggets in these Trip Notes that are discoveries for me. Word of mouth has always been the most powerful form of marketing, and Trip Notes is our platform for word of mouth about a Yellowstone vacation.

How does your relationship with the National Park Service work?

We view the NPS as an important partner. We publish a magazine, Yellowstone Journal, which is a national magazine dedicated to Yellowstone. It is how we got our start 15 years ago. For our stories we interview the various rangers and biologists and researchers and administrators in the Park. Every interview is an education and an opportunity for us to share information about the world’s first national park and the icon of all national parks. We recognize that these natural wonders are rare and as our society becomes more urbanized, these destinations will be more valuable than ever, and will require stewardship and protection. We respect the National Park Service and their efforts very much.

What social mediums are you using or starting to use for the site?

As I said, we have numerous podcasts, both audio and video, as well as videos, and our consumer-generated Trip Notes sections. All of these continue to grow in content and popularity. We also have a twitter account that we’ve only recently implemented. We place a very high value on anything that engages our customer, and enables them to share our content or contribute their own content to our site.

What does it mean to win a Webby award for your work?

To win a Webby in 2005 and 2007 has meant a lot for our business out on the frontier. In 2005, we won the People’s Voice, which meant the world to us. After all, it’s people that our site aims to serve. We were up against sites promoting whole countries (Italy and New Zealand) and for the public to vote for YellowstonePark.com as the best tourism site in the world was overwhelming and gratifying. At the awards “gala” in NYC, I met visionaries and industry leaders from around the world who guided our success thanks to the internet and our ability to benefit from their insights. In late 2006, in a 5-month period, we redesigned the site and in 2007 we swept both the People’s Voice and Critical Judges Webby Award in the Tourism category. Our success doesn’t depend on honors or acclaim; however, no doubt, these honors have helped our business and validated that we can compete in the world from out on the frontier, and that we are doing right by our customers, who very much guided our success. Before the internet it was hard for us to get anyone’s attention from out on the frontier of Wyoming. The Webby honors, and others, help us to get the world’s attention, and enables us to promote our destination to the world.

Shelli Johnson is the founder of Yellowstone Journal Corporation , Yellowstone International, and YellowstonePark.com. She can be reached at shelli[at]yellowstonepark.com, via twitter: @yellowstoneshel , via Skype: shellisnowboarder or via LinkedIn. Right now she and her team are hard at work on their next big thing from out on the frontier.

Thanks again to Shelli for taking the time to be a part of our State of the Industry Conversations series.  If you want to hear from an industry leader or travel visionary, or have a suggestion for our next interview, send an email to troydthompson[at]gmail.com or let us know in the comments section.

The Social Rebranding of Pepsi

Pepsi logo circa 1979(ish).

(Full disclosure, being from the South, I am a Coke fan myself, but don’t let that deter you from reading the post.)

The team at the #2 soft drink maker, Pepsi, has begun a (apparently massive) re-branding campaign for the entire product line.  Providing us a fantastic case study on not only re-branding and what that truly means, but also a look at how a major corporation is using social media to help shape the future of their brand and company.

First, the branding aspect, courtesy of one of our favorite bloggers, Seth Godin.  Seth’s basic argument is that testing a new brand via logo or packaging design is meaningless because the brand is the story, not the logo:

I guess the punchline is: take the time and money and effort you’d put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead.

This quote from the comments section sums it up pretty nicely:

Seth has got it right, the logo is not the brand; the story is the brand…

Quite a profound way of looking at the brand.  I am sure this is a conversation that is held in numerous conference rooms around the world, and even more so now with the expansion of our brands online.  What is our brand?  What does our brand represent?

Unfortunately, I fear that a lot of us get caught up in assigning the ‘brand’ to the just the logo or graphical aspects, rather than the story behind the brand.  In fact, I had this conversation at lunch the other day in relation to DMO websites that pull heavily from the brand guidelines for texture, fonts, colors, etc.  Certainly using the brand guidelines or style ensures a consistent look, but how many of our consumers are really able to tell if a certain typography or texture is the brand?

I am not saying that those branding guidelines are not important, but perhaps we should put an equal amount of focus and attention on the story, rather than just the logo.

Okay, part 2, the social part.  And full credit to Scott at the Social Media Snippets blog for providing the link.

