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.

Marketers and mental health: taming stress triggers in the marketing industry

October 13, 2022

Filed under: Marketing & Mental Health, Marketing Strategies, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 4:26 pm

In this article on Marketers & Mental Health, we review how to tame four common stress triggers that marketing professionals face: Proof of ROI, Rejection, Tool Updates, and Never-Ending To-Do Lists.

The marketing industry is a hotbed of stress triggers, which can put a huge strain on your mental health if you’re not prepared to tame them.

Any good mental health expert will tell you this: if you can’t change the circumstances, all you can do is change how you react to them. And lordy, that should be every marketer’s mental health motto. Get a tattoo, crochet it on a pillow, make it your screensaver. Just embrace it.

Marketing EVOLVES, every single day, in ways that are often unwelcome. Things that were once free now have a price. Platforms that were once popular are now passé. Tracking and targeting for ads now have fences that can shut you out. New marketing channels pop onto the scene without warning. Stuff changes all the time. And change causes stress. And the stress is relentless. I’ve heard marketing compared to a never-ending carnival game of whack-a-mole, and it’s not an outrageous analogy.

But marketing can also be exhilarating, rewarding, and immensely satisfying. Marketers are entertainers. We are educators. We are influencers. And we possess – if we’re good at our jobs – an insightful perspective into what makes people tick and how to push their buttons.

So why are we, as an industry, generally so unsuccessful about managing how WE tick? We live in triage mode, crisis mode, gearing-up mode, and launch mode. Why aren’t we more conscious of adding a few modes to our professional lives that are kinder to our mental health?

Here are four of the most common stress triggers in marketing, and some thoughts on how you can tame them to foster better mental health. And it all starts with awareness.

Proof of ROI

The Stress Triggers

Your resources – both time and money – are precious and finite. Yet the quest to prove ROI for every marketing dollar spent goes unfulfilled. Should you put your dollars “here” because you can track clicks and trace sales, at the sacrifice of putting them “there,” which is more important but less or not trackable? These are constant, stressful choices for you.

But more than that…bosses and bean counters demand to see ROI before approving budgets. Few of them will equate a rise in sales with successful marketing unless you can show a direct link. And even fewer of them feel comfy with the fact that “increasing brand awareness” is a worthy marketing spend if it doesn’t lead to instant, tangible revenue.

The Taming Method

You need to embrace The Dark Funnel, and you need to educate all your stakeholders on it. This visual should hit home for any marketer (and hat tip to The F Company for creating it):

A visual showing steps in the dark funnel of marketing, which is a critical solution for taming a stress trigger.

Faith in the dark funnel is critical for every marketer. Some people still print out travel articles they see and stick them in a “bucket list” folder. Two years later they visit your hotel or destination from an article in that folder, and how will you know that article was the origin? You won’t. But that sort of thing happens all the time. Faith in the dark funnel is a stance you must cultivate…and champion. Marketing is a cumulative endeavor. You can’t just do ONE thing. A litany of things must be deployed to penetrate awareness and incite action. You won’t be able to track them all, but they ALL matter. So educate your stakeholders. Show this visual at every budget meeting. Remind them that the leads and sales they ultimately see are only the final step on a long and necessary runway.

And remember: you can’t find love on a spreadsheet. And getting folks to love your brand is priceless.

Rejection

The Stress Triggers

Social posts go unopened. Emails go unread. Ads get skipped. Media pitches get ignored. Shall I go on or is that depressing enough? We put our souls and creativity into our work and when it lacks response, the feeling of rejection is deflating. This is doubly true if you’re an agency marketer: you face rejection by your clients AND you face rejection by your marketing audience. Lovely. Why even get out of bed in the morning?

The Taming Method

Cultivate your resilience. Marketing feels SO personal to you, but to your audience, it’s just one more piece of noise vying for their attention. Their lack of response is not personal, and we all know that folks need to be told something around a dozen times before it starts to penetrate their awareness. And they may not even see 10 of those attempts because of clutter, algorithms, spam filters, and other obstacles.

So your job is to give them that repetition. The more you get up to bat, the more hits you get. Learn from your strike-outs. How could you swing differently next time? Or adjust your stance? The point is… change your perspective. It’s not rejection. It’s all just data collection and a foundation for opportunities to change what you do next. One of my favorite quotes about resilience comes from the Harvard Business Review:

Every bit of so-called rejection is an opportunity. Now you know what didn’t work. So get up to bat again and find something that WILL work. It’s just a necessary part of the process.

Tool Updates

The Stress Triggers

Major software or platform updates. New marketing channels your competitors are already crushing. System upgrades. New boss brings new methods to the mix. It is beyond stressful to keep pace with the evolution of marketing tools. Even marketers highly specialized in one particular field face this. SEO experts blow a gasket whenever Google does a surprise update that requires them to shift their strategy, pronto. Imagine what marketing generalists feel like in that circumstance? Stressed, overwhelmed, and frequently…frozen. These things don’t feel comfortable to us, and change is hard to embrace, especially at the pace it’s thrown our way in marketing. We often view such things as disruptors (and not in a good way) that are hijacking our valuable time away from being productive. Learning curves and unfamiliarity drag us down.

The Taming Method

If tool updates are putting a strain on your mental health, you need to recast your thinking on what marketing is all about in order to tame this trigger. Marketing IS evolution. By its very nature, it MUST evolve because methods get stale and people get desensitized. You want to break through all that clutter you know exists? You won’t do it by remaining stagnant and using the same old tools the same old way. Annoying? Possibly. Reality? Definitely.

Marketers must not only embrace change…they must seek it proactively. And this isn’t easy because humans like to stay in their comfort zones, where we feel safe and in control. In our marketing comfort zone, things are predictable: the time each task will take, the steps each process has, the results we can expect to see. But y’all…that might feel comfortable but it’s not successful. To be successful, you need to get yourself into the growth zone:

A diagram that shows the journey from the comfort zone to the growth zone, which is one way to tame stress triggers for better marketing mental health.

As you progress through the fear zone (hardest) to the learning zone (a little easier transition), that next step into the growth zone is where marketing THRIVES. That’s where new ideas are born, calculated risks are taken, and the rewards are higher. Find a way to make peace with journeying from your comfort zone to your growth zone and stop thinking of tool updates as disruptions. They are the lifeblood of marketing.

