Five real-life stories and their marketing morals.

September 7, 2023

Filed under: Public Relations, Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Media Relations, Branding Strategies — @ 10:02 am

While Aesop had his legendary fables and their educational morals (I mean…who doesn’t know The Tortoise & The Hare?), hospitality marketers can learn from these five real-life stories and their marketing morals. Behold: The County & The World Cup, The Surgeon & The Flowers, The Meerkat & The Photographer, The Front Desk & The Dumb Answer, and The Biscuits & The Masking Tape.

The Country & The World Cup

The morning that Australia was playing England in the semifinals of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, these full-page ads appeared in England’s newspapers. BEFORE the match was played. Why is that so cool? Because it’s pretty likely all of football-crazed England was thinking about Australia that morning (and not in a good way), and the message is just cheeky enough to earn the respect of that crowd. Had Tourism Australia placed an ad AFTER the match…what could they really say that would be clever and make people care about them? Win or lose, any post-game messaging would be likely to fall flat. And in fact, if Australia had lost (which they did), the messaging opportunity would really disappear: once that match was over, all England cared about was Spain, their next opponent in the upcoming final match. All thoughts of Australia were in the rear view mirror.

The Moral of this Marketing Story? Timing is everything in marketing. A message can lose its power – or worse, cause harm – if not perfectly timed. For more tips on this, see these four character traits that foster good timing in marketing.

The Surgeon & The Flowers

This story may not come from the hospitality industry, but it sure feels like it does. Someone close to me recently had cataract surgery and was referred to ModernEyes Ophthalmology. Every touchpoint with this office was fabulous, from intake and testing to exams and scheduling. It seems like there are hundreds of people working there, and yet we never felt like a number during our visits. Random technicians said hello to us in the hallways, staff remembered our names at every visit, and everyone was ALWAYS cheerful and upbeat. So we loved them from the start…and we got used to it. It was something we appreciated, but it’s not like you walk around telling everyone you know about your eye doctor. Until we arrived at the office for the first post-surgical checkup…and were given flowers to wish the patient a speedy recovery. WTF? What doctor does that? Next thing you know, we’re literally telling everyone we know that that surgeon cares enough to give patients flowers after their surgery.

The Moral of this Marketing Story? Shock even your happiest of guests with something completely unexpected and you will instantly transform them into proactive ambassadors. Whatever investment you make in this arena is worth it and then some. For more inspiration, check out these 10 unexpected (and fabulous) tourism guest service stories.

The Meerkat & The Photographer

The London Zoo recently got fantastic global press coverage for its annual animal weigh-in. Now let’s face it…checking weights of animals is a mundane behind-the-scenes operational process at a zoo. It’s not the kind of hook PR folks would normally reach for, favoring “sexier,” more newsworthy hooks like bold new exhibits, renovations, expansions, and such. Yet, if you stop and think about it, how DO you weigh exotic animals like Squirrel Monkeys, Walking Stick Insects, Sumatran Tigers, and other animals – like Frank the Meerkat above (credit: AP News) – who aren’t likely to cooperate? It’s something non-zoo people have likely never considered. All that was needed to turn this story into media catnip were arresting photos and adorable videos. And take special note: a meerkat on a scale is cute. A meerkat on a scale peering over a clipboard – which implies mischief and is an unexpected action for a meerkat – has news potential.

The Moral of this Marketing Story? There are actually two here. 1) If you have no sexy or big news to share, look at your operational processes and annual checklists. “How we do (this)…” stories, when showcased right, could be made interesting to non-hospitality folks. 2) The right images can turn even the most mundane of happenings into something newsworthy. Invest the time and labor to get it right, whether that means arranging for a high-profile media photographer to come shoot (as the London Zoo did with Associated Press) or hiring your own professionals to secure the shots. For more tips on this, check out what makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo and the secret to a great tourism photo.

The Front Desk & The Dumb Answer

While I have no desire to bash hotels by name, I’d be remiss not to share their mistakes as a learning opportunity for others. When I was checking into a Santa Monica based hotel at 5pm – well after check-in time – there was some sort of issue going on because my room wasn’t ready. And it was clear to me that the front desk staff was all in a tizzy about it. I’m one of the world’s most easygoing travelers, but having just landed on a cross country flight from NYC to CA, I was naturally eager to check into my room and refresh. So I simply (and calmly) asked when my room would be ready. This incident was perhaps a decade ago and yet I will never ever forget the front desk agent’s response: “Ma’am, too many of our guests requested a late checkout so you’re just going to have to understand and be patient. We’ll let you know as soon as housekeeping can get to it.” That is VERBATIM what she said to me. Whether it was true or not, it was truly the dumbest answer possible. Telling one guest she’ll “just have to understand” that due to the hotel’s own poor operational planning, her own standard expectations are being sacrificed so other guests can get special treatment? Not cool. It was just salt in the wound that the room ultimately wasn’t ready until 6pm, and worse that they didn’t even offer me a complimentary snack/drink in the lobby lounge restaurant while I was forced to wait. This was a four-star hotel brand and while such a response may have come just from that one person on that one day, I never stayed in a hotel of that brand again. And while my position in the tourism industry makes me unwilling to bash hotels online publicly by name, I did tell several of my personal friends and family the story (by name). Imagine if I were just a “regular” guest? Tripadvisor, here I come.

The Moral of the Marketing Story? Train your staff to graciously handle curve balls and crises because if you don’t, it will become a marketing problem. Something similar happened with these chocolate chip cookies at a Turks & Caicos resort.

The Biscuits & The Masking Tape

At Anchors Away, a small family-owned restaurant and dairy bar in Clyde River, Nova Scotia, the biscuit packs sold in bags at the front counter are labeled with masking tape and handwritten marker. While I was there helping the owner with a business and marketing strategy as part of a government tourism program, she apologized for the homegrown approach and said she was planning to invest in a label maker so the packages would look more professional. Now, this is a restaurant that doesn’t even have a website and whose entire operation – from staffing and menu choices to processes and marketing – is homegrown. Professional looking labels would be SO out of place here. And in fact, handwritten labels on a package of homemade biscuits are absolutely PERFECT for their branding…and sets them apart from the chain grocery store up the road.

The Moral of the Marketing Story? “Branding” doesn’t mean “fancy” or “formal.” Branding means making sure that every touchpoint a guest has with your operation feels authentically “like you.” Read the whole biscuit story here.

And now that you’ve enjoyed five real-life stories and their marketing morals, go indulge your inner child with a revisit of some of Aesop’s most legendary fables and their morals.

Should your brand have a Threads marketing strategy?

July 21, 2023

Filed under: Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Social Media, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 2:14 pm

It’s hard to look beyond the media hype to decide if your brand should have a Threads marketing strategy. Threads burst onto the social media scene in early July with the kind of massive fanfare that induces FOMO. And that kind of shiny-new-toy buzz sends marketers – and usually their well-meaning but uninformed bosses – into a tailspin asking themselves: how can we start using this new marketing channel ASAP?

Y’all, that’s the wrong question. What you should be asking is: does my brand NEED to be using Threads?

And the answer isn’t an automatic “yes.”

Is Threads a marketing opportunity? Of course it is. But you don’t seize every other opportunity that’s available to you, so why should you give more weight to this one? Just because everyone is talking about it? That’s a hard “nope.”