In the past, most companies would look at a re-branding campaign as an internal and well guarded project.  No leaks, no open comments, etc.

However, in this case, Pepsi has decided to not only engage ‘a select group of 25 digital influencers‘ (read bloggers…wait, didn’t we just mention how important and influential bloggers are becoming?  Oh, right, we did.), but also created a FriendFeed room to gather consumer feedback about the new brand.

FriendFeed is basically a place to gather and automatically post all of your social media updates and stuff in one location.

Pepsi sent these 25 influencers a set of Pepsi cans detailing the logo history of the brand, then sent along a set of the new cans and an invitation to join their FriendFeed room to comment, respond and talk about the new brand.  See Peter Shankman’s post here.

Brilliant or insane?  Whichever view you take, you cannot help but be intrigued by the use of social media by Pepsi.  A perfect example of how organizations are utilizing social media to their advantage.  Use these relationships, test products or ideas, talk to consumers and influencers.

Not only has Pepsi taken advantage of those aspects, but they have also amassed a ton of PR, started building buzz around the new brand and reached out to, connected with and started a (hopefully) positive relationship with a group of major influencers.

However, even with all of these good feelings around the campaign, there are some missed opportunities and perhaps not a clear enough direction from the start.  But like we said at the being of the post, a fantastic case study for all of us to watch.

Green Rankings for State Tourism Websites

Painted Hills, Oregon.

Last couple of weeks, we spent an UnGodly amount of time poking around all the 51 state tourism websites (including the Washington DC website), looking for whatever eco-friendly travel information and tips they had for visitors. The results of that exploration you can see in these 5 parts starting with Part 1 – Alabama to Georgia; Part 2 – Hawaii to Maryland; Part 3 – Massachusetts to New Jersey; Part 4 – New Mexico to South Carolina; and Part 5 – South Dakota to Wyoming, plus Washington DC.  >>Full Story

Thoughts// TripHow, a travel blog site recently ranked 51 (including DC) state tourism sites for its “Greenness” which was based on the authors’ assessment criteria of:

1. Did the site have a dedicated green page;
2. Was the information provided on the “Green Page” relevant or not (i.e. did it list green hotels, organic restaurants, and trip planning tools with suggestions for eco-friendly places to visit etc.;
3. Did the site show any scope for improvement based on the existing information;

Based on the author’s assessment, the top five sites were:

1. Virginia
2. California
3. Colorado
4. Maine
5. Florida

As Troy and I have stated here before, as travel marketers, and more importantly as residents of the planet, it’s our responsibility to take a leadership role in ensuring that travel and tourism does not come at the expense of the planet. To that end, sustainability and stewardship should not be addressed as a “trend” or a “niche product” but a core value that’s ingrained into every fabric of your organization, and weaved as a guiding thread throughout the entire portfolio of your tourism content.

While we agree and applaud Virginia’s efforts to highlight facilities and experiences that are “green”,  we’re also mindful that the concept of “sustainable travel” is much broader than counting LEED certified meeting centers or a listing of ‘carless’ day-trips on a “green page”. Sustainable travel, as defined by National Geographic, is “…tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place—its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.

Which is why we simply cannot accept the premise of TripHow’s “green” rankings for state tourism sites, which equates a “dedicated green page” to that destination’s commitment to sustainable travel.

While we could all do a better job of telling the story of why our state/city/county is a “sustainable tourism destination”,  it is also absolutely way to easy to throw up a cheap, “look how green we are page” as a marketing ploy.  Arizona, Montana, Minnesota and Oregon—to name just a few states—all have active efforts that involve a long term approaches to solving the challenges with saving and preserving our natural, historical and cultural sites.     More specifically:

• Arizona Origins – Is dedicated to celebrating and preserving over 80 authentic places throughout the state
• Crown of the Continent – Another partnership with National Geographic that highlights places along the “crown of the continent” (southwestern Alberta, southeastern British Columbia, and northwestern Montana) that are important culturally to the region
• Oregon Bounty – A microsite dedicated to celebrating what makes Oregon taste good; great food (made with fresh, local ingredients), wine (made sustainably), beer and spirits. In fact many events allow consumers to actually meet the farmers, vintners and brewmasters who actually make the products!