And if social media updates are your particular nemesis, here are four tips to conquer your frustration when social apps get an overhaul.

BTW, hat tip to whoever created that comfort zone diagram, which I screen-shotted months ago and stuck in a folder in my phone. It had no credit listing on it and I have no idea where I stumbled across it. See “Proof of ROI” section above…I rest my case, but I wish they had put their logo on it.

Never-Ending To-Do List

The Stress Triggers

Is this category not self-explanatory? You’re…never…done. The work generates itself and never stops. If you’re in PR, there’s always one more journalist to pitch or one more angle to try. If you’re in visual design, there’s always one more version you know you’ve got in you to create. And if you’re a department manager or a solo marketer, it’s even worse. You put it on the website, but then you have to tweet it, post it, email it, promote it, pay for clicks, share onsite, educate staff…and keep doing it. Do we have the right video? Was the photo arresting enough? Is the copy punchy enough? If it’s not getting attention, how can you spin it a different way so it sounds new? It’s exhausting.

And here’s what happens: burnout, 12-hour days, and really stressful Sunday nights as you look at the week ahead. Also: to-do lists that mock you, task management software that dings you so much it’s become white noise, and a persistent, oppressive feeling you could be doing more.

But who sets the boundary on where “more” ends?

The Taming Method

You do. YOU set the boundary on where “more” ends. Marketing is – while lives aren’t usually at stake – a lot like triage in an emergency room. Not everything is a heart attack requiring a triple bypass. And at some point, patients you’ve tended for a long time need to be released. New projects, tasks, and opportunities fly at you daily and you’ve got to make quick judgment calls on what gets attention now, what can wait until next week, and what doesn’t merit a single brain cell of thought.

Let me be crystal clear and super blunt: you will never do all the things that “could” be done. So you need to get super choosy about selecting things that “should” be done. This is about managing expectations, both for yourself and for your boss/stakeholders. And this is about TIME, the only non-renewable resource in marketing.

Marketers are often people-pleasers and over-achievers, and that makes us want to do it all. But that’s physically, emotionally, and mentally impossible. Yet, setting boundaries for ourselves – hours worked in a week, limits on campaign legs to pursue, tasks we agree to take on – is something that many marketers find incredibly difficult. So, if that’s you, here are a few resources to help you out:

Learn how to stop chronically overcommitting your time here.

Learn how to recast your time to spend it more productively here.

And learn how to embrace JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out – here.

Overall, there’s no denying that marketing can have a strong negative impact on your mental health unless you learn to tame the stress triggers. Awareness is key: what are YOUR stress triggers and how can you tame them? Of course, the four stress triggers explored above are just a few of the most common. Because if I listed them all, that would make this article way too long to read… and that would only stress you out more. 😉

Four character traits that foster good timing in marketing.

September 20, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Crisis Communications, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Effective Communication — @ 12:58 pm

One of marketing’s most critical tentpoles is timing, and there are four character traits people (and businesses) should possess that can help foster good timing in marketing. You should know which of the four are your strengths and weaknesses, and then understand how each is impacting your marketing success.

Why? Because in marketing, you should play to your strengths. And if you want to execute the kind of marketing campaigns that aren’t a good match for your weaknesses, you’re going to waste time and money…guaranteed.

Do a little soul searching about yourself and your company’s traits and behaviors to see where you stand on these four essential character traits:

1. The Decisiveness to Act Quickly

For some marketing concepts, especially those tied to a trend or current events, you need to act NOW. The power of social media only heightens this urgency. Your window for success may only be 24 hours, and even launching something just two days later will fall flat and yield you zero ROI.

A fabulous recent example of this comes from startup coffee company Cometeer. When investment bank Goldman Sachs announced it was ending the free cold brew perk previously offered in its NYC HQ, Cometeer had a free coffee table set up right outside of the bank’s building just 16 hours after the announcement was made. Here’s how they made it happen. Had they done it even just a week later, the news value would have been too low to make it worthy of notice. It HAD to be linked in time to the announcement that the cold brew perk was being discontinued.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? Steer clear of marketing concepts and campaigns that will be a complete failure without tight, precision timing. You may want to do them oh-so-badly, but you’ll just be frustrated that they didn’t work as well for you as they did for other companies you envy. Years ago, on the day American Airlines announced it would now charge a $25 fee for checked baggage (an industry first at the time), we put our client Loews Hotels in the media spotlight by announcing ON THE SAME DAY that Loews would give a $25 credit to all incoming guests who flew American and checked a bag. That Loews Baggage Buy Back Program was in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and more the moment we pitched it. Media wanted to share it in conjunction with news about the American Airlines fee. Had we pitched it a week later, the airline fee story would have been old news, and no one would have cared.

At the time, we had another hotel brand client who saw what we did for Loews and said, “we want an idea like that for us!” And it’s just not that simple. That was a client who took four weeks just to approve a simple weekend package press release. They would never be able to turn around such operational decisions across dozens of hotels (and approve the pitch copy) quickly enough to catch the news wave. So we’d be doing them a huge disservice and wasting their money if we forced them to try. A business that can’t make decisions quickly has more success with marketing concepts that have a nice long runway and lots of wiggle room for timing bottlenecks.