First of all, let’s get one thing clear. The thirst for Threads is already dying down and it’s only been a few weeks since launch. Indeed, many are now speculating that Threads might be just another a flash in the pan that will go the way of BeReal.

But it IS owned by Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), and it IS anchored by Instagram users. That means there are some chops under the hood. So while you shouldn’t just dive in blindly, you also shouldn’t just ignore it completely without first asking yourself a few critical questions.

Should your brand have a Threads marketing strategy? Here’s how to tell.

Ask yourself some questions surrounding these three points:

1) RESOURCES: Do you have, or can you get, the resources required to manage yet another social media channel? If you’re not doing justice to the channels you’ve already had for years, adding a new one is only going to dilute the effectiveness of them all. And in social media marketing, success comes with going deep not wide. It’s better to go “all in” on fewer channels – reliable posting, proactive interaction with followers, tapping into current cultural trends – than just giving a light touch to many channels at once. Just “having” a channel doesn’t make it effective. “Working it” does. This advice even made the list (at #17) of our Top 20 Tips for Tourism PR & Marketing Agency Clients.

2) AUDIENCE: Because Threads is connected to Instagram, when users establish their Threads account they are asked if they want to follow the same accounts on Threads that they do on Instagram. So when your Threads account goes live (if it hasn’t already), your base of followers will be pulling from your existing Instagram following. Do you need to be speaking to the same group on two different channels? Will you share different content on Threads and Instagram, so that the same audience has a reason to follow you on each? Do you have a plan (and then the resources – see #1 above) to grow your audience on Threads beyond your current Instagram followers? And most importantly, is your target audience likely to be found on Threads? It’s too soon to tell what the typical Threads user will be like, but before you dive in and invest heavy resources there, you should see where that lands.

3) GAPS: Does your current marketing strategy have a hole in it that Threads can fill? Or can tapping Threads enhance work you’re already doing and/or accelerate results? There’s no point in doing any sort of marketing initiative that doesn’t tie back to the big picture strategy goals. So don’t let FOMO push you into “doing Threads for the sake of doing Threads.” There needs to be a legit reason why it’s the right channel at the right time for the right audience and at the right resource level.

So, with all that in mind…SHOULD your brand have a Threads marketing strategy? Maybe not. And that’s OK. There’s no absolute rule book in marketing. Just remember that the biggest resource drain in marketing – and the one that’s most often underfunded – is time. If you can’t invest the time to do it justice, it might be best for you to keep Threads on the shelf until you’re ready.

What inspires word-of-mouth in tourism marketing?

June 16, 2023

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies — @ 1:01 pm

Here’s an example of what inspires word-of-mouth in tourism marketing. Say I brought you a box of chocolates from my trip to Connecticut. That’s nice and you’d thank me.

But say I brought you a box of “single origin cow chocolates” from my trip to Connecticut.

Wait…what?

Suddenly, you have questions. And the answers will likely make you want to share the story with other people – in person, by text, by social media, whatever. And some folks who see/hear it may think it’s cool enough to share with THEIR circle of friends. And so on. And so on.

And voila. Word-of-mouth.

The secret there lies in the phrase “make you want to share the story.” People don’t share boring, ordinary, or typical things. They share things that are new, cool, interesting, unexpected, funny, poignant, or extraordinary.

Thorncrest Farm & Milk House Chocolates is a Connecticut tourism attraction that knocks the word-of-mouth concept out of the park. Though, to be honest, I really don’t think they think of themselves as a “tourism attraction.” They seem to think of themselves more as cow-tenders, which just makes the story even better.

A barn crafted from weatherbeaten grey wood with multiple windows and oversized doors sits against a bluebird sky. This is the home of Thorncrest Farm & Milk House Chocolates, which inspires excellent word-of-mouth in tourism marketing.

At this magical farm – which requires you to leave the paved roads to access – the level of quintessential New England barn and local purveyor adorableness is just perfect. But that’s not the story-sharing headline here. The headline is that they produce a variety of chocolates that each use only a single cow’s milk. Like, you can get chocolates made exclusively with milk from Daydream, Creedance, Supreme, and other special cow ladies so earmarked for the purpose.

Not only that, but the type of chocolates each cow helps produce is determined by the distinctive flavor of her milk. For example, ONLY Daydream’s milk is used for caramels (I’ve had them and can see why), and ONLY Queen’s milk is used for the “Zesty Lime & Licorice” chocolate (they weren’t available when I visited because apparently Queen had the day off).

At the sweet little chocolate shop attached to the barn, visitors can find out which cow’s exclusive chocolates are available that day, depending on who is being milked. And there are a variety of other chocolate confections available too… as well as single origin cow milk, with each bottle branded with the cow’s name.

You can build your own box of chocolates by the piece and – this is my favorite part – they put a full menu in each box that fully describes each chocolate and which cow is connected to it. So if you’re giving it to someone as a gift, they get the whole story.

What was in the box I assembled during my visit? Clockwise here, from the top left: Daydream’s Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel, Supreme’s White Chocolate Raspberry Cream, Creedance’s Milk Maid Irish Cream (with a Bailey’s ganache inside, of course), Creedance’s Dark Chocolate Madagascar Vanilla, Vail’s Double Cream, and Valor’s Dark Chocolate Double Espresso.

A gold box with pink tissue paper houses six individual chocolates, two milk, three dark, and one white one shaped like a heart with red designs on it.

There’s also a deep and effective amount of authentic brand integrity everywhere you turn on the property. For example, they tell their story – amidst fun facts – with a collection of laminated signs arranged on the barn wall. Kudos to them for that…a high-tech video screen would be out of place here. The laminated signs scream homegrown, slow-paced, personal attention, and loving care, which is precisely the vibe they apply to managing their cows and their entire operation. Indeed, those laminated signs reminded me of the fabulous dairy bar in Nova Scotia that labels their biscuit packaging with masking tape.

So let’s break it down: why exactly does this particular tourism attraction inspire word-of-mouth marketing?

They built their business around a unique and unexpected story.
They give people something different to talk about regarding their chocolates. It’s not just that they taste good or have beautiful packaging, which many chocolatiers can claim.
They connect the product to its source in a fun, engaging, and interesting way. The one simple act of naming each chocolate after its source cow tells multiple positive stories about their business practices. Plus, it’s cute.

The result? I’ll always associate my trip to the Litchfield region of Connecticut with this extraordinary place, I’ll never forget it (out of ALL the chocolate shops I’ve visited in my time – and that’s a lot), and yes of course I told my friends about it. So naturally, I stopped by the barn after my purchase to thank the ladies for their efforts.

Chris Miranda, dressed in black with multicolored sneakers, stands next to the barn area where a cow sticks its tongue through the gate to say hello.

Take note of the fact that in everything I just celebrated about this place, I never mentioned if the chocolate is tasty. It DOES happen to be delicious, but THAT’S NOT THE STORY. Their word-of-mouth story is inspired by their branding and operation, not their chocolate quality. The chocolate just has to be good enough to not sabotage the joy a visitor gets from the story. Like, if the chocolate absolutely sucked, it would make the story less impressive and I’d not be inclined to share it. Happily for them, their chocolate is the very opposite of “sucked,” and here we are talking about it.

