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Marketing

• Internet, Marketing, tourism bc

  Tourism BC 2010 Olympics online activities: #4 – drive to web strategy

  02.16.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  Billions of people watch the games on TV. And the games are the biggest commerical a destination can wish for. Because besides the stories about sports and athletes, the destination plays a lead part.

  

  TV viewing has changed. People watch TV together even if they’re not in the same location using laptops and phones. Research conducted almost 3 years ago during the NBC finals shows that people multitask while watching sports.

  

  It’s one thing to read research about people texting, IM-ing, tweeting and posting on Facebook. But when I came home one night and I saw my wife Sheri watching Americ’s next top model, while texting her friend and chatting with her sister on Facebook it became real to me.

  People also watch TV online. During the Beijing games, 52 million people in the US watched a video stream on NBCOlympics.com. In Europe and China even more people streamed the games online.

  The point us that it’s easy for somebody to research something that catches their attention on TV. When somebody is intrigued by the destination story, a laptop or other mobile device is close by. That means a big opportunity for us to follow through on the initial awareness created through the games and encourage consumers to start the trip planning process.

  

  Our strategy to drive people to our consumer websites during the games involves using refering links from high traffic Olympic related websites, Search Engine Otimization and Marketing, advertising and social media. I’ll highlight each one in the next few days.

• Internet, Marketing, tourism bc

  Tourism BC 2010 Online Olympics activities: #3 – exposure on 3rd party websites

  02.14.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  

  The main benefit of the 2010 games from an overall marketing perspective is exposure. The TV broadcasts are (still) the priority and the travel media teams from Tourism BC and our tourism partners work with broadcasters around the world to ensure the destination message is covered to it’s maximum potential. They even have staff ’embedded’ with priority markets; an Olympic first.

  There are also many people around the globe who stay connected with the games through online channels. Some call it the ‘biggest screen’ principle. When somebody doesn’t have access to a large TV screen, they’ll watch it online (at work?) or when that’s not available, on their cellphone. People also stay connected with the events by visiting the official Olympic website, a broadcaster website or their favourite news site. We want to maximize these opportunities as well.

  Leveraging the exposure is core for our online activities. We’ve worked for years to build the right relationships and create win-win situations. It took me to New York to meet with the NBC Olympics team for example. By building relationships and creating win-win situations by offering ideas and support, we have maximized stories, photos and videos on the NBCOlympics website, the official 2010 games website and more.

  A strong collective between city, province and country DMO’s is important. Media and sponsors don’t have time to deal with each individually and we’re pleased with the collaboration and results. Broadcasters and sponsors around the world use our B-Roll and websites contain our stories that highlight all of British Columbia and Canada.

• Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism, Uncategorized

  Tourism BC 2010 Olympics online activities: #2 Torch Relay Field Reporter videos

  02.13.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  
  Paul Clark, Chris Wheeler and me (photo: Geoff Moore)

  The Torch Relay is a great event to connect people with the games across the country. A perfect vehicle to extend the exposure beyond Vancouver and showcase all of British Columbia around the world.

  But like pretty much anything else related to games, access is tough when you’re not a sponsor or accredited media. About a year ago we worked out a partnership with Coca-Cola to cover every day of the Torch Relay in BC, and key cities across Canada through an extended partnership with the Canadian Tourism Commission. That gave us the access we needed.

  One of our star Field Reporters Chris Wheeler was up for the challenge and on October 30 last year he started the 106 day journey. With the support from Jose and Mike in our Tourism BC office, and Paul Clark and our regional offices on the road, he created 25 videos in BC and 11 in the rest of Canada. The formula was to use the Torch Relay as a continuing plot-line and highlight specific experiences in the area or community the flame visited that day. You follow the flame, and also see what makes the area great.

  The videos are a great success for all partners; awesome stories, tens of thousands of views (almost 300,000 as of Feb 14), great response from the local communities and some great learning for the future. Check out the YouTube channel or our fancy HelloBC Torch Relay page.

• Internet, Marketing, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism, Uncategorized

  Tourism BC 2010 Olympics online activities: #1 Strategy

  02.12.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are starting today! It’s been a crazy few years and I’ve learned a lot. It’s been a good ride and a good time to share some of our activities and learning.  Let’s start at the beginning.

  Our marketing objective to leverage is to turn games interest into destination interest and action. Our online strategies are:

  1. Maximize exposure
  2. Drive to our consumer websites
  3. Use the website to put BC on the ‘must visit’ list
  4. Capture consumer data for future database marketing and increase fans and followers

  Over the next two weeks, I’ll share how we’ve executed against these strategies. Stay tuned.

• Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  Advergaming: an interview with VisitOslo’s Katrine Mosfjeld

  01.13.10 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  

  Katrine Mosfjeld from VisitOSLO

  Katrine Mosfjeld has been the Manager of the Tourist Information Division at VisitOSLO for 8 years. She manages online and offline information delivery to consumers ranging from Tourism Information Centres, to digital strategies, visitOSLO’s Twitter account and a booking system. She works closely with industry in Oslo and even delivers an eLearning program.

  I met Katrine in Amsterdam at the ENTER conference last year where I was really impressed with the tremendous success of their Advergaming strategy. When I started to play the game I immediately understood the success. It’s super addictive! She just released a second version and I thought I’d catch up with her.

  You’ve been executing an advergaming strategy with the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. What gave your team the idea to use an advergaming strategy?

  I wish I could say it was my idea, but it wasn’t. The supplier, an Oslo based little firm called Agens, got the idea and first contacted our colleagues at VisitNorway to see if they were interested. They were, and the Manager, Hans Petter Aalmo, invited us at VisitOSLO to discuss the idea and potential. This was back in the summer of 2006. As you can imagine, this was pretty new 3,5 years ago and the project group was not sure if it was going to work. But we liked the idea and we had a good feeling about it. So we decided to try something brand new… The stakes were high, but then the gain is good as well if you succeed right?

  When did it first launch and what were the objectives?

  We launched it December 21, 2006. You can still play it online. We decided to measure our success in numbers of games played (profiling the ski jump, Oslo and Norway each time) and visitors to the sponsor websites. But we never even dreamt about the results we got. Or all the other stuff that happened…

  What were the results and what was all the other stuff that happened?

  The numbers we got were incredible! And they are still growing every single day. At the moment, 138,800,000 games have been played, which means 277,600,000 jumps because every game has 2 jumps :). It has also generated more than 3,000,000 visits to our websites. How great is this??! Neither VisitOSLO or VisitNorway has ever done anything more efficient when it comes to marketing and results. And the other things that happened, but never thought of while planning…

  • lots of media attention for the game, I’ve counted more than 20 articles
  • we won a prize for the best game on a Norwegian gaming site 123spill.no
  • 2 different Facebook groups created by fans
  • some 40-50 people have been recording themselves and uploaded their videos on YouTube, like this one. Make sure to check out the related videos 🙂
  • There have been blogs written about the game as a phenomena, and the Norwegian Ski Jumping team has blogged that this is what they do when they don’t work out or compete in the real stuff 🙂
  • lots of tweets on Twitter
  • the widget has been installed on many websites and blogs
  • we’re even included in the ETC eMarketing book

  You just launched a new version. What’s new and how are things going so far?
  It’s a pretty tough act to follow because the first game was so successful! But we’re building a new skijump in Oslo, the new fantastic Holmenkollen Ski Jump, designed by JDS Arcitechts and wanted the game to reflect the new ski jump and brand. We launched it December 16th 2009 and you can play it here. It has been played 9,6 million times on the website already, with great viral effects in Facebook-posts, tweets, etc!

  We also launched a Facebook app where you can play against your Facebook friends to see who’s the better jumper ;-). It has been played approximately 1 million times on Facebook since we launched December 21st. An advanced version of an iPhone app has been sold over 2000 times since December 24th.

  The game has been tweeted a gazillion times, received TV coverage on the news, sports, papers, blogs, Facebook and YouTube… It has generated 66,500 visitors to the sponsor websites.

  The results look very good so far, especially considering it was launched only a few weeks ago. We expect it to deliver results for many years; the old game is more than 3 years old, and still delivers. Yesterday there were 342,000 games played in the OLD game 🙂 Pretty efficient, eh?

  What advise would you give to destination marketers who’re thinking about advergaming?

  We’ve experienced that it is extremely efficient – but it has to be a good idea, and done professionally. We also think that our success partly comes because it is fairly addictive :). It is a bit difficult to play, but not too difficult. You quickly understand some of the things that makes you better, so you want to try again. And it doesn’t feel to commercial – even if its marketing, you feel that it’s a game, and it is a game. Only it has some messages attached, and provides some links when the interest is created 🙂

  Thank you very much for sharing your insights Katrine and congratulations with the success of the game.

  You can follow Katrine on Twitter. Curious about the game? You can watch the video below but you really should play it.
  

• Internet, Marketing

  Online & tech trends I’m watching in 2010

  01.04.10 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  In travel technology, I’m keeping an eye on these trends. These trends are at the front of massive change in the way we conduct our business.

  Social
  66% of the global internet population is using social networks. For many around the globe, Facebook is the primary way of staying in touch. It has over 350 million users. Tripadvisor reported over 25 million visitors in November and WAYN has built a network over 15 million members. Building your network of friends or followers, leveraging your brand advocates, encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations and listening and interacting with your customers through social media channels is going to be a must. Instead of marketing to encourage people to visit your channel, bringing your content and services to where the people already are is going to be more effective.