2. The Willpower to Wait

OK so maybe you’re awesome at making decisions and acting quickly, but sometimes good timing requires that you have the willpower to wait. Jumping the gun – before the facts are in, before the campaign is REALLY ready, before details are agreed – can not only tank your marketing ROI, but it can also cause you real harm. A few examples we’ve seen in our time as marketing and PR counselors:

A government official at a destination wouldn’t wait for talking points following a violent hate crime against a tourist. Instead, he insisted on speaking with the press immediately and gave his opinion on the situation without knowing the facts. Turns out, the facts belied his opinion in a BIG way, and the destination suffered immeasurably for it…not to mention the fact that they had to pay us a fortune in crisis management fees for damage control.
I can’t even count the number of times a hotel has pushed us (against our advice, I promise) to launch a package – through PR or an email blast or social post – BEFORE they’ve got all the details finalized on the website and BEFORE they’ve shared it with their reservation and front desk agents. They want to “get it out there and start selling,” but they don’t seem to get how much this harms them. When consumers want more information (or to book) and can’t make it happen, they get frustrated. So not only does the hotel NOT get the sale, now they’ve pissed people off.
I also recall a colleague being traumatized by the fact that she was “forced” to announce a huge brand partnership in the media and on social channels before the contract was finalized. The owners were trying to secure more hotel management deals and felt it would be a huge feather in their cap to have that cool partnership announced as they were engaging in other negotiations. When the partnership fell through before the deal even got signed, the harm to their image – and their business – was excessive under the circumstances. They earned an unwelcome gold medal in backpedaling, for sure.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? This one’s tough, because it’s psychological and personality driven. You need to be aware that it’s in your nature and admit to yourself that your impulsiveness can do your marketing great harm. In this case, you need to surround yourself with cool-headed sounding boards who can objectively rein you in when you’re about to go rogue. And then – sorry if this is super blunt, but I say it for your own good – you need the humility to listen to them.

3. The Resistance to Complicate Things

Lack of this resistance is definitely the most common weakness we see (when it comes to marketing), and often goes hand in hand with not being able to act decisively or quickly.

The more complicated you make something – too many goals for a single campaign, too many decision makers, too many layers in a concept – the harder it will be to nail successful timing. For some reason, it’s an incredibly common human trait to overcomplicate things. Part of it is time and resource poverty. Our resources are so precious that we try to force them to serve many masters at once.

But a HUGE part of it in the business world is the (often misguided) need to get multiple people involved in various projects and decisions. If I had a nickel for every time we were ready to launch a campaign for a client, and at the eleventh hour someone said “hey, let’s get Jeff’s opinion on this before we flip the switch.” Inevitably, Jeff has something to add that derails the timeline and – I’m sorry to say – is most often not helpful. But we made Jeff happy by looping him in so… Politics 1; Marketing Success 0.

There’s a principle called Brooks’ Law that was originally created to address communication challenges among software project teams. But it really applies to ANY type of team working and making decisions together, like a marketing team and its extended family (executives, operations, etc.). Visually, it shows lines of communication necessary for various team sizes, like this:

One of the four character traits that foster good timing in marketing, this diagram of Brooks' Law shows how larger teams require exponential lines of communication.

In associations, governments, and large companies, it’s not unusual to find a committee of 10 or more involved in projects and decisions. Do you see how complicated those visuals are? That’s an accurate reflection of the logistics required to get consensus. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that these types of organizations find it hard to achieve perfect timing…it’s just too darned complicated.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? There’s no easy fix for this one, other than to say steer clear of marketing concepts that require tight timing or “drop dead precision launch dates.” You may not be able to capitalize on current events or hot news topics, but you CAN give yourself a lengthy runway to get ducks in a row long before an important event will take place. See how we did this for the four provinces of Atlantic Canada, making a social media splash the moment the Canadian border opened during the pandemic.

4. The Discipline to Stay Abreast of the News

Marketing needs to sit well within the context of what’s going on in the world. Being oblivious to current events can have unfortunate timing consequences, from ill-timed insensitivities to launching a product/service you claim is “a first”…when it’s been done before.

A recent, cringeworthy example of this is when the television show Canada’s Drag Race tweeted “This crown is up for grabs” on the day Queen Elizabeth II died. Obviously, they meant the drag race crown, but ugh… the tweet was pummeled with criticism and had to be deleted. This is a helpful lesson that pre-scheduling social posts can be a useful tool, but unless you stay abreast of the news, it could backfire.

Redpoint nearly fell prey to this once with our popular tourism marketing newsletter Tickled Red. For the March 1, 2022 issue, the subject line was supposed to be “Bubblegum and Tombstones in Tourism.” Tombstones referred to the brilliant concept of Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard… but the issue’s timing was just after the war in Ukraine started and casualties were piling up. The newsletter draft was written before the war started, but we pulled that story (and the subject line) the day before it was scheduled to send. It was not the right time to be celebrating tombstones of any kind.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? If you’re not someone who immerses themselves in news every day, and you don’t have a marketing agency at your disposal to help stay abreast of news, here’s a quick fix for one-off marketing plans. Just before you’re about to launch something, hop on a social channel like Twitter or LinkedIn and see what news is trending. Also, do a search online for keywords related to your campaign or concept. A quick Google search will likely reveal anything glaring that may conflict with your plans. And then either make your changes accordingly…or have the willpower to wait (see #2 above).

If you’re scheduling social posts in advance, however, then it’s super risky for you to NOT stay abreast of the news. So if it’s not in your nature to keep up with current events, it’s best to just change your habits: either stop scheduling posts or start checking the news often.

Folks, the bottom line is…no one is perfect. You and/or your company may claim some of these character traits as weaknesses and there’s no shame in that. But you’ll have more success and achieve a greater ROI in marketing if you choose concepts that play to your strengths instead. It will make timing your friend and not your enemy. Reflect on these four character traits to see how well (or not) you foster good timing in marketing.

Want more tips on how to get the most out of marketing? Check out these 20 tips we assembled from our 20 years of experience as tourism marketing counselors.

Six cool examples of marketing.

September 19, 2022

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies, Effective Communication — @ 12:16 pm

At Redpoint, we geek out over marketing success and recently, we’ve discovered these six cool examples of marketing worthy of applause.

Utterly Unexpected Trade Show Booth

When we were kids, those claw machines at arcades and amusement parks were irresistible. But as adults? Imagine BEING the claw, and swooping into a giant tank to grab as many prizes as you can. Hats off to Squishmallows for this standout trade show booth at VidCon, where fans waited in line for four hours just for their 20-second turn in the Human Claw Machine.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this image shows a trade show booth filled with Squishmallow stuffed animal toys and a person hanging above them ready to grab as many as possible.

Seriously Clever Video Ads

It’s quite reasonable to assume that not EVERYONE will be interested in watching The History Channel’s documentary series about the Roman Colosseum. But their marketing folks have produced a series of video ads that give it wider appeal and the best possible chance of luring in non-history buffs. Meet Gaius Falco, head groundskeeper of the Colosseum (by way of New Jersey?), in these two ads.