The Newfoundland Chocolate Company – obviously based in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada – also has delicious chocolate, and yet that’s also not THEIR tourism attraction word-of-mouth story.

Visitors to this Canadian province are universally struck by the distinctive (heartwarmingly quirky?) culture, style, and even language…even though they speak English.

The first time I was there and someone said to me “I dies at you,” I definitely had no clue what they were saying. And as I spoke to more locals, the joy of trying to decipher conversations that included phrases like “who knit ya?” became increasingly charming and hilarious. I wanted to bottle some of that joy and take it home for family and friends to experience too.

Imagine my excitement, then, when after delivering a keynote speech at the Hospitality Newfoundland & Labrador annual conference, someone gifted me these chocolate bars:

Chris Miranda holds up a collection of chocolate bars from the Newfoundland Chocolate Company. The six bars are in brown packaging with white typeface, and feature a variety of sayings. This is an excellent example of how to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing.

And that’s when I was introduced to the Newfoundland Chocolate Company, who has made a brilliant art out of comingling tourism branding with a scrumptious product.

Believe me, I’m not trying to minimize the thought and care that goes into making their chocolates. But the word-of-mouth headline here is the packaging and the product merchandising. Indeed, they have:

A wide variety of boxed collections that align chocolates with tourism locations around the island of Newfoundland, such as lighthouses, places to explore, and this one featuring shorelines with quiet coves:

The left photo shows the exterior of a box of chocolates called the Quiet Cove Collection, and the right image shows a map of Newfoundland with a picture of each chocolate in the box aligned with a quiet cove along the island's shoreline.

They also have bars wrapped to celebrate the vibrantly colorful and iconic houses of Newfoundland (like the ones on Jelly Bean Row):

A collection of six chocolate bars in a clear package, each with a picture of a different color house on it: orange, pink, yellow, blue, red, and tan.

And of course, those signature NL Sayings bars, whose collection includes a multitude of phrases that allow people to tell stories to the folks back home when they gift these bars as vacation souvenirs:

A collection of six chocolate bars, each with a green, white, and pink wrapper featuring black type with a saying on it. This is an excellent example by the Newfoundland Chocolate Company to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing, as each phrase is a distinctive saying by Newfoundlanders, such as "I dies at you."

The really magical thing is the NL’ers take great pride in their distinctive culture, so they ALSO love buying, sharing, and gifting products like the NL Sayings bars. They’re not just for tourists.

This is a very different approach than Thorncrest Farm & Milk House Chocolates, but this particular tourism attraction ALSO inspires word-of-mouth marketing with their strategy:

They’ve inextricably linked their own story to the destination’s unique story and culture, which will resonate with any visitor who was charmed by it (as I was).
They focus on the things that set Newfoundland & Labrador apart from other destinations, like…you literally can’t get a “Jigs & Reels Collection” of chocolates (nor a chocolate bar that says “arse on dat”) anywhere else in the world.
They make it absurdly easy for visitors to use their products to tell the story of NL to friends and family when they get back home. Why bring home just a map to show where you’ve been when you can show a map that tells a story through chocolates?

When the Newfoundland Chocolate Company was founded, they originally set out to “create great chocolate that tells a story about Newfoundland & Labrador.” Y’all, they nailed it.

The bottom line is that there’s more than one way to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing. You just have to give people a story worth telling and make it easy for them to tell it. Tell them YOUR story in fun, unique ways. Make it easy for them to take photos and video and remember your story clearly. Make it easy for them to feel good about you.

I may not yet be fluent in the language of Newfoundland, but when it comes to smart branding that inspires word-of-mouth marketing, there’s one thing I know for sure: I loves it.

A brilliant tourism marketing case study.

April 14, 2023

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies — @ 9:02 am

A red British phone box sits among the green rows of grape vines at the Luckett Vineyards in Nova Scotia, which is an example of a brilliant tourism marketing case study.

No one ever expects to find a phone booth in the middle of a vineyard…and that’s what makes this such a brilliant tourism marketing case study. The folks at Nova Scotia’s Luckett Vineyards have scored the brass ring of branding with this creative move. But it’s no fleeting stunt; it has brand and marketing legs for days. And spoiler alert…the phone actually works.

Let’s break down just what makes it so brilliant, especially from a tourism perspective.

It’s totally unique…and let’s be honest, very few ideas actually ARE unique. Most often, ideas billed as “unique” are just riffs on existing ideas. But this one embodies the very definition of the word unique. An iconic British phone box (which we call a phone booth here in the US), set smack in the middle of a vineyard in Nova Scotia? Nobody saw that coming. And that makes everybody pay attention to it.
It sets their marketing photos apart. We’ve all seen gorgeous pictures of vineyards. Many with gorgeous surrounding backdrops. Often with the light catching the landscape just right, and especially at sunrise or sunset. Never with a British phone box featured in the scene. On social media, such photos stop thumbs from scrolling. And in media relations, it catches the interest of journalists.
It provides bragworthy photo opps for guests. Guests share in that halo effect of capturing unique photos…and it does the same thing for their own social media feeds that it does for Luckett’s brand marketing. It makes for a cool photo that a visitor just can’t get elsewhere. And to be quite frank, in this way, it helps establish their presence as a tourist destination. Visitors to Nova Scotia who want to explore the province’s wine country in the Annapolis Valley region make Luckett a must-do stop. And if they stumbled upon it accidentally…they’ll never forget it.
It provides a surprise experience for guests. Wait… you thought it was just a photo opp? So might guests…until they go check it out. It’s actually a working original rotary-style telephone, and guests can make free calls from it to anywhere in North America. (TBH, just the experience of using a rotary phone is a surprise experience for many of the younger generations… are there instructions on how to dial? LOL)
OH THE BRAND EXTENSIONS! Luckett is the only brand in the world who can credibly name a collection of wines Phone Box Red, Phone Box White, and new for 2023, Phone Box Rosé. Besides the fact that these are delicious wines even for locals, what tourist who’s visited the winery and taken photos and called home on that rotary phone WOULDN’T also want to take home a wine called “Phone Box?” It’s not easy for a winery to get people to remember the names of all their different types of wines. These are unforgettable.
It’s an opportunity to have fun…everywhere. Their website’s home page touts “wines worth calling home about.” It’s little things like that which make this entire concept so fabulous. There’s always a way to weave the phone box subtly and cleverly into the brand’s marketing. And kudos to Luckett, they never devolve into the realm of cheesy with it. Everything is done with an edgy sophistication.

And the real gem of a lesson behind this brilliant tourism marketing case study? There was no grand master branding plan involved when they originally decided to do this. It was just a fun, cool idea tossed out one day by their vineyard manager, Marcel Kolb. It just seemed like something whimsical that would give visitors something unexpected to remember. But the owner, Pete Luckett (a British Canadian who was born in Nottingham, England), loved the idea and immediately started making calls to buy one for the vineyard.

All the other nitty gritty details that make this such a brilliant marketing case study came later. It all started with “this is cool, let’s just make it happen.” And then – very wisely – they built upon it to give it brand equity. If they had just stuck the phone box out there among the vines, and never absorbed it into their DNA, it would lack the branding power it has today. Instead, they gave it a stronger foothold and made it part of their identity. Not ALL of their identity. Just enough to set them apart. Super smart.

