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What Defines Your Brand?

If you find developing the new media marketing strategy for your company frustrating and difficult, you aren’t alone! Many times, the information at your disposal is imperfect and not fully complete. This is where defining your brand, and whether or not your brand promise is actually appropriate for your company become very important.

First, of course, you need to think about what a brand really is. You need to think about not only the company focused perspective of the brand (the things that are trademarked and can be legally protected), but also the more important side, the customer focused perspective.

In today’s market, your brand is in essence a collection of meanings based on how the consumer perceives your brand. It is a collection of the consumer’s associations of everything from overall quality level of the stay experience and service to the kinds of amenities offered in the hotel bathroom to their takeaway experience after a stay, to the other kind of customers typically associated with that brand. These associations form a more complete picture of what that brand experience would be.

It’s the brand strategists’ job to try to then communicate those meanings through various marketing channels so that the potential customers understand exactly what brand experience they can expect. The basis of that is the brand promise: the articulation of what that experiential take away for the brand will be.

 

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Communicating in Circles: Why This is Good for You

Within the last ten to fifteen years, new media channels have exploded into the daily lives of the hospitality consumer. There are now dozens upon dozens of new ways in which we can communicate with our customers, not just market to them.

It’s no longer that you as the hospitality marketer come up with a brand, come up with a way in which to symbolize or communicate that brand, choose media channels, and send that message out to our target customers. That’s a very linear approach, or presentation-based marketing communications. With new media, in particular social media, the nature of that communication has really evolved, and it’s now something where the consumer has much greater control over that message and of the brand itself. We call this consumer-generated influence or consumer-generated media.

In other words, marketing communications now is much more circular. You have to think not only about how you can influence the consumers’ perceptions of your brand, but also how they’ll influence others by interacting with your brand in their own social channels. Will they tag their location while on your property? Will they mention what a great time, what a beautiful lobby, what great food, etc. while they are there? Upload photos of your property to their friends? This is where the opportunity for dialogue between the brand and your customers comes alive.

Responding to Twitter, Facebook, TripAdvisor posts and the like gives you an opportunity to directly communicate your brand to your customers as well as learn more about how they perceive your brand and what they expect from it.

 

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Is New Media Even Relevant to the Hospitality Industry?

New media in hospitality marketing is not evolutionary; it’s revolutionary. And its growth hasn’t been linear; it’s been exponential.

In the year 2000, less than 5% of hotel room revenue was booked online in the United States. By 2015, that number will balloon to over 35%, more if you include bookings by business travellers using mobile devices or their own PCs and even event attendees using software provided by the event organizers or the venues themselves.

In addition, Google became a publicly traded company in 2004 and today it represents more than 90% of search activities by users. Then in 2010, Facebook actually overtook Google in the number of weekly U.S. visitors. And finally, I’ll bet you have a mobile device in your pocket or on your desk right now, and a tablet in your possession or at least on your wish list.

New media (social, mobile, and search) is everywhere. It’s in the pockets, purses, desks, and living rooms of your potential consumers, helping them make decisions about their next purchase.

By leveraging these new connections to the target market, you are offering potential consumers the opportunity to engage with your brand in a more complete way than was previously available.  You are allowing customers to essentially “try” your product or property before even buying. For example: hotel web sites have evolved from kind of of the Web 1.0 version of online brochures to much more interactive sites where visitors can take virtual tours to explore property, they can play games, they can engage in virtual activities such as taking the participant’s view as they go down a water slide, or even watch short movies. Because there are so many new ways to connect with customers, creativity and uniqueness can be strong tools to set you apart from your competition.

New media is indeed relevant to the hospitality marketing industry. It is how you are going to project, promote, and protect your brand. And it is how you are going to capture more than your fair share of the desired target market.

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Brand Consistency Across Social Media Is No Easy Task

eCornell recently launched a free online course focused on training hospitality professionals in the new media marketing skills needed for professional success. In Marketing the Hospitality Brand through New Media: Social, Mobile & Search, one of the key topics we talk about is managing a brand in today’s marketing environment.

Communicating the company brand across channels has always been a challenge, even before new media came onto the scene. Now it takes even more of a disciplined, concerted effort to create “one voice” for the brand. No matter the medium or venue, you want the consumer to take away a clear understanding of what experience they’re going to have with your brand.

As a hospitality marketer, you also want to make sure not to create marketing “silos” or messages that are so distinct that they are disconnected from all others. To do so would be to create confusion in the eyes of the consumer about what your brand means and what it stands for.

Add to that equation that an increased number of media channels are outside of the marketer’s control (for example, online travel agencies and review sites). It was hard enough managing the brand voice across traditional channels that were essentially marketer-driven, but now with consumer-generated media, the consumer very much influences the brand.