Brilliant Branding Concept

OK, we can’t even breathe because this concept is so absurdly PERFECT. Follow me on this: Heavy metal band Metallica has a famous song called All Within My Hands. In 2017, the band created a nonprofit organization called All Within My Hands Foundation. And one of its signature programs is the Metallica Scholars Initiative. This initiative partners with the American Association of Community Colleges to support scholarships and fund programs for students to learn trades working with their hands, such as welding, electrical engineering, HVAC, construction, and more. The program supports 32 community colleges across 27 states. We’re talking millions of dollars in funding here. BRAVO, both for the initiative and the sheer branding brilliance.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this logo for the Metallica All Within My Hands Foundation shows a light blue hand with a keyhole and guitar neck.

Most Relatable Billboard (possibly of all time)

Score one for “good old fashioned” Timex, who managed – with just ten simple words and a photo – to instantly communicate how their product provides a solution to one of the most popular, gut-wrenching problems on the planet.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this Timex billboard shows a picture of a watch and the caption "check the time without seeing you have 1,269 unanswered emails."

Smart…but Creepy?…Product Launch

This product came out a few years ago, but we just stumbled across it recently. The Shelves of Life product is a bookshelf that can be repurposed into a coffin, so you can be buried in it when you die. Wait…what? Indeed, this is true and it can be purchased, and it comes with visual instructions and diagrams for making the shelf-to-coffin transformation. More about it here, and more about the designer, William Warren, here.

One of six cool marketing examples, this set of bookshelves can be transformed into a coffin when the owner dies.

Video Storytelling That Steals Your Heart

Bravissima, Barilla! This video tells a story about Izyan Ahmad (“Zizou”), a young tennis player who had a dream of playing against Roger Federer when he was 11 years old. Watch what happened five years later.

And in addition to these six cool examples of marketing, here’s one of our throwback faves. When the baker hired Simone, it started a seriously cool chain reaction.

Four tips to conquer your frustration when social apps get an overhaul.

July 28, 2022

Filed under: Marketing & Mental Health, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Social Media — @ 3:28 pm

When a social media app does a major overhaul of its format and features, frustration ensues. Most marketers go through six stages of emotional grief: anger, resentment, resistance, resignation, petulance, and… eventually… acceptance. This is ESPECIALLY true of DIY or “one man band” marketers, who are drowning in general marketing tasks and have little time to learn the new rules of the game in one particular specialty.

Instagram is on a path to emulate TikTok, and even though it’s been a rocky start, they are committed to getting there. Twitter is rolling out a “notes” feature, which lets you tweet long-form content. YouTube Shorts was launched in 2021 and yet many brands have been slow to tap its potential (even though the platform gets an average of 15 billion daily views).

For marketers, changes like that can be utterly exhausting. Sure, if you’re an Instagram marketer (for example), and that’s ALL you do… you’ll dive in immediately and figure out how to harness all the new opportunities. But if managing a brand’s Instagram account is only one of your 100 diverse responsibilities, a dramatic overhaul of the app is a roadblock that can tank your productivity and wring you out emotionally.

Resentment and resistance can only be indulged for so long before results start to suffer. So give yourself a brief period to pout and then figure out how to embrace the changes in a way that works best for you.

And if you’re NOT a social media specialist whose entire job is to immerse yourself in these apps, here are four tips to help you get past your frustration when social media apps do an (annoying) overhaul:

Divide & Conquer: There are two things contributing to your exhaustion. One is figuring out what the new features are and if they’ll benefit you, and two is learning how to use them. Both things take time, which is likely in short supply for you. So, don’t do it all at once…research first, worry about learning the skills later. The world won’t end if you don’t adopt the new features quickly. In fact, if social media is only a fraction of what you do, your presence isn’t likely to be that robust and so your audiences won’t be expecting cutting-edge marketing here from you anyway. Take your time. It’s ok.
Do Research: The best thing about the internet is that someone, somewhere will have written a helpful article within a day of the overhaul. You can find summaries of what’s changed, how to use the new features, and why they’re useful (or not). A Google search for things like “Instagram update” or “Twitter Notes feature” (or whatever) should bring you to the latest articles the day overhauls are announced. Wait a few days and “how to” articles are bound to follow. You can also check sites like Social Media Today and Search Engine Journal.
Create and Use a Test Account: Part of the emotional frustration you feel comes from worrying you’ll screw up and not use the new features correctly…and your audience will see it. This is where having a secret “test account” comes in handy. Setting up a second account on a channel that’s private, with only you and a few friends/colleagues as the audience, is an easy way to play with all the new features until you get comfy with them.
Watch and Learn: You may not have the bandwidth to do EVERYTHING a social media app allows you to do, but you can certainly cherry pick features that make sense for you. So, watch what other accounts do and try to recreate them in your test account. This means you may need to follow more than just your local or regional competitors, because if they’re in the same time-poverty boat as you, then you won’t learn much by watching their accounts. Follow BIG brands, that are bound to have expert social media teams using the latest cool stuff.

And above all, relax. I know it’s frustrating when overhauls like this disrupt your routine. Suddenly things you finally learned how to do efficiently are no longer efficient to do. It’s annoying as hell. But social media apps will continue to evolve constantly…it’s just the nature of that marketing medium. So if you’re going to have a presence on those channels, this is a necessary evil.

Just remember: It’s perfectly OK if your social media marketing isn’t robust because you’re spread too thin. As a marketer, you have to make choices…and as long as you’re choosing to be robust in OTHER areas that bring you a strong ROI, it’s fine for social media to get less attention. In fact, we flagged that as #17 in our list of Top 20 Tips for Tourism PR & Marketing Agency Clients. It’s worth a look.

Because really, at the end of the day, success in marketing is about how much time you can spend on it.

20 Tips for Tourism PR and Marketing Agency Clients

March 22, 2022

Filed under: Marketing & Mental Health, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Media Relations, Spending Budgets Wisely, Branding Strategies — @ 2:32 pm

a red colored lightbulb with illumination marks signifying 20 tips to help tourism PR and marketing clients get the most out of their agency.