Parting tip: if you go visit, try their Fizz, which is my fave. But then again, I’m a notorious bubbly drinker, so perhaps I’m biased.

And here are a few related topics you may find of interest:

Six cool examples of marketing.

The secret to a great tourism photo.

Four brilliant and unexpected marketing partnerships.

Five ways tourism marketers often fool themselves.

March 17, 2023

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 8:04 am

Listen up marketers…we like to think we’re always making wise choices, but sometimes we stick our heads in the sand. When budget, staffing, or timing is tight, it’s soooooo tempting to cut corners and say to ourselves “it’s fine.”

A cartoon image of a dog with a small brown hat sitting on a chair surrounded by a room that's on fire, while he is sipping coffee calmly and saying "this is fine." This is meant to illustrate what's happening as part of the five ways that tourism marketers often fool themselves.

Y’all…it’s really NOT fine, and deep down inside, you know it. Here are five ways tourism marketers often fool themselves, and how it comes back to bite them in the booty.

1) We can water down this BIG idea and still get BIG results.

The excitement and energy that accompanies a big idea is invigorating, infectious, and lasting. This is especially because the magnitude of the potential results makes us star-struck.

Here’s the rub, however. When – due to budget, operational challenges, timing, executive indecision, or whatever – that big idea gets watered down before implementation, often marketers are super bummed that the results aren’t the ones with which they originally fell in love. They conveniently “forget” that they dramatically pared down the idea, and never shed that infectious, lasting excitement they had at the start.

If this describes your organization, fear not…you’re not alone. I can’t tell you how many times clients have asked us for a BIG BOLD IDEA, which they love at first hearing. And by the time it comes back to us after several washings through their various committee discussions and lengthy decision-making processes, we don’t even recognize it. This phenomenon is quite common. In fact, it’s so common that we even have a term for it at Redpoint: vanillafication. That’s taking bright, colorful, tasty ideas…and wringing all the flavor out of them until they’re just vanilla.

Folks, there’s no harm and no shame in paring down ideas. Necessity (and the reality of your situation) often demands it. But if you pare down your ideas, you must proportionately pare down your expectation of results accordingly. Not doing so is just one way that tourism marketers often fool themselves…and then they’re disappointed.

2) It’s fine if we just replicate last year’s event as is.

No, it’s not. Whether it’s a trade or consumer event, whatever tourism thing you’re selling…it’s being sold to people. And people get desensitized so easily.

It’s essential that you add at least one new element to your annual events each year. It doesn’t have to be huge or cost a lot of money. Just something different than your audiences have experienced at that event before. It keeps the event fresh, makes an impression, and gives folks something to talk about…and maybe even post on social media or share in other ways.

Moreover, if you seek news coverage of the event, you actually need “news.” If the event is 100% the same as it was the last time they heard about it or attended, there’s literally nothing for them to cover. They need a nugget of something new to make their editorial coverage interesting and timely.

I know, I know. Tourism marketers are so busy and often stretched so thin that it’s a relief when you can finally put something on autopilot and not have to invest new creative energy or logistical planning into something that’s already “done.” Sorry, friends. This is yet another way tourism marketers often fool themselves.

3) We can wait to fix this website issue.

There are days when I feel like it would be easier to raise a child than properly maintain a website. Platforms evolve, things break, algorithms change, content gets stale… the list is endless.

The mission to keep everything current and in excellent working order is so relentless that it’s tempting to ignore some of the issues for a while. Like… “until I have the budget,” or “until I have the time,” or “until next year.”

Because of this, often tourism marketers fool themselves into thinking, “oh, it’s not that bad if that one part of the navigation is wrong,” or “it’s only a few broken links on pages people don’t use much,” or “yeah, the site is slow to load but it’s not that bad,” or – my personal favorite – “these photos aren’t the best, but they’re fine for now.”

This sort of ostrich mentality does your business grave damage. Why? Because it’s quietly and invisibly turning away potential customers…AND YOU DON’T EVEN HEAR ABOUT IT. Trust me, no one ever calls you up and says, “I was going to book with you, but your website annoyed me so much I decided against it.” They don’t do that…they just walk away.

Sure, if you look at your website analytics, you can see symptoms of this. But that’s easier to ignore (if you’re even looking…and many businesses, especially with DIY marketing, aren’t). Imagine if all those folks who walked away actually DID call you up and say that? You’d make fixing your website the highest priority instantly.

Your website is your virtual front door. Stop losing business because of it. On both desktop and mobile, it needs to be visually appealing AND fully functional. That means it’s fast, easy to navigate, informative, and current, with no broken links or wonky formatting. Users care about all of that, but as importantly…so do search engines.

Tip: here are six common website issues to look for on your site.

4) These photos are good enough.

I can’t tell you how many times tourism operators have handed me a brochure or a business card (sometimes even at a trade show!) and said, “This is us, but don’t look at the photos; they need to be updated.”

Here’s a story that puts that situation in perspective. During a website audit, we showed a hotel client that the highest number of people were leaving their site from their photo gallery page. Sweet lordy. A photo gallery page should inspire people to check dates and start the booking process, not leave the website.

Investing in a major photo shoot had seemed like something they couldn’t afford. But that audit showed them that they couldn’t afford NOT to do it.

Photos are an essential selling tool in tourism marketing. They can’t just be “good enough.” They have a job to do, which includes things like catching attention among cluttered social media feeds and capturing the imagination of website visitors. Ultimately, you want your photos to inspire action, whether it’s to read a caption, click a link, or inquire about booking.

Please don’t fool yourself when it comes to the quality of your photos. You will lose money because of it.

Note: for tips on this, see The Secret to a Great Tourism Photo and What Makes a Dramatic Tourism Marketing Photo.

5) It’s fine if no one else in our organization knows what marketing is doing.

In so many of the organizations we work with, marketing lives in a silo. And it’s sooo tempting to keep it that way. No scrutiny, no one chiming in with opinions, no questions about how budgets are being spent. We hear that a lot: “I just gotta keep my head down and churn out the marketing stuff.”

If this is you, hear me out. This is a major way in which tourism marketers often fool themselves. In the tourism industry, the relationship between marketing and all the other departments is crucial. Our product is experiential, and its delivery is dependent on operations, guest service, human resources, and more. It’s an ecosystem that needs to be in harmony at all times.

Because of this, EVERYONE needs to know what marketing is doing. Marketing is bringing in the guests who fuel the engine that delivers the experience. So, that engine needs to know what marketing is doing to make that happen…especially so they can live up to those promises.

