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FYI is your source for the latest news and information about tourism and marketing from here at home and around the world. Please feel free to download and print any of the articles contained in this section.
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- Content Curation - Engage Your Customers in Three Easy Steps
- Twitter 101 - Seven Tips for Effective Marketing
- Email Campaign Tips
- What Makes Email Marketing So Effective?
- The New 5 Ps for Successful Marketing
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Maxx Marketing News
Insights into Branding Places
Here are some thoughts from a variety of people who have had extensive experience in
branding places and travel products. Their views provide valuable insights for creating
and managing sustainable brands for cities, regions, and countries.
Many politicians and statesmen like many lay people dont understand what is
meant by branding, and believe that its simply a matter of designing a new logo and
possibly a slogan to go underneath it. And this is not helped by communications
gencies who pander to this misconception by simply selling them logos and slogans
(and not a strategic solution).
Simon Anholt - Brand New Justice
Your brand is not what you say you are. Your brand is what your customers think
you are. Each persons experience with a product is as unique as a snowflake. Each of
us has a personal experience that is experienced by no other individual.
Steve Yastrow - Brand Harmony
Brand success is not determined by the advertising that is carried out to promote it, but
the overall experience of its delivery. We have to move the brand from being presented
as a trip, a vacation or a destination to becoming a wholly immersive, aspirational and
engaging experience.
Ken Boundy - Executive Director
Australian Tourist Commission
Successful destination brands are those that are able to clearly differentiate
themselves and simplify choices for customers. Experience has shown us that
fundamental to developing a winning brand is recognizing that it is much more than a
new logo, new graphic design, or a fresh coat of paint. And a destinations brand is not
an advertising theme or a tagline. A destination brand is the totality of perceptions that
a customer holds about the experiences associated with a place. Effective management
of these perceptions and experiences can secure enduring value for the destination, its
partners, and customers.
This means that the brand is built at every point of contact between customers and
the location. Each of these points before, during and after the visit has a vital role in
building and delivering the experience embodied in the brand. The logo and tagline
serve as valuable reminders for the values inherent in the brand. Unless a destination
brand is adopted, supported and given life by stakeholders and partners, it will amount
to nothing more than a mark on a piece of paper. You must set out from the start to build
a living brand and create the strategies, to deliver a memorable brand experience at
every critical point of contact with your customers.
Bill Baker - Total Destination Management
Developing a strong image for any brand requires a carefully planned brand strategy based on:
1. A well defined and unique brand personality
2. Selection of the correct positioning strategies
3. ‘Themed’ product development
4. Consistent and appropriate advertising and promotion
5. Careful brand guardianship
All the above must be built on a thorough understanding of consumer needs. Above all, the success of brand image development will depend on how the perceptions of consumers can be encouraged to believe that one destination is different and better than its competitors. This encourages consumer acquisition and retention, including extending length of stay.
Wayne Nowak, President Maxx Communications, helped develop branding for DMOs and various other tourism sectors. While consulting for a resort hotel that was going from a flag Kananaskis Best Western to an independent, it became Kananaskis Inn & Conference Centre where friends and family gather. The Town of Hinton was, Gateway to the Rockies but a change to Grande by Nature was proposed to compliment the other regional industries of forestry and mining, and to connect with its partnership role in the Grande Alberta Trail regional tourism initiative. In The NWT, the change was to Where the Spirit of Canada Lives and for the Iron Horse Trail, a rails to trails project in NE Alberta it was A Legacy to Discover.