That doesn’t mean that that influence can’t be managed or shouldn’t be managed. This means across the company’s Facebook presence, for example, or in responding to TripAdvisor posts, or in Twitter feeds or whatever other social media or mobile media channels are used, that brand voice still has to be consistent.

Adding to the complexity is that social media strategists within the organization may not be working inside the silo that is the brand management team. The way in which they would communicate with customers through social media still has to convey the brand. It still has to use the same kind of language and symbolism.

In short, this makes the management of that communications task all the more complex but also all the more necessary, since this is a two-way dialogue between the brand and the customer.

 

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Starwood Hotels & Resorts and eCornell Sign a Two-Year Partnership

Global hotel group continues long standing relationship to offer online learning with eCornell

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. has entered into a two-year agreement to continue its partnership with eCornell to deliver online courses in hospitality management, leadership, strategic management, supervisory skills and human resource management to its worldwide employees.

eCornell offers Starwood access to courses developed by Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration that align closely with their talent-management approach.  Offering these and other courses helps Starwood achieve its learning goals on a global scale at both the property and corporate levels.

eCornell’s unique approach to elearning combines the most effective elements of a world-class, Ivy League classroom with the flexibility of an online learning environment. eCornell courses—self-paced and 100 percent online—are “instructor-facilitated” to help guide a cohort of 20 to 30 participants through challenging, real-world exercises with practical on-the-job application. Classes enable learners to be immersed in learning that also fosters collaboration, interaction, and networking.

“Starwood continues to be a great partner of eCornell, and we’re approaching almost 10 years of success together,” said Tom Abogabal, vice president of global sales at eCornell.  “We are thrilled to continue our partnership to be able to help Starwood reach thousands of employees across its worldwide portfolio of owned, managed, and franchised properties, and to help develop all levels of employees including individual contributors, supervisors, managers, GMs, and senior leaders.

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About eCornell

eCornell, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cornell University, provides many of the world’s leading organizations with online professional and executive development in the areas of leadership and management, human resources, financial management, healthcare, marketing, and hospitality management. eCornell’s proven course development model and asynchronous instructor-led course delivery provide for engaging, rigorous, and interactive learning. The company has delivered online courses to more than 50,000 students in over 200 countries. For more information visit ecornell.cornell.edu/enterprise (enterprise buyers) or ecornell.cornell.edu (small groups and individual students).

 

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world, with 1,128 properties in nearly 100 countries and 171,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels, resorts, and residences with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, Aloft®, and ElementSM. The company boasts one of the industry’s leading loyalty programs, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), allowing members to earn and redeem points for room stays, room upgrades, and flights, with no blackout dates. Starwood also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., a premier provider of world-class vacation experiences through villa-style resorts and privileged access to Starwood brands. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

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InterContinental Hotels Group Starts Year Two of Its Partnership with eCornell

Global hotel brand offers hospitality-specific online learning

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), one of the worlds largest hotel companies, has started year two of its partnership with eCornell.

Offering courses in hospitality management developed by Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, eCornell has helped IHG successfully cultivate its global audience to become leaders in their industry. With more than 4,000 properties throughout the world, it is important that IHG offer a learning solution that is consistent and accessible for all its employees.

One of the many attractive aspects of eCornell is that it offers employees hospitality courses and also a wide range of business and leadership courses on topics ranging from management to finance to change management. The flexible schedule and ease of access is important for the IHG audience, because their schedules fluctuate and they can be in remote locations.  eCornell’s Ivy League-caliber courses continue to be recognized as valuable to IHG’s learning and development strategy, and have been since 2004.

eCornell’s unique approach to elearning combines the most effective elements of a world-class, Ivy League classroom with the flexibility of an online learning environment. eCornell courses—self-paced and 100 percent online—are “instructor-facilitated” to help guide a cohort of 20 to 30 participants through challenging, real-world exercises with practical on-the-job application. Classes enable learners to be immersed in learning that also fosters collaboration, interaction, and networking.

“IHG has been a great partner of eCornell,” said Tom Abogabal, vice president of global sales for eCornell.  “Their global audience takes advantage of the collaborative nature of our courses.  We are happy to help make the world flat for IHG’s talent across seven continents.  eCornell allows them to connect with each other and learn with and from peers across all industries, all while developing their skills they can apply wherever they are in IHG’s operations.”

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About eCornell

eCornell, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cornell University, provides many of the world’s leading organizations with online professional and executive development in the areas of leadership and management, human resources, financial management, healthcare, marketing, and hospitality management. eCornell’s proven course development model and asynchronous instructor-led course delivery provide for engaging, rigorous, and interactive learning. The company has delivered online courses to more than 50,000 students in over 200 countries. For more information visit ecornell.cornell.edu/enterprise (enterprise buyers) or www.ecornell.com (small groups and individual students).

 

About InterContinental Hotels Group

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is a global organization with nine hotel brands, including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo®, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites®, Candlewood Suites®, EVEN™ Hotels, and HUALUXE™ Hotels & Resorts. IHG also manages Priority Club® Rewards, the world’s first and largest hotel loyalty program with over 69 million members worldwide.

IHG franchises, leases, manages, or owns over 4,500 hotels and more than 672,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories. With more than 1,000 hotels in its development pipeline, IHG expects to recruit around 90,000 people into additional roles across its estate over the next few years.

InterContinental Hotels Group, PLC, is the group’s holding company and is incorporated in Great Britain and registered in England and Wales.

Visit www.ihg.com for hotel information and reservations and www.priorityclub.com for more on Priority Club Rewards. For our latest news, visit www.ihg.com/media, www.twitter.com/ihg, www.facebook.com/ihg or www.youtube.com/ihgplc.

 

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The Whys for Buys: Getting the Information You Need

Demographic information from convention and visitors bureaus, third-parties, or even your own central reservation system is easily accessible, but doesn’t give you a good picture of the nuances of your complex target market. Demographics won’t tell you the “whys for buys,” or why a consumer would be motivated to choose one brand over another.

Psychographics, or lifestyle information, and behavioral information, however, give you a much closer look at purchasing behaviors and also usage occasions (when consumers choose to purchase a product). Lifestyle is our pattern of living and it’s usually measured in marketing studies by AIO variables, or Activities, Interests, and Opinions. If enough members of your target market have similar activities, interests, and opinions, you can create a lifestyle profile that will give you a much more complete understanding of who that customer is, and more importantly, the things that would attract them to the property over a competitor’s.

Behavioral segmentation also helps. That would be the “why” someone chooses your property for usage occasions. Is it for weddings, conferences, romantic weekend getaways? In addition to telling us more about the customer, it also gives us information about the kinds of products, services, and design features they expect. It also helps us figure out better ways in which we can communicate with them so that it will resonate with them and hopefully drive their demand.

Now how can you get this kind of information? Well, one way to do it is hire a market research firm to do a lifestyle profile or a psychographic study, but of course this costs money, and it takes time. There happens to be, though, very rich information that’s readily available today for free, and that’s through social media.

Customers who are traveling to a destination often will have very detailed online conversations about what they seek and the kinds of activities they enjoy before they even make a decision on where to stay. If you’re able to pull down this information, aggregate it, and analyze it, you can come up with a psychographic profile of the potential target market. The challenge is figuring out what from that social media conversation is most relevant.

 

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Social Media, OTAs and New Distribution Channels

Potentially the best way to strategically assess new channels is to first ask, “Do they offer benefit to both suppliers and consumers?” While suppliers often speak negatively about OTAs, the value proposition is clear on both sides as they provide a great shopping experience to consumers and considerable reach and revenue to suppliers. While some newer channels should be analyzed at really a property level for their true incrementality, the burden really lies at that compset level – will a hotel lose market share if they don’t participate with a certain provider when their direct competitor is?

Also, when analyzing your hotel and your competitive set through the lens of social media lens, recognize that there may be a direct impact to your top line revenues if there is clear distinction between properties in the eyes of potential customers. So when considering a new channel, a good first step is to evaluate the opportunities from both parties and if the channel fails to deliver to both key parties, it may not be around for the long haul.

This is the summary from a paper I co-wrote with Jay Hubbs, Vice President, Regional Sales, ReviewPro entitled The Ever Evolving Distribution Landscape – A Focus on Emerging Channels:

Read the full article here.

 

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How Tech and Social Media Now Drive the Travel/Hotel Industry

I was in NYC last week, along with Hotel Administration Dean Michael Johnson, to present my new research on how travel review web sites and hotel-industry elasticity are forming a tidal wave of change in 2013.

We were at the Westin New York at Times Square in Manhattan, as part of the Inside Cornell series, a monthly series featuring researchers and experts working at Cornell University’s centers in Ithaca, Manhattan and around the world. Click here to view the video.

 

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The Billboard Effect

In this interview with VTV, I discuss the results of a research study called “The Billboard Effect”, conducted in partnership with JHM Hotels and Expedia. In the study, four properties were cycled on and off Expedia over a period of three months.

Our findings:

– Hotel placement on Expedia results in a 20% increase in bookings on other channels
– Reservations made on other channels (call center, brand.com, other sites) offset reservations made on OTAs
– Rates attained while being listed on Expedia were about 2-3% higher

The bottom line: Hoteliers need to think of OTAs as marketing vehicles versus reservation engines.