Distribute a monthly update, make periodic presentations, even go door-to-door Erin Brockovich style and tell folks what’s happening. One business I know hosts a monthly “snack time,” at which they lure folks from other departments in with free snacks and share the upcoming marketing tactics while soliciting input for the future. Figure out whatever works for your organization’s culture and just do it.

~~~

Overall, it’s likely that time poverty and budget constraints are the two biggest culprits behind many of these unwise choices. So I get it… it’s not easy. But awareness is the first step toward change, so grab yourself a beverage and think about where YOU might be fooling yourself in your tourism marketing activities. Feel free to make that an adult beverage… you might need it. 😉

What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo?

March 16, 2023

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Social Media — @ 10:07 am

Your personal photos serve to capture a scene and a memory, but a marketing photo has another job: it must persuade and entice. But before it can even do those things, it has to catch someone’s attention. That means your marketing photos need to be arresting enough to stop thumbs and stand out among the sea of clutter that barrages people every day. Which begs the question:

What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo?

By “dramatic,” I mean it evokes emotion, piques curiosity, and/or makes a bold statement. This is done through strategic use of angle, lighting, perspective, and subject choice. A dramatic tourism marketing photo can tell a story in one glance. And it can also get someone interested enough to stop and read the caption or other accompanying message you want to convey.

In that latter sense, the photo is just a lure. It’s bait, if you will, that hooks your audience into hearing what you have to say. So for a photo to hook as many people as possible, that bait needs to be nice and juicy.

A picture can indeed be worth a thousand words. Here are five dramatic tourism photos I’ve come across in the past month, and what each one says to its audience.

Destination British Columbia

This says: private, remote, solitude, peace, quiet. It also says, “Breathe fresh air in the wilderness and get away from the noise and clutter of your daily life.”

In this sea of snowy bluish-white, your eye is drawn to two things: 1) that little patch of brown, where the cabin sits nestled in the woods, and 2) the blurry branches in the left foreground. And the rest of the image is just natural, uninhabited, snow-blanketed forest. In this photo, the perspective distance from the cabin and the upward angle that still allows the cabin to peek through the trees really nail the emotion here. The cabin alone or the blurry branches alone wouldn’t create the same impact. But they work together to hold the viewer’s attention, and that in turn communicates a message that viewers don’t even realize they’re receiving: this is literally “getting away from it all.”

Tourism Tasmania

This says: unhurried, no decisions to make, no responsibilities. It also says, “Be alone with your thoughts and slow down your speed.”

The curves and swirls that juxtapose white and blue are enough to stop someone’s scrolling thumbs, but then it’s the lone human walking near the water that really makes this photo. The aerial perspective, coupled with the person, convey the scale and context of the landscape in a way that neither a close up, nor the same photo without the person in it, ever could. And even though there’s a light frothy surf where the beach meets the shore, the timing of this photo evokes the feeling that everything on this beach is still and calm…and so the only movements are the ones YOU choose to make. The person in the photo is clearly walking, which is essential to the emotion of the photo. If the person were standing still, it wouldn’t create that same compelling dynamic.

Switzerland Tourism

This says: unforgettable, breathtaking, Instagrammable wedding memories. It also says, “If you’ve got joie de vivre and a fun spirit, we’re the right place for your wedding.”

A quick glance at this photo catches attention because the couple on the ski lift is clearly NOT wearing ski gear. And the “white space” around that couple ensures that they really pop…it makes a viewer want to stop and zoom in for a closer look. What helps here is that the background is SO majestic. It screams “classic Swiss Alps” for a wedding backdrop, and yet the mountains don’t dominate the scene. Moreover, the perspective looking up from the ground, and the simplicity of what’s captured in the frame, evoke the feeling that the newlyweds are high above and away from everyone… alone together, far removed from anyone and anything. I mean, could it get any more romantic than that?

Klahoose Wilderness Resort

This says: unusual experience. It also says, “Whatever that is, it looks cool.”

It looks like a shed sitting on a dock, and that might be enough for someone to stop and check it out. But then, it has steam coming out of the roof, so…what IS that? It’s the steam that really makes this shot because it piques curiosity. Then the caption tells you that this is a work-in-progress shot of the resort’s new wood fire cedar sauna and just like that…you want to be in that sauna. The downward perspective from an elevated viewpoint shows just enough context for the viewer to understand its cool location, and that super calm blue water surrounding it adds to the allure. BTW, you can see the finished sauna here.

Inn by the Sea

This says: “You want wine? We’re not playing around. We’ve GOT wine.”

Landscape and nature aren’t the only subjects for dramatic tourism marketing photos. Look at these wine barrels. The way the rows curve at the back, along with the perfectly aligned strips of oak and burgundy coloring, really nail the drama for this photo. They draw the eye and give the impression that the barrels continue on to infinity. And nothing says “we’ve got plenty of wine” like a seemingly unlimited supply of wine barrels. Even better: this photo was used to promote inn’s wine pairings and menus for Maine Restaurant Week. Why is that better? Because it’s soooo different than the usual photo used to promote such an event, like a glass of wine next to a plated dinner. This stands out.

What’s the bottom line? What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo isn’t necessarily having a dramatic subject. It’s CREATING a dramatic feeling by choosing how the subject will be photographed. It may take a little more investment on your part – time, money, expertise – but it’s well worth it to invest in this kind of marketing bait.

For more (undramatic) tourism marketing photography tips, find out the secret to a great tourism photo.

ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

February 13, 2023

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Customer Service, Crisis Communications, Effective Presentations, Writing Tips, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Social Media, Effective Communication — @ 11:24 am

Here’s why tourism marketers need tips for using ChatGPT, an online program that engages in human-like dialogue based on a prompt: because we’re all too damn busy to waste time. And messing around with a new tool we’re not sure we’d even use feels a lot like wasting time. Is it worth it? Should you invest the time to get familiar with ChatGPT because that investment of time will pay off?

Short answer: yes. You need to know what this tool can REALLY do before you decide to embrace or reject it. It has some uses that may surprise you.

So let’s jumpstart your learning curve with some practical tips for how tourism marketers can explore the benefits of using ChatGPT.

First, let’s get one thing straight. ChatGPT is just a resource and a tool. You’ve got a lot of tools to help you do your job. Google is a tool. Adobe Illustrator is a tool. Semrush is a tool. But the relentless media frenzy around ChatGPT has given it near-mystical properties that make it seem more potent than that. Chill out, y’all. It’s just a tool. It’s one more resource in your toolbox to potentially help you do your job better, smarter, and faster.

And like all tools [she says sheepishly, aware that she barely knows how to use 5% of the available apps on her iPhone], its usefulness is only as powerful as your knowledge of how to harness it. I’ll never forget years ago when an accounting mentor said to me, “If you’re doing any manual calculations whatsoever or taking a long time to manipulate data in an Excel spreadsheet, then there’s a shortcut, command, or function you just don’t know about. Excel is designed to make life easier. If it’s making it harder, go learn more about Excel.”

ChatGPT is the same. When you first try it out, you won’t be savvy at knowing how to coax the most effective results from it. So you’ll plug in a few basic things and the outcomes will be unimpressive. And then, because you’re super busy and there’s no mandate that says you need to use ChatGPT, you’ll dismiss it as unhelpful and go back to the familiar tools in your toolbox.

But what if I told you that…

You could paste a particularly legalese-sounding section of a vendor contract into ChatGPT and say “explain this to me like I’m an 8^th grader”…and it does?

It could produce a style guide for all your team members to follow, after you feed it several samples of a brand’s voice to analyze?

It could take your 400-word bio and make it fit that directory listing’s 100-word requirement in just one click?

It could give you a substantive list of story ideas for your content calendar…and then organize them into a seasonal schedule…and then create first drafts of each piece of content, in different formats for social channels, blog posts, email newsletters…and even website copy that’s optimized for the keywords you require?

It can indeed do all those things and more…if you know how to prompt it effectively.

Janette Roush is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Digital, for NYC & Company, which is the official DMO/CVB for New York City. And she’s one of ChatGPT’s early adopters and passionate champions who is learning to master the “art of the prompt.”

“If you want to get ChatGPT to give you useful answers, the key is in how you formulate your prompt,” Roush told me. “I was once advised to think of it like an omniscient three-year-old. It knows everything under the sun, but it doesn’t know who YOU are, WHY you need to know, and WHO you’re trying to talk to. You need to prompt it with details like that for it to return a result that’s written in the context you need. Otherwise the result will be very generic and way less useful to your purpose.”

Roush has honed her prompting skills through persistent trial and error. In fact, she even documents her journey with ChatGPT on LinkedIn, making regular posts about prompts she’s tried for a wide variety of uses and the results they’ve produced. (Pro tip: Connect with or follow her there. You won’t regret it.)

Inspired by Roush, I took ChatGPT for a three-hour test drive one morning, just giving it prompts for various tourism-marketing-related things. One thing I quickly learned is that a generic prompt yields a generic answer and specific prompt yields a specific answer. Case in point: Look at how it adjusted its responses for social media captions based upon my specificity:

And it did the same thing as I sought its help to generate story ideas for Northern California:

Are those story ideas all perfect with no need for tweaking? Perhaps not. But did it give me threads to follow where before I had none? Absolutely. And some good ones too.

So, in addition to writing copy, one use of ChatGPT is to think of it like you would a sounding board. Or a brainstorming partner. It can’t ideate on its own (it’s not designed to innovate) but it can work with the prompts you give it to hit you back with starter threads.

Roush shared some spectacular direction on how to prompt ChatGPT as a sounding board in one of her recent LinkedIn posts:

You may be thinking “well, why can’t I just Google stuff like that instead of using ChatGPT?” And you can. But Google (“regular” Google, not the emerging Google Bard version that’s trying to infuse AI into its experience but not quite succeeding as of this writing) will give you a slew of different links for you to go explore and assimilate all the information on your own. And ChatGPT will just…answer you. Not with “here are ten sources you can read to find story ideas” or “here are ten sources to see how other destinations are making themselves an attractive esports destination.” It delivers YOUR story ideas, and tells you how YOUR destination can achieve an attractive esports destination profile.

And then – mind blown – you can direct it to actually WRITE that story about ice skating in Northern California or OUTLINE that strategic plan to develop esports tourism in NYC.

Again…will they be final drafts that need no tweaking? Absolutely not. They will be FIRST drafts, but if you’ve prompted with care, they’ll be pretty damn good first drafts.

And THAT saves you time, which is the whole point of using ChatGPT for marketing assistance.

But wait, you say. When I use Google as a resource tool, I can handpick from among sources on the results pages that I feel are legitimate and credible. Without such references, how do I know the information I’m getting from ChatGPT is accurate?

Folks, I remind you again that ChatGPT is not supposed to be a mystical tool that sees all and knows all. You’ll need to check your facts, just like you would using any other source. Do you really think that something is accurate just because you got it from a source on Google that you consider “credible?” News outlets get details wrong, websites have outdated information, and inaccurate stuff has a way of floating around and perpetuating online. So, ChatGPT is no more nor less credible than any other source you use. And you should do your due diligence on its output when necessary.

And while we’re at it, I should also remind you that most of the output you get from ChatGPT will need tweaking and polish. Even with the absolute best of prompting, there will still be nuances and phrasing you’ll need to infuse. So it can’t hurt to brush up on your writing skills, and these tips will help.

If you want to explore how ChatGPT can potentially help you with your tourism marketing needs but you’re not sure how to begin, Roush offers these four tips to get started:

Commit to a finite time period for practice. You won’t learn how to use any new tool unless you devote time to using it. Roush recommends setting a challenge to yourself, with some kind of accountability built into the period. Take two weeks or a month or whatever, during which you commit to prompting ChatGPT on at least one topic every day. “I challenged myself to post a new ChatGPT insight on LinkedIn every day for a month, and it forced me to think of that tool daily,” she says. “It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but after a while, as various needs arose throughout the day at work, I’d automatically say to myself ‘let me see how ChatGPT would handle that.’ And then I’d dive into prompting.”
Don’t think of it just for help with writing. With accurate prompting, ChatGPT is an excellent resource for organization, explanations, curation, and more. Roush says it’s helped her structure her lesson approach for her work as an Assistant Professor at Hunter College, and it’s helped flesh out her vacation itinerary in Montreal by finding cool things to do nearby to her already-planned stops. “I’ve also used it to help it explain things I don’t fully understand,” she says, “like when I understand 80% of a technical proposal and I want to understand 100% of it. I can ask ChatGPT to explain it to me in layman’s terms.”
Learn to become specific in how you prompt. You won’t be good at this right out of the gate. It takes time and practice to master the art of prompting. When Roush first dabbled in using ChatGPT, she – like most folks – prompted it with “silly things,” just trying out generic questions and commands, and receiving lackluster responses. “It wasn’t until I stumbled upon how to start being more specific that I began to see the possible uses of ChatGPT,” she says. “I had asked it to create an itinerary for my vacation in Montreal and it was pretty vanilla, just hitting all the major tourist sites. But when I fed it my existing itinerary and asked it to suggest enhancement additions using the right prompts for specificity, it really impressed me.”
Let ChatGPT create a style guide for you, so it learns to deliver responses in your own voice. Roush fed it around 40 of her previous LinkedIn posts and asked it to create a writing style guide for her… which it did shockingly well. Now she can instruct ChatGPT to use that guide when asking it to write stuff on her behalf. “It was surprising how well the style guide captured my voice,” she said. “If I had tried to analyze my own work and write up my own style guide, it would have taken forever and probably been less accurate.”

The bottom line is that the more you use it, the more uses you’ll discover for it. And with practice at the art of prompting, you can make ChatGPT something akin to a full-service virtual assistant who brainstorms, writes, organizes, and educates.

Or… not. You may end up hating it, but until you REALLY take it for a lengthy and diverse test drive, how will you ever know?

Related reading: Issac Asimov’s I, Robot. It was written in 1950 and well…here we are, folks.

Hotel amenities can have marketing value.

January 13, 2023

Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool — @ 11:55 am

Travelers expect a lodging property to have a bed and a shower, but hoteliers should look beyond that to offer hotel amenities that also have marketing value. What do I mean by that? I mean the type of things that make a lasting impression. The kind that guests want to photograph and share on social media, and text to friends with an “OMG ISN’T THIS THE COOLEST THING EVER?”

The type of things that transforms guests into ambassadors.

Let’s face it. Travelers in 2023 will STILL be itching to make up for their pandemic travel pause. Call it revenge travel, rebound travel, or restorative travel…no matter the name, it means they’re seeking experiences memorable enough to feel like several vacations in one.

And extraordinary, unexpected amenities are one small yet meaningful way for hotels to deliver such standout memories. Better yet, they don’t have to be expensive or extravagant for either the hotel or the guest. They just need to be unusual enough to make an impression.

Here are five spectacular examples from around the world of hotel amenities that have marketing value:

The Toilet Paper at The View – Lugano, Switzerland

A roll of pink toilet paper sitting on a wood ledge that shows hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The View Lugano

With its breathtaking setting up on a hill overlooking the Lake of Lugano in Switzerland, The View Lugano already offers a lot in the “making memories” department. But with the hotel’s “Tailor Made Services” program, guests can customize nearly every aspect of their stay prior to arrival. And while there are plenty of the usual customizable amenities on the list of options – pillows, champagne in the room, breakfast choices, etc. – one thing is SO unusual, it’s likely a guest will never forget it: you can choose from among five different colors of toilet paper to have in your bathroom. It’s a small detail that makes a huge impact.

The Bookmarks at The Betsy – Miami Beach, Florida

A white colored bookmark (embedded with flower seeds) with a poem written in black sits on a white background, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Betsy

It’s pretty cool (so says this bookworm) that each room at The Betsy in South Beach has its own library, but then there’s the bookmark at turndown. Each night, guests receive a bookmark on their pillow made from recycled paper and wildflowers. Take ‘em home and plant them in your garden, and voila: you now have a tangible and lasting memory of your visit.

The Podcast Booth at The Sinclair – Fort Worth, Texas

The interior of a podcast booth with two chairs, a microphone and other recording equipment, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Sinclair Hotel

Every hotel is looking for ways to make it easier for guests to share their experiences with others. The Sinclair takes it to the next level with a fully-equipped podcast booth for rent during a stay. Open to both guests and the public, this quirky (but brilliant) amenity rents for $50 per session. So, from the hotel’s perspective, over time the investment they made pays for itself. But even if it didn’t…the press coverage alone upon opening earned them a worthy ROI. This is DEFINITELY a hotel amenity that has marketing value, on multiple levels.

The Coffee Maker at the Marriott Hacienda Belen – San Jose, Costa Rica

A traditional coffee maker with a wooden arm and white mesh strainer, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: Marriott Hacienda Belen

Paying homage to the glorious thing that is Costa Rican coffee, the Marriott Hacienda Belen provides some elite guests with a traditional drip coffee maker to use during their stay…and then gifts it to them to take home. It’s such a startling difference from the “tech-ification” of the typical in-room coffee amenity at hotels that it stands out in a lasting way. Not only is it highly Instagrammable and TikTokable, it also taps into the extreme passion of serious coffee enthusiasts. A win-win.

The 3D Cocktails at Fairmont Le Château Frontenac – Quebec City, Canada

A cocktail in an opaque black glass with a 3D model of sugar in the shape of a building sits next to a cocktail glass filled with ice and lemon. This shows that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac

Heaven knows that people LOVE snapping and sharing pictures of beautiful cocktails. Indeed, at the time of this writing, the hashtag #cocktails on Instagram had 36 million posts. The Fairmont Le Château Frontenac takes it one step further by making some of their cocktails video-worthy as well. The 3D cocktails feature a small model made of sugar and natural flavors (the one above is a miniature of the hotel itself). Once the liquor is added, the model slowly dissolves to create a perfectly blended cocktail. Delicious drink…delicious marketing.

The point is…not EVERY touchpoint of a guest’s stay needs to provide a snap-to-attention, memorable “wow.” Too many of them would just be desensitizing anyway. But strategic pops of surprise can capture a guest’s heart and make a lasting impression. Hotel amenities that have marketing value can be a low-cost way to do that. I mean, you have to give them toilet paper… why not offer it to them in pink?

For other ideas on how to make a lasting impression on guests, check out these two other resources:

Tiny design details can make big memories in hospitality.

10 Unexpected and fabulous guest service stories.

The use of experience guarantees in tourism marketing.

December 12, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field — @ 12:24 pm

With a looming recession in a post-pandemic world, you may – should? – be considering the use of experience guarantees in your tourism marketing. Why? Because travelers will be less willing to risk their precious dollars on an unpredictable experience.

A rare black Amami Island rabbit sitting nestled in the forest in Japan, showing how the use of experience guarantees in tourism marketing can be successful.

But offering a REAL guaranteed experience of any kind could be risky for you. Sure, you can say “we guarantee you’ll have a great time” (and by the way, here’s why you should never say someone will have a “great” time). But that’s quite different from “we guarantee XX will happen or we’ll give you a refund.” So much of the hospitality experience is subjective that it’s hard for you to TRULY guarantee that certain things will happen.

So what CAN you money-back guarantee without exposing yourself to excessive risk?

First, embrace these two key factors:

Most consumers don’t have a clue how much risk is involved to you. All they’re thinking about is the guarantee to them. So your low-risk guarantee – which may seem like a “duh” to you – still has marketing value.
The bolder the guarantee, the higher the risk. And the higher the risk, the more powerful the marketing proposition. You need to decide your comfort level on the financial-risk-vs-marketing-power spectrum, and it’s different for every brand.

Second, remember that tourism experience guarantees serve a MARKETING purpose, not an operational purpose. Indeed, marketing and ops departments often have polar opposite views of guarantees: marketing would love to guarantee everything, and operations would love to guarantee nothing (because they aspire, but what if circumstances don’t allow them to deliver consistently or are completely beyond their control?).

And since these guarantees serve a marketing purpose, they must be marketing-worthy…or else what’s the point? Such guarantees set you apart from your competitors and, if they’re cool enough, can attract hefty attention in both traditional and social media.

Gather food for thought from these examples:

No Brainer/Low Risk

There are so many whales in the Juneau, Alaska, area that Princess Cruises can offer a whale sighting guarantee on their paid shore excursions. You can spend 200 bucks on your ticket, knowing that if you don’t see a whale, you’ll get $100 back. VERY attractive for travelers, VERY low-risk for Princess.

Also on the wildlife front, tours on the remote Amami Island in Japan offer guaranteed sightings of the island’s rare black rabbit, an animal exclusive to that area. If you don’t see a rabbit, you’ll get a 50% refund. If you’re up for some light reading, check out this deep scientific study that assessed the benefit of these guarantees on both the tourism economy and the conservation of the rare Amami Island rabbit. The punchline: that guarantee is good for everyone…the tour operators, the visitors, and the rabbits.

A few years back, thanks to some crafty fine print, Priceline promoted a Sunshine Guarantee for its packages. The promotion covered a shockingly wide variety of destinations (really…July in Seattle?) and the bottom line is that if it rained more than the expected amount on your vacation, you get your money back. You’re probably thinking… were they nuts? No. They just had great lawyers that mitigated their risk:

Bolder Options with Financial Bite

One of the boldest and riskiest tourism marketing experience guarantees I’ve ever seen actually hails from Redpoint’s own client portfolio. Years ago, we launched a Sleep Guarantee for The Benjamin Hotel in NYC as part of its comprehensive sleep program that included a 12-pillow menu, a Sleep Concierge, and rooms specially designed for an ideal night’s sleep. The guarantee, which offered a full refund if you don’t sleep as well or better than you do at home, added MAJOR strength to the hotel’s sleep positioning and attracted the attention of high-profile media from Good Morning America and The TODAY Show to The New York Times (multiple times… here are two), The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and more. It was a strategic component designed to attract media attention and you know what? In the ten years we worked with them, fewer than 10 guests asked for that refund. So let’s say that total refund cost was (generously) $10,000. The PR value of the sleep guarantee easily exceeded $1 million in that same 10-year period. ROI: The hotel knew their high-end clientele wouldn’t be out to make a quick buck on this offer, so in reality it wasn’t as risky as it seemed.