We’ve been serving PR and marketing clients in the tourism industry for 20 years. Big global brands. Tiny obscure companies. Obscenely huge budgets. Shoestring budgets. Individuals with personalities that range from Type A to Zen. Doers. Procrastinators. Screamers. Huggers. Savvy marketers. Marketing agnostics. Marketing skeptics. No two clients are the same…and there have been thousands of them in our history.

So, we’ve learned a LOT about what it takes for a client to get the most out of both marketing and its agency. Here, drawn from our extensive experience, are 20 tips to help tourism clients succeed in public relations and marketing:

Changing marketing goals too frequently, or lacking them completely, can only achieve short term results for your efforts. Either be ok with that or make a solid plan and stick to it.
If you water down a BIG BOLD idea, adjust your expectations down from BIG BOLD results. All too often, circumstances cause a client to dilute an idea’s execution…but then expect the same powerful results associated with the original concept. That just ain’t how it works.
If you feel you have to micromanage your agency, they’re not the right match for you. Let ‘em go, even if it’s us.
Positivity works magic in PR. If you have faith it will produce…it will. If you don’t…it won’t.
It helps results tremendously if your entire organization is aware of your marketing plans. Devote resources to educating and engaging them, and you’ll see a greater ROI in marketing.
Make the time to collaborate with your agency. If you skip meetings, miss deadlines, and sit indefinitely on things awaiting approval, you’re only tapping around 50% of their potential.
If your boss doesn’t understand marketing, won’t leave, and remains skeptical about every campaign… dude, find a new job. We’ve seen it. It never ends well.
Tourists want visuals. Invest continually in photos and videos…every itinerary, every package, every story angle. Without them, you’re losing marketing opportunities…which means you’re losing money.
If you have “marketing envy” and always wish your organization could do things as cool as your competitors (or your agency’s other clients), learn what it takes operationally to execute such things. Then decide if your organization can make it happen. You may not be nimble enough, your pockets may not be deep enough, or the concepts may be the complete wrong match for your brand. If your organization is not equipped for it, stop being wistful. Invest your energy in what will work best for YOU.
It’s totally OK to put some marketing initiatives on a steady low flame temporarily (or even permanently) while you focus your resources elsewhere. Just make peace with it and don’t expect them to yield big results.
It is totally NOT OK to turn PR on and off completely. It’s the one marketing medium that doesn’t respond well to fits and starts. Either do it consistently (at any flame level) or just don’t do it.
Use tailored landing pages for your digital campaigns. Without them, you’re losing a ton of business. For some organizations, this is a no brainer. For others, it’s like pulling teeth. Every. Single. Time.
If your guest service and/or guest experience is inconsistent or subpar in any way, marketing will not help change that. In fact, the more guests we drive to your door, the more money you’re going to waste. The damage those guests will do through social media, review sites, and lack of referrals/return quietly sabotages the positive benefits that marketing brings. And a business can’t survive on new guests alone, who are more costly to acquire than referrals/repeats. Fix the foundation, and you’ll see marketing pay off in spades.
You can’t find love on a spreadsheet.
A website should be both beautiful and functional, but if you had to choose where to put more resources…choose functionality every time.
Forget what we said in #15 entirely. Stop thinking of “beauty” and “functionality” as two different things. Together they comprise “user experience,” and if your website doesn’t deliver equally in both areas, you’re losing money. Period.
Social media is more demanding than any other marketing medium. If you want to deeply succeed here, be prepared to staff it fully and keep up with the breakneck pace of ever-evolving rules, features, and channels. Doing set-and-forget style marketing only taps around 20% of social media’s potential. It’s fine if you choose to do it that way in the context of your overall marketing plan. Just expect your notable results to come from other sources.
If your risk tolerance is low, then PR is not for you. Often in PR, the greatest risks yield the highest rewards, but there are no guarantees. That’s what makes it so exciting!
There’s a reason creative, clever tourism packages and programs get a ton of press and social media love. Boring things just don’t command attention.
Consistent indecision will tank your marketing ROI more than making a definitive poor choice ever will. That sounds dramatic, but history generally proves it to be true.

And here’s a bonus item, since we kinda negated #15. Be candid with your agency at all times. Issues and concerns can be overcome easily with open communication. A good partner – as all agencies should be – will welcome the candor.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed the client experiences we’ve had, and every relationship has helped us grow. And it’s enabled us to help brands of all sizes achieve their marketing and business objectives. Big shout-out to all our clients for putting their trust in us, and here’s to the next 20 years!

PR is essential in tourism marketing.

February 28, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies — @ 10:38 am

PR is an essential part of the marketing mix for tourism. So says Redpoint, and you may think we’re biased because public relations is one of the marketing services we offer to the tourism industry. But the facts bear out our claim, and it’s largely due to two critical benefits of PR: reach and search.

Having been involved with tourism PR for 30 years – before the internet was even really “a thing” – I can attest that, like anything, it has always had its supporters and detractors. Supporters tout its ability to shape and even change a brand’s image, and its success at building awareness, sparking bookings, and mitigating crisis.

Detractors, however, are most often hungry for a more tangible and immediate ROI. Editorial coverage is never guaranteed, and even when it happens, the direct impact on sales isn’t always traceable. Someone could read a story about your destination or hotel in The New York Times this week, but not act on it until next year. So yeah, that story made an impression on them…but you may not be able to PROVE that story was the origin or even a contributing factor.

But while it’s true that investing in PR does require having a little faith in intangible results, social amplification and online promotion by news media reward that faith with some deeply tangible bite. And you can see the results in your own website stats.

This is all due to the glorious PR benefits of reach and search. Let’s take a look.

REACH

Let’s say you launch something and promote it on your own channels (email, socials, website, etc.). Your channels only reach so wide (for example’s sake, let’s say that’s an initial audience of 300,000), and your budget only goes so far to help amplify that story.

Then a high-profile media outlet writes about your story. And since that media outlet’s entire mission is to get visitors to its website (to attract/maintain advertising budgets with impressive web stats), it shares that story on all its social channels and in email newsletters to its subscribers. Their initial combined audience may be in the multiple millions, but at the very least is far likely to exceed yours and certainly extends beyond it. And if that story is picked up by dozens of media? The amplification grows exponentially.