Do these efforts tell stories about the sustainable aspects of these destinations? Absolutely.   Are they necessarily on a page titled “green”?  Nope.

As consumers look to take their low impact lifestyle on vacation—”car free” vacations, carbon offsetting, staying at eco-friendly accommodations and eating local foods and imbibing organic beer and wine—it is important for us to remember that “green” is a long term effort to keep our destinations unspoiled for future generations and a commitment to preserving the heritage of the destination.  It’s most definitely not a short term marketing ploy.  Consumers are way to smart to be “green washed” anyway!

Hotels.com Visualizer

Hotels.com Visualizer

Imagine your ideal vacation escape. For some this may entail hiking the Appalachian Trail in Asheville, for others standing atop Peak 9 in Breckenridge on a cold, sunny morning. Perhaps the perfect vacation for you is figuring out a way to see every sight in Disney’s Magic Kingdom, or making certain that you see nothing at all but the ocean and the sun. Those who find it easy to imagine the idyllic, but lack the desire to put their thoughts into words are now in luck. Hotels.com now provides a search process that appeals to the senses and allows vacationers to dream their way into vacationing with “The Visualiser“. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Hotels.com is beta testing a visual search tool, Hotel Visualizer, in the UK market which helps consumers find their “perfect hotel” based on:  what you want to do on vacation (hiking, beach, clubbing etc.), who you’re traveling with (family, couple etc.), what kind of room style (luxury, bohemian etc.) and your age.

Designed much like Travelocity’s Experience Finder, it’s an “inspiration tool” for consumers in the research phase (appx. 30% of OTA consumers) that uses photography as a visual cue to discern the motivations and aspirations of the consumer, thereby enabling the system to suggest relevant content (destinations/hotels).

Based on my answers when using the visualizer today, it classifies me a Socialite which they defined as:

“You’re a real social animal and it seems like this trip is all about having a fun time with your partner. We’ve found some hotels that will be the perfect base for all your frolics! You’ll be right in the centre of the action and all set for feeling the buzz of the place.  When it comes to evening entertainment, you’ll be sure to find what you’re after, whether its the perfect restaurant for a romantic dinner or a pumping bar where you can let your hair down.”

Amsterdam, Auckland, Barcelona, & Montreal were my recommended destinations (Interestingly…I’ve always dreamed of retiring in Barcelona!).

The visualizer seems like a really fun planning tool and much more engaging way to help consumers discover new places and things to do; more importantly, it represents a continuing evolution of the current commoditized travel booking market.  My one disappointment with the experience however would be the photography; too many of the photos weren’t inspiring and looked most definitely like stock photos!

Travel Trends – HSMAI Marketing Review Summer 2008 (Cont…)

Come with me if you want to escape Web 3.0...

On Tuesday, we reviewed two trends from the recent HSMAI Marketing Review Summer 2008 report.  Today, we take a look at the specific technology trends that will be influencing your tourism life in the near future.

34 ) Technolgy increasingly dominates both the economy and society.

New technologies are surpassing the previous state of the art in all fields.  Laptop computers and Internet-equipped cell phone provide 24/7 access to e-mail and Web sites.  Flexible, general-service personal robots will appear in the home by 2015…By 2015, artificial intelligence (AI), data mining, and virtual reality will help most organizations to assimilate data and solve problems beyond the range of today’s computers. … Ultimately, speculations that we are approaching the ‘singularity,’ the time when our artifacts become so intelligent that they can design themselves and we cannot understand how they work, may prove correct.  At that point, humanity will be largely a passenger in its own evolution as a technological species. …

IMPLICATIONS FOR HOSPITALITY AND TRAVEL: Air travel will benefit more, and more immediately and directly, from new technologies than any other segment of hospitality and travel.  … Better sensors will tighten airport security … By 2018, the first supersonic business jets will take to the air. …

Cruise lines face changes, too.  Online travel agencies will account for only 9 percent of cruise sales in 2009, according to PhoCusWright.  That will not long be true.  Over the next decade, the most important technological development for cruise lines will be the continued growth of online booking.

Early suggestions that cruise travel was too complex and expensive to book without human contact are fast proving to have been wrong.  Carnival, Princess, Disney, and other have set up convenient and successful online booking systems for Net-savvy cruisers.  Operators with less efficient sits, or none at all, will find themselves at a growing competitive disadvantage.  Five years from now, the tradition of booking through a travel agent will have vanished, save in the extreme high end of the market – and there is room to wonder how long agents can survive to serve the luxury market after losing the rest.

Cruise lines hoping to do well in an increasingly Net-savvy marketplace will have to pay scrupulous attention to their reputation.  Tales of poor service and disappointed travelers go a long way in online forums, chat rooms, and blogs, and they can take forever to disappear.  An impeccable brand is the only assurance the online shopper has that his cruise investment will be money well spent. …

For hotels, the biggest techno-trend is well recognized already.  As database systems grow more sophisticated, operators are able to capture ever more detailed information about hotel patrons, from their choice of rooms to their dining preferences and local itinerary.  This enables hotel staff to give returning patrons a highly personalized experience and all but guarantees return visits.  This technology is quickly raising the level of play in the battle for customer loyalty.  Cruise lines, resorts, and other destinations are quickly copying the methods.

On the negative side, long distance calling through the hotel telephone system once was a significant profit center. …

Probably the biggest development for most sectors will be the growing use of RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips to track supplies, automate ordering, and make delivery more efficient, and therefore cheaper.

One nascent restaurant chain in California features order-entry computer at each table.  Customers use the terminal to read the menu, view each menu item, and place their order.  They see human staff only when handing over their credit cards-before ordering-and when the food is delivered.  Computerized ordering will not soon penetrate high-end restaurants, where savings are sorely needed.

Also expect to see innovation at self-bussing restaurants, where patrons will deliver their plates and tableware directly to the maw of the automated washers. …

Thoughts// Okay, that was a long trend.  Wow, Dr. Cetron packed a lot into that one.  We will look at these topics one at a time.

The initial thoughts on the subject are pretty wide-ranging.  Technology is getting better, smarter, faster, etc.  The idea of singularity or the ‘Terminator paradox’ says that eventually humans will build computers and machines so smart that they can build themselves and then continue to get smarter, realize they don’t need us and you end up fighting your refrigerator to the death.

I sure hope Gov. Schwarzenegger reads the Travel 2.0 blog.

Anyway, you can see a reoccurring theme here.  We are heading to the point where technology will be replacing our own efforts at certain tasks.  This has happened throughout the last 100 years, but as we mentioned in the first post, the advances are being deployed at a much higher rate.

Okay, enough of that, break out the tin-foil hats if you want.

The report mentions that airlines will benefit from this new technology…lighter planes, better security (insert your own joke here), better tracking, etc.

Next, we take a look at cruise lines and how online booking with change the industry, which then turned into an entire line about the total elimination of the travel agent.  Perhaps the ‘machines’ get to them first.  While I completely agree that we will continue to see additional advancements in booking engines throughout the travel industry, not just cruise lines, I disagree about the elimination of the travel agent.

If you have read more than a couple posts about the Travel 2.0 blog, you know that I am a pretty big advocate for the idea of all things being cyclical and the travel industry is no different.  The internet has made the travel agent increasingly less useful over the last 5 years, but as our recent post (Where Have All the Online Travelers Gone?) discussed, many ‘Net-savvy’ (Oy.) users are becoming increasingly confused and frustrated with the online travel process.  So, rather than the idea of a travel agent being an agent vs. online issue, I would see the use of a travel agent as becoming a value-add feature for many users.  Again, all of this keeps going around…eliminate all the travel agents, OTAs look to differentiate themselves, bring back the personal touch of the travel agent!

Not to skip ahead, but we can see the same idea happening in the restaurant industry, according to the report.  Computers at the table? Self-bussing restaurants?  Interesting hooks in the beginning which certainly have that ‘Wow’ factor, but eventually everyone will have them…no competitive advantage…so, break out the ‘new’ marketing line…’the old-fashion idea of table-side service, that’s right, a human will wait on you!’  Plus, I bussed my own table in school, not a new idea.

Not to mention (again, we talked about this before) that there is a certain segment of the population who will simply not participate.  They would rather, based on personal taste or economic factors (they have lots of cash), have someone else book their trip, take their order or schedule a spa day for them.

Finally, the report hit upon hotels…databases, telephones, etc…but briefly touched upon the real story, RFID.

For a brief explanation of RFID, it is the technology that powers your ID card that lets you into your office each day.  A little chip inside the card knows who you are and what access level you have to the building.  Now, beyond just ordering more lettuce…which is great…lets think about how hotels can really use RFID to enhance the guest experience.

For example, I am enrolled in the Hilton loyalty program, they issue me a Hilton Rewards ID card and assign a user name to my account.  I enter my preferences about hotel stays on my account (online, via mobile, whatever) and book a stay online at the Hilton in downtown Phoenix.  With the card in my pocket, I walk through the front doors, by the scanners on each side that detect that I have arrived…yeah, the same type of scanners that prevent you from stealing from stores…anyway, I receive a text message on my phone listing my room number.  I proceed to room 707, flip my cell phone screen at the lock, it reads the 2D barcode on my phone and unlocks the door.  When I enter the room, the lights are on, A/C is set to my preferred temperature and the TV is already tuned to CNN.  The RFID card / computer system knows this info and automatically updates the room to my preferred settings.

Now, enter the semantic web.  Because I booked my hotel online, my Outlook account has told the Hilton system that I have a business meeting at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning.  Because I have entered the room, the alarm clock is automatically set to 6:30 AM and room service (Hilton knows what I like based upon previous visits) has already been ordered and is scheduled to arrive at 7:30 AM.

Oh, and there is an extra mint on my pillow.  I like that.  And the machine knows it.

Now that is a prediction.

Words, Words, Mere Words…Writing Style for Print vs. Web

Print publications — from newspaper articles to marketing brochures — contain linear content that’s often consumed in a more relaxed setting and manner than the solution-hunting behavior that characterizes most high-value Web use. Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission. In many cases, they’ve pulled up the page through search. Web users want actionable content; they don’t want to fritter away their time on (otherwise enjoyable) stories that are tangential to their current goals. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Jakob Nielson has been called the “the king of usability” and I try and read his latest usability tips as much as time allows. His latest work on “writing style” for print versus online and the related research showing that web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when viewing online content is quite fascinating. According to his research, consumers are impatient when viewing content and many “simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave”.

He also cites a recent NY Times attention grabbing headline, Coping With the Tall Traveler’s Curse; Neilson believes that while the headline might be “enticing and might draw readers in” on paper, the headline doesn’t work online because of the headline lacks keywords to draw the user in.

While I wholeheartedly agree on the basic premise of abbreviated copy writing style for the web, I think the travel industry (DMO’s in particular) are uniquely positioned to be a bit more free to express themselves online. Unlike banks, e-commerce or auction sites, we’re in the business of selling dreams and fantasies; by its nature, vacation dreams are vivid, imaginative and alluring, thus freeing the travel marketer from being “robotic” in his/her writing style, even online! A few rules that our team follows at Travel Oregon are:

1. Whimsical, quirky storytelling style: Our online material, while brief and to the point, takes on a bit of a storytelling style; in our experience, a longer story peppered with rich keywords and appropriate bullets helps to sell the experience better and gets better engagement

2. Tell a better digital story by adding photos and/or videos. Our blog stories with video/photos get proportionally longer visits by consumers

3. Use descriptive text for links versus the generic “click here”

4. Write for people, not machines! This is by far my biggest pet peeve with web writing. Yes, definitely pepper your copy with SEO keywords but don’t do it to the point where you’re disrespecting your audience. Here is a good example (from actual hompage copy of a Portland hotel) of what I mean by a brand writing for machines versus people:

   Hotel XXXX is a Portland hotel where style and comfort converge. Situated in the heart of downtown Portland, the Hotel XXXX offers a unique alternative to all other Portland, Oregon hotels. Our guests enjoy the personalized service and lavish hotel amenities that have earned the Hotel XXXX Portland a spot among the world’s best hotels. Inside, experience cutting-edge design and unsurpassed comfort. Venture outside and be at the epicenter of all Portland has to offer, including Portland attractions, Portland restaurants, tax free Portland shopping, art galleries and theatre.

Writer’s Note: For more on “digital storytelling” checkout the YouTube video above; if you can’t see it in your e-mail, please read this story on this blog.