  And social networks can add value to your own channels as well. OpenID, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, Sign in with Twitter are all tools that allow third parties to use a user profile as part of their website or application. This makes it easier for users to sign-up and provides opportunities for website operators to leverage a user’s profile and social graph while integrating content and services into social networks.

  Mobile
  In 2010 mobile will explode. Apple will release it’s tablet, Google’s Android is gaining momentum and others like Nokia and RIM are still strong contenders. Competition drives innovation and therefore devices and operating systems will get better and better. Travel is already the third most popular mobile app category but we’re really only scratching the surface.And connected to the first trend, more and more people use their mobile to access social networks, Facebook already reports 15 million active mobile users.

  Location Based
  Somebody at home, in transit, or in a travel destination has different needs and this is where the real opportunity is. Mobile devices know your location, and even what direction you face. This allows for targeted information and services. Augmented reality might be novelty today, but it demonstrates the potential. Enhancing the tourism experience, providing customers service, upselling and cross-selling based on location and time will soon become expectations rather than novelty.

  Real Time

  If you combine the previous 3 trends, you end up with real time information and services. Twitter is the new news ticker. Somebody will break news seconds after it happens on Twitter and the network distributes faster than any traditional news media can. This will enhance the tourism experience as well. How long are lineups for an attraction? Where is a cool band playing? Where are my friends doing or recommending right now?

  
  

• Marketing, tourism bc

  Great Mountain Giveaway

  12.10.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Have you ever been on a great Ski mountain with 1,000 other people and wondered what it would be like to have the whole mountain to yourself? Well, your dream could come true. We’re giving away a mountain at one of our Ski resorts for a whole day.

  And it gets better. You get to bring 19 of your friends.

  

  A mountain in one of our great 13 Ski resorts to yourself with 19 of your friends for a day. For real. Enter our Great Mountain Giveaway.

• Management, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  Should the ‘M’ in DMO stand for Management instead of Marketing

  12.08.09 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  Traditionally, DMO stands for Destination Marketing Organization. But would consumers and industry be better served if the ‘M’ stood for Management instead?

  Consider my destination brand definition from a few posts back.

  1. The sum of experiences of a traveler during a trip (but not all experiences are equal)
  2. The sum of all stories somebody has hears about a destination (but not all sources are equally credible)

  It’s clear that the visitor experience is the best form of destination branding. It will generate great memories people will relive, lead to repeat visitation and word of mouth referrals.

  And when you read Ana Pollock’s Reputation, Reputation, Reputation post you will understand how actions by others can dramatically effect a destination brand.

  Some will argue that all of the above is part of marketing. But semantics aside, changing the ‘M’ in DMO to Management would broaden the traditional focus and increase the scope into things that also matter.

  I’m not talking about a visitor centre or a training program. I’m talking about generating a vision for the destination, looking at all aspects of the destination experience and working with extended groups of stakeholders to truly manage and deliver an end-to-end world class experience.

  And when you satisfy your visitors, wouldn’t a destination be a better place to live for its residents as well?

• Internet, Marketing, social media

  Must see presentations: #2 Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

  12.05.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Clay Shirky’s powerful presentation at TED earlier this year will combat any Social Media sceptic you might have to deal with in your organization. Do you have key business decission makers who don’t even have a Facebook account, or marketing teams who think Social Media is just another way to broadcast advertising or something viral? In that case, this presentation will explain in 17 minutes that the future of marketing isn’t broadcast but collaboration with your networks of consumers and stakeholders.

• Marketing, social media

  Is a Twitter follower or Facebook fan better than an email address in a consumer database?

  11.25.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Interesting to see a lot of campaigns specifically targetted at growing Twitter Followers or Facebook Fans.
  

  • Las Vegas is giving away a 5 day trip over New Years. To apply, you need to follow @vegas and tweet your excuse to be there. So far, @vegas has 3600 followers.
  • Sidney ran a contest where you had to become a Facebook fan and write something on the fanpage wall. The SeeSidney fanpage has 7700 fans.
  • Air New Zealand first gave away 30 trips to New Zealand. To enter, you had to follow @kitweets and answer a trivia question. Result: 3500 followers.
  • Air Zealand is now running a trivia contest on a Facebook app. So far, 3200 people have played.

  Traditionally these campaigns would be used to grow a consumer database. Is a Twitter follower or a Facebook fan more valuable than an email address? Or is it Shiny Object Syndrome? Or isn’t about the aquisition but about the engagement; the process of entering into the contest. Asking somebody to give an excuse to visit Vegas will at least make somebody think about visiting.

  I think a Facebook friend or Twitter follower can be much more valuable because there’s an opportunity for two-way conversation and interaction between community members. Something typically not part of database marketing. But if the objective is to broadcast on somebody’s wall or feed, it will probably lead to predictible failure.

William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog