I rather like British Airway’s ‘To Fly, To Serve’ campaign. As a marketer it appeals to me on several levels.
 
Firstly, it’s focusing on what is perceived as a core brand strength – service, delivered in a distincly British way. As BA’s MD of Brands and Customer Service, Frank Van Der Post, put it:
 
‘BA is a very strong brand. We do not need to reinvent ourselves as something else. What we need to do is to tell the story a little louder.’
 
Secondly, they’re backing words with actions – £5bn of investment in …

I was talking with an internet consultant contact of mine the other day – chatting about how he helps businesses with their online client acquisition strategies. In the midst of our conversation he said something very interesting – something that resonated with my own experience:
 
‘Before I even get into the online strategy I spend a lot of time working with clients identifying what they actually sell. You’ll be surprised how many don’t know…’
 
Now clearly you’ll be assuming that this guy must work entirely with morons. How on earth can they …

I like to think of good marketing as ‘the mortar between the bricks’ of a strong organisation. Good marketers should bind everything together, making sure the customer experience is solid and consistent with the brand’s values from beginning to end.  That’s the only way to build an organisation which realises its potential.
 
The problem is, too many of us build a separate tower away from the rest of the organisation and only very rarely open the gates up to let anyone else inside.  You might think it’s only your responsibility to …

People are always telling me that marketing is ‘common sense’ – usually those not in the profession or those that have made a made a move from another role.
 
Frankly, this particular observation drives me round the twist.  It’s like telling a doctor all those years of study and practice were a waste of time as you can just look up your ailment on the internet.  Quite apart from that it’s clearly wrong.  We’re surrounding by thousands of examples of ‘common sense’ marketing and do we pay a jot of notice …

When segmenting your audience and positioning your brand in travel and tourism marketing, psychographics is key and in particular how values and personality manifest themselves in ‘preferred level of cultural immersion’.

I described what I regarded to be the key segmentation criteria in travel and tourism marketing in brief in a previous post. I now want to delve a little deeper into one of those in particular which I consider to be absolutely key – psychographics.
 
The whole area of psychographics, a phrase that describes values, personality and lifestyle, first became of …

Have the rules of travel and tourism marketing been re-written with the emergence of Facebook, Twitter et al? Or are we simply playing the same game with a different set of tools at our disposal?

We’ve all heard quotes like ‘social media is a game changer’ or ‘you’ve lost control of your brand’ from the new crop of social media experts that have sprung up due to the rapid adoption of services such as Twitter and Facebook.  But have the rules of marketing really been re-written? For me, the answer is …

Hats off to Tourism New Zealand – their consistency has been rewarded.
 
Congratulations to Tourism New Zealand on their ‘100% Pure New Zealand campaign’.
 
OK – so it first launched 10 years ago but Tourism New Zealand has just been voted ‘best at destination branding’ during a survey of their peers by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation and European Travel Commission. ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ was the factor sited by their peers for the accolade.
 
I remember going to the launch at Vinopolis back in 1999 (showing my age…), a memorable event because …