And the Uzbekistan government also did the math. In summer 2020, they offered US $3,000 to any visitor who contracted Covid-19 while staying in the country. This seems like a hefty financial risk to them but 1) were people even traveling internationally at that time? And 2) It sounds mercenary but that potential $3,000 per person was definitely way LESS than the value of the marketing attention they gained. So, even if they ended up paying out the money, it was a sound investment.

Aruba also realized how skittish folks would be about booking travel amidst a pandemic, so they offered a “Happily Ever After Guarantee.” Billed as “the first postponable pandemic destination booking policy,” it allowed bridal couples and honeymooners to reschedule without penalty for up to a year if Covid-19 wrecked their travel plans. A bold move, for sure, as multiple properties had to agree to honor the policy. But it worked, and it set them apart from other Caribbean destinations.

If you’re considering the use of experience guarantees in your tourism marketing, heed this advice: be playful, be bold, and be strategic about your fine print. For example:

A Tastiest Tomato Guarantee? Lookin at you, Woodstock Inn & Resort.
A Freshest Lobster Guarantee? Lookin at you, Nova Scotia Lobster Crawl.
A Bird-Sighting Guarantee? Lookin at you, Trinidad & Tobago.
A Fresh Air Guarantee? Lookin at you, Tasmania.
A 24-Hour Music Guarantee? Lookin at you, Nashville.

When you evaluate carefully and do the math, such guarantees may not be so risky after all. Consider any claimed refunds as a “marketing investment.”

And hey, while we’re doing math and looking at your P&L, see here why you can’t find love on a spreadsheet.

How to promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically.

December 9, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Spending Budgets Wisely, Branding Strategies — @ 10:43 am

Of course all brands want to promote their good side, but is it possible to promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically? You bet it is. In many cases, there’s an upside to promoting your “bad side.”

The fact is, you’re not perfect and consumers know it. Today’s consumers are savvier than ever, and you know what they want from you? Authenticity. They don’t want you to gloss over your issues and they want to engage with you based on clear expectations. When you do this, it earns their respect. Indeed, TikTok is a channel surging in popularity precisely because it’s a home for authentic, unpolished content.

Many brands have leaned into this sentiment, finding ways to turn a negative into a positive. And in doing so, they reap the rewards…not just in engagement but often also in revenue.

Here are four strategic examples of organizations – from various industries – who promote their brand’s weaknesses strategically with great success.

Sun-Maid: Candy is better than raisins and we know it.

Who wants raisins in their trick-or-treating haul? No one, that’s who. And yet, for years, Sun-Maid tried to promote their raisins as a healthy alternative to Halloween candy. Recently, they finally realized that’s an uphill battle they’ll never win. As marketing director Fernando Herrara says:

So, they began a series of annual Halloween marketing activations and video campaigns to position Sun-Maid raisins as a trick-or-treat villain, scaring kids everywhere. The fun twist gets folks to laugh with them and communicates a cool, authentic vibe for the brand. Most recently, the brand took over an entire town, complete with Raisin Zombies and a ton of interactive elements. See the video and read about the seriously impressive results here.

Vancouver Island: Come here for the rainstorms.

Unless deliberately engaging in winter activities like skiing, travelers most often wish for sunny warm weather on vacation. But this creates a challenge for destinations, splitting their annual tourism calendar into high seasons and low seasons. That’s not ideal, as a destination wants (and needs) year-round economic stability. And if tourism is a key driver of their economy, they must make low season more attractive to visitors while still managing expectations and providing a worthwhile experience.

On the west coast of Canada, British Columbia’s Vancouver Island is far from a sunny warm climate during November through February. Yet, it’s also far from being considered a “low season” in the tourism industry because it’s Storm Season.

Two people in yellow rain gear stand at the edge of the ocean with rough seas as part of the Wickaninnish Inn's Storm Watching package, which is an excellent example of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically.

Winter storms on this coast are breathtaking and dramatic, and the region has transformed storm watching into a key attraction during Storm Season. Properties like Tofino’s luxurious Wickaninnish Inn have made a booming business out of Storm Watching Packages from November through February. Guests get outfitted with full rain gear and are treated to a host of cozy and warm amenities when they come in from the storm. And with average nightly rates from CAD $553 – $833, it’s hard to believe that would be considered low or off season.

Hockey Legend Denis Potvin: I don’t suck…buy my socks.

As sports rivalries go, the hockey divide between the New York Islanders and New York Rangers fans ranks among the most intense. So much so that Ranger fans are STILL pissed about something legendary NY Islander Denis Potvin did to one of the Ranger players back in 1979.

How do we know they’re still pissed about it? Because to this day, more than 40 years later, Ranger fans still chant – loudly, as one – POTVIN SUCKS every time the Rangers play the Islanders. And yet Denis Potvin retired in 1988.

It seems that after 40 years of being booed, Denis has finally figured out a way to earn their respect…if not exactly shut them up. He launched a collection of “Potvin Socks.”

Three pairs of Denis "Potvin Socks" in orange, blue, and white, which are excellent examples of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically.

Ranger fans may still hate both Denis and the Islanders, but there’s no denying this bold and sassy move adds some fun spice to the rivalry. And the best part? A portion of the proceeds from each sale goes to the NY Islanders children’s foundation. Come ON, Ranger fans… it’s for the kids! Get them here.

Destinations Everywhere: Mud is good clean fun.

Colorado. New York. Vermont. Utah. New Hampshire. Maine. And a slew of other creative destinations have aligned with the motto “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Mountainous destinations with snowy winters end up with early spring seasons that are a muddy mess. As the snow and ice melts and runs off down the mountains into the surrounding areas, there’s simply mud everywhere. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t make for attractive tourism brochure photos.

Unless… we make mud the “reason to come?”

A land rover car driving on muddy terrain in a forested area with blue sky, which is an excellent example of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically by capitalizing on mud season.

Mud season packages and activities can offer a compelling draw for tourists, and the concept of “mud” has a wide latitude. There’s mud outdoors, like you’d experience with off-road driving. But there’s also mud treatments in spas, mud pie, muddy cocktails, even “get dirty in the mud” team-building activities for groups and weddings. I mean, what bridal party doesn’t want to enjoy a tug of war and obstacle course in the mud as part of their lower-priced wedding package because it’s not high season?

Mud season is not a new tourism angle, but it sure is popular with the media. So even if consumers don’t book, it has legit marketing value and good press never goes to waste. I’ll never forget when, years ago, Redpoint orchestrated an entire mud season campaign for the New England Inns & Resorts Association. Dozens of the association’s member hotels participated by offering creative mud-themed packages for consumers. And one of them told me that a gent called their reservation line to inquire about the mud package after seeing it here in the newspaper…and he ended up booking a $3,500 engagement package before getting off the call!

That just further proves that PR is essential in tourism marketing.

The bottom line is that even though you naturally want to promote your “good side,” it’s also possible promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically too. You just have to be thoughtful and clever about it, and you can’t be afraid to have a little fun. Because consumers will get what you’re doing and applaud you for it.

But one parting thought: if you’re going to go this route? Don’t skimp on photography. Here’s what happens when your tourism photos suck.