One Specific Example: Last February, we helped the New England Inns & Resorts Association score a huge feature story in The Boston Globe. It promoted “Winter Beyond Skiing” and directed readers to a landing page with packages. The Boston Globe ran the story online, in print, through email, and on Facebook during the weekend of Feb 5-7. Here’s what the association’s website saw as a result.

Comparing 10 days before and after Feb 5:

Page views to the landing page were up 226%.
Direct traffic to the landing page had a 488% increase in users.
The hotel with the lead offer in the story saw a 1,000% increase in users visiting its offer on the association’s website.
Overall traffic to the site saw new users up 14% and sessions up 13%.

That landing page had already existed for a month prior to that weekend. The Boston Globe story just turned a powerful spotlight on it, helping extend its reach to both a broader and relevant audience.

Hot Tip Takeaway: If you want to better track the impact PR is having on your overall marketing success, make use of landing pages for story angles where possible and always check your web stats for spikes after key stories run. Not only does it underscore some of PR’s immediate and tangible results, it also could reveal useful potential media candidates for spending ad dollars wisely. If it’s clear a media outlet’s audience finds you relevant, then consider dropping your paid ad line in that pond, where the fish like your bait.

SEARCH

In many cases, media outlets and relevant blogs are likely to have far greater success with search results than your individual business will. This is due the way search engines like Google rank a site’s authority, which is born of everything from how frequently searches find satisfaction in their site’s search result to volume of overall users.

Search engines are notoriously secretive on their ranking cocktail ingredients. But suffice it to say, for many types of searches, it’s far more likely that – say – a story that includes you in Travel + Leisure will appear higher in search results than your own website’s blog post. And even if your own website ranks highly in search results for that subject, wouldn’t it be awesome if you were also mentioned in most of the items on the first three pages of search results? In that way, a slew of different search results on the same topic will lead to YOU.

And with consistent, widespread PR outreach…they can. Case in point: There are plenty of hotels and regional destinations in Canada that offer cool vacations for families. Yet, with a search done for “cool vacations for families in Canada,” none of them turn up on the first three pages of organic search results. But look at what DOES turn up:

Parenting travel blogs, media outlets, the blogs of booking sites…they’re ranking higher in search than specific hotels or destinations, even if those places have a blog post on their websites about how awesome they are for families.

Hot Tip Takeaway: It’s only natural to crave the BIG feature stories in PR, but don’t look down your nose at small mentions, especially in round-up articles like the ones featured in the above search results pages. Editorial stories in media outlets that highlight “the best of this” or “the coolest that” do exceedingly well in search results and could lead a ton of highly relevant visitors to your website.

The bottom line is that, with online and social amplification lending its power to the equation, PR is more essential than ever in tourism marketing. If you’re not doing it, or doing it inconsistently, you should definitely consider exploring how it can help grow your business. Because even if you’re not…your competitors are.

Not sure where to start? Check out our experience and give us a shout. No strings…we’ll just talk you through it.

The secret to a great tourism photo.

October 26, 2021

Filed under: Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Observations From the Field, Media Relations, Social Media, Spending Budgets Wisely, Branding Strategies — @ 11:59 am

Tourism is a highly visual industry. Photos are a key tool used to tell tourism stories, but there’s a secret behind the great ones that make the biggest impact. Someone took the time (and often, money) to get it right.

More dramatically put: someone resisted the temptation to use photos that were easy to get but kind of “meh” in terms of quality. “Meh” photos serve the functional purpose of photography, but they are completely uninspiring and make no impactful impression on the viewer. So, yeah…you have photos to put on your website. Check that box. But are they seducing site visitors into considering a trip? That box stays unchecked.

Fear not, there are a whole bunch of “great” and “meh” photo examples down below. But first…

Sucky (and Silent) Consequences of Using “Meh” Photography

When tourism businesses choose to settle for “meh” photography, it causes much heartbreak. Throughout my career as a tourism publicist and marketer, I’ve seen:

A hotel client who lost a highly-desired Architectural Digest story about their opening launch because their photography wasn’t good enough. (AD wasn’t being snooty…their photography was NOT good enough.)
Another hotel client whose online booking conversion rate absolutely sucked…and a website audit revealed that people were leaving the site after looking at the photo gallery. (Tragic, as a photo gallery should inspire people to hit the “book now” button.)
A destination client who was included in a syndicated news editorial round-up…and the only one of the eight destinations included without a photo accompanying their blurb because their photo wasn’t “quite right.” (Seven destinations with glorious vibrant photos and only one with just text… which one do you think got overlooked by readers?)

But those are examples where the consequences were traceable and known. Far more dangerous are the silent consequences of “meh” photography. No one ever leaves your website unimpressed and without booking…and then calls you up to say, “hey, I was considering a stay at your hotel, but just wanted to let you know that the photos didn’t really sell me on the place so I just left the website without booking.”

So, the bottom line is…you don’t even know how many sales you’re NOT making because your photos are just “meh.”

But trust me. If they’re “meh,” it’s happening.

Why Is This So Hard?

Why do so many tourism businesses settle for less-than-great photos to use in marketing? Three common reasons.

They feel it takes too much time and they don’t have the bandwidth to organize/oversee it.
They don’t want to spend the money for a photographer and/or stylist.
They don’t understand the difference in impact between a “good enough” photo and a “great” photo.

It’s a real head-scratcher to me, but I’ve seen clients spend $20-$30 million building a gorgeous hotel, and then fight with me about spending $20,000 on photography for the website, brochures, and socials.

In other scenarios, I get the… “My sister-in-law takes great photos as a hobby – you should see her Instagram. So I’m just going to have her do all our photography.”

Or the… “I don’t have photos of THAT specific program even though that’s what we’re promoting, so can we just use a general photo instead?”

Or the… “These brochures are really old and our hotel rooms don’t look like that anymore, but that’s all we have so just use those at the trade show.”

To spend all that money building your business and brand, and then NOT spend the money on a professional photographer to produce photos that help you sell it? That’s fumbling at the goal line. And it’s sabotaging the ROI of all the money you spent on building the business itself.

What Should a Great Photo Do?

A great photo is like an assist in sports: it should assist you to close a sale. That assist might come in the form of (for example)…

An Instagram photo that stops thumbs while someone is scrolling and makes them want to explore your entire Instagram profile…and ultimately your website.
Photos on your website that evoke emotion, inspire a desire to visit, make them want to check pricing and logistics for a trip.
Photos in a magazine that arrest people’s attention as they’re flipping through the pages and make them want to read the accompanying editorial story…which hopefully makes them want to visit your website.

Here’s a great case-in-point. Years ago, I was in Armenia with a photographer getting shots of a collection of new boutique hotels launching that year. We had no staff with us (literally no staff – the hotels weren’t even open yet) and no stylist. It was just her and me trudging around the countryside with tons of photography equipment. And FYI – while I’m eager and helpful, I know zip all about being a photographer’s assistant.

Here’s what one of the hotels looked like, with a simple “point and shoot” approach.

It DOES look like a historic castle, and you DO see it’s right next to a rushing river and nestled in the mountains. So, it definitely gives a sense of place and is “ok.”

Here’s what it looked like when the photographer got done with it.

Listen, folks. This was NOT a simple point and shoot. We had no cell service and no radios to communicate with each from opposite sides of the river, and crossing that river was no picnic either. Her trying to signal to me which lights to turn on or off, which umbrellas to move slightly left or right, and could I tilt that ONE light on the side to angle more toward the patio? No, not THAT one. THAT one.

Getting this shot took HOURS. Actually days, because we had weather issues intervene.

But look at those two photos. Which one stops your thumbs while scrolling and which one makes you say “OMG that place looks breathtaking and I want to go there?”

Great photographers do more than just click a button on a camera. They harness the power of lighting, tone, context, perspective, props, spatial relations, and emotion. In this case, the photographer studied the situation and said, “what photo…what angle…what perspective…what styling is going to show this building in the best, most seductive, most appealing way?” And after taking a lot of test shots from various positions at various times of day, this nighttime photo won the honor. (Should I mention how many design and travel magazines made this photo their centerfold?)

I mean…if your sister-in-law can do all that, then by all means lets hire her.

What’s My Point?

Getting great photography isn’t easy. It takes time, planning, and commitment. You may need to invest in props and other items to achieve the objective… flowers, food, drinks, people, and more. You may need to reschedule (and spend money on a wasted day) because of weather. If you’re already open, you may need to clear entire public spaces for several hours or a day – losing revenue from paying guests who don’t have access during that time. You may need to take a shot over and over and over and over again to get it just right. And damn it, you definitely need a professional photographer and/or stylist to do it justice.

Yes, all that costs time and money. But the difference between “meh” photos and “great” photos is entirely about MAKING MONEY. Skimp elsewhere if you must. But do not skimp on great photography.

To further illustrate the difference, here are a few examples of photos I’ve come across in my tourism work. Some of these businesses know the secret to a great tourism photo, and some clearly don’t understand what makes an impact.

By the way, there are deliberately no business names here. This isn’t a commentary on who’s doing it right and who’s doing it wrong. It’s an objective look at how photos do or don’t make a worthy impact.

Everything about this charcuterie board screams “dig in.” Lighting, color, texture, positioning. This delicious photo was no happy accident.

This cocktail gets completely lost in this photo. It’s a gorgeous color, but sitting on that similar colored surface, the vibrancy doesn’t pop as it should. Plus the background is super distracting. If you’re a DIY Instagrammer for your business, and just taking quick snaps like this “on the fly” for posting, at least do this: take that glass and snap pics of it in in a few different settings, and from several angles – high, low, above, side, etc. If you take a dozen photos of this cocktail – which can be done in just a few moments – you’ll immediately be able to spot the one that shows the cocktail off to its best advantage.

Let’s talk about dramatic architectural features, such as floating pools. We once had a client that was debuting a floating pool and they fought us like the very devil about getting overhead drone shots of it. They didn’t have easy access to a drone and didn’t want to pay for it. But honestly, a straight-ahead shot of a floating pool just sucks all the drama out of that super-cool architectural feature.

To illustrate, here’s a picture at another hotel of their floating pool taken from different angles. You can see how one showcases the floating pool and in the other, it gets lost.

And these folks REALLY did their floating pool villas justice, ensuring their website gallery shows them from multiple angles and various times of day:

Food shots need special attention because visuals aren’t necessarily the main sensory trigger for humans when it comes to food. Taste, sound (sizzling, pouring, sauteing, etc.), scent, and texture all play a role in our emotional connection to food. And that’s hard to communicate in a flat photo.

Here, capturing sugar in mid-shake on this cannoli gives more energy, life, and interest to the photo than just a static pic of a cannoli.

But these pancakes are nearly unidentifiable in this photo. In the quest for a close-up to show the dripping, oozing goodness, perspective gets lost here. If you’re scrolling quickly, you can’t even tell what it is, and that super-crisp piece of bacon on the side doesn’t help… it almost looks like the pancakes are sitting on a wood shelf. Perhaps backing up the camera to show the whole plate, and catching the moment when the chocolate syrup is being poured onto the pancakes might achieve the objective better. But – you know what I’m going to say – try it a dozen different ways before deciding which one makes the right impact.

Oh, you’re taking pictures of animals? NEVER just snap one-and-done. You take tons of photos from multiple angles in order to get one that will stop people in their tracks. Like this:

And finally, these folks are rebuilding a really important and historic wall. But this photo will stop no thumbs. I’m sure the dude on the right won’t be pleased that his behind is on Instagram, and everyone milling around looking down at rocks doesn’t do the story justice. A close-up of a volunteer holding up a piece of rock with a huge smile on his/her face… or better yet, faux-kissing it?… could better tell the story of the passionate volunteers involved. Or have him/her sitting on the wall and get enough context in the shot to see “kissing the rock” and the wall itself. Or… hey, I’ve got an idea… take a dozen different shots and see what works best. 😊

So, in conclusion, please do what it takes to get great tourism photos. There’s really no secret to capturing ones that make an impact… just spend the time and/or money to do it right.

And let me just clarify: by “great,” I mean photos that achieve your objective of inspiring people to emotion and action. “Great” is one of those vague words that always need clarification and shame on me for using it so liberally in this post. See why you should be careful using that word here.

How to Develop Creative Tourism Marketing & PR Ideas

October 25, 2021

Filed under: Marketing Strategies — @ 10:34 am

The tourism industry is a hotbed of juicy, creative marketing and PR ideas. Who develops them? Opportunists.

Opportunists are a breed of “idea people” that draws inspiration from anything and everything around them. And, of the four breeds of idea people we cover here, these are the folks you need in your orbit for creative marketing and PR. You don’t need to have ALL opportunists on your team, but if you don’t have at least one in your mix, you’re going to struggle in marketing.

Can folks who are NOT opportunists develop creative tourism marketing and PR ideas? Sure. But likely not in a steady way that makes ongoing marketing reliable and brand image consistent.

FOUR BREEDS OF IDEA PEOPLE

In my long experience in tourism marketing – working with clients from all walks of life, at organizations large and small – here are the four breeds of idea people I’ve come across:

Opportunists: Show them anything and they’ll springboard it right into a relevant idea for your business. They’re the people who say “what could we do with this?” a dozen times a day. If obstacles arise as the idea takes shape in their mind, they work around them. If the obstacles become insurmountable, they just take the idea in a different direction. Creative idea generation is like breathing to them. These folks are the lifeblood of creativity in marketing.

Stiflers: They’re not opposed to ideas, but they just can’t give them room for success. They layer on that one more thing. Try to get each idea to achieve too many disparate goals. Add unnecessary complexity. They won’t let ideas get off the ground until they’ve been so overthought and wrung dry that ideas ultimately fall flat when launched. If you’ve got stiflers on your team, checks and balances are needed to be sure they don’t smother every good idea to its slow death.

Slammers: These folks basically shoot down all ideas. This could be driven by fear of risk or change, love of veto power, or just a tendency toward negativity that only sees the downside. And really? Some people just like being contrary for contrary’s sake. Extreme Slammers can’t be reasoned with; every rationale you offer will face an objection. If you’ve got slammers in a position of power over marketing, be prepared. Your marketing ROI will always be super low. Best to move them where they can’t prevent good ideas from seeing daylight.

Obliviouists: Yeah, I made this term up, but hey…I’m a marketer. Obliviouists (oh-bliv-ee-ists) are actually the most dangerous of the idea person breeds. They don’t deliberately generate ideas, but nor do they actively hinder them. They just don’t see opportunities at all. They read stuff, watch TV, surf socials, interact with folks…and none of it ever inspires ideas. These people may have plenty of other talents so it’s not dangerous to keep them around. But it IS dangerous to rely on them for creative marketing and PR ideas. They’re just not wired that way.

So, the best way to ensure your marketing is fresh, creative, and interesting is to ensure there are opportunists on your team. Whether in-house or at an agency, these folks don’t need to be assigned ideation. Just stand back and let them create.

How do they do it? Listen, I’m no neuroscientist. All I can say is: they just do. They watch, listen, read…and poof. An idea is born. Ask any opportunist how they came up with an idea and I guarantee they’ll say something like “I saw this and thought of that.” There’s no way to explain it. If you could, then I suppose anyone could be an opportunist. “Just follow these 10 handy steps and you too could have big creative ideas.” It just doesn’t work like that.

To illustrate that point, here are a bunch of marketing ideas seen out in the wild lately that definitely originated with opportunists:

Blue ice cream carton with pink band, showing Geico's new Scoop, There It Is ice cream with hip hop duo Tag Team and Mikey Likes It Ice Cream.

Geico made a hilarious TV commercial featuring the hip hop duo Tag Team, which transformed their 1993 hit song “Whoomp! (There It Is!)” into a song about an ice cream sundae (Scoop! There It Is!). The commercial was so insanely popular that some clever opportunist said: hey, why don’t we actually make and sell that ice cream flavor? And thus, the partnership between Geico, Tag Team, and Mikey Likes It Ice Cream was born.

Partial painting of woman showing head and bare shoulder, an example of a creative tourism marketing and PR idea from the Vienna Tourist Board.

The Vienna Tourist Board recently launched an OnlyFans channel… you know, that social media platform that allows posts with sexually explicit content to be shown to subscribers for a fee. Why does Vienna need such a channel? Because the destination has tons of beautiful art that depicts nudity in its museums. Photos of such pieces get struck from mainstream social media platforms due to censored content regulations, so some clever opportunist said: hey, how about we make world news by being the first tourist board to launch an OnlyFans channel as a way to showcase our city’s art?

Pic of front and back of business card from Relief, the debt app, who uses the premise of Squid Games to promote their service.

Relief, the debt relief app, absolutely CRUSHED it with this idea, inspired by the blockbuster Netflix series Squid Games. If you don’t know the show’s plot, people in significant debt are brought together to play children’s games in the hopes of winning a huge prize…but losers die violent, graphic deaths. Their invitation to the games comes in the form of a business card with three simple geometric shapes on it, and a number on the back to call that lures them in. Relief put their own message on the back of its card, and the opportunist who thought of it should be given a standing ovation.

Four golden retriever puppies playing at the Ojo Santa Fe Spa Resort in the Puppy Patch, as an example of a creative tourism marketing and PR idea.

Plenty of hotels have a dog “on staff” that guests can walk. Many hotels also have partnerships with rescue organizations to have an adoptable dog onsite for guests to walk, and maybe take home. Some clever opportunist affiliated with the Ojo Santa Fe Spa Resort said: hey, why do this with just one dog when we can make a newsworthy amenity/program out of it? Behold, the Puppy Patch. Thank you, whoever you are. I will be petting those puppies at some point in the future.

So, the bottom line is…get some opportunists in your life if you aren’t one and don’t have access to any. Your creative tourism marketing and PR ideas will improve greatly because of it!

Shameless plug: Redpoint is full of ‘em. Mount Rushmore carved into a six-foot block of cheddar cheese to celebrate President’s Day for Ripley’s Believe It or Not Times Square? It generated the highest-ever holiday weekend sales and visitor count for the attraction. That’s some delicious opportunism right there, y’all.