Hotel Marketing Association Blog » Marketing Accountability

Charity Marketing

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:52:07 +0000

I know that charities need to spend money on marketing, just like any business. And I know that marketing drives donations. But, when I read that Age UK (formed by a merger of Age Concern & Help the Aged) is launching a £10 million marketing push, starting in the Spring, I couldn’t help but think of the elderly people who froze to death in the recent spell of bad weather. Many elderly people are struggling to keep warm this winter. Is a £10m marketing campaign what donors want their contributions spending on? How many elderly people may not have died this winter if that money had been spent towards their well-being instead of marketing?

Is marketing really never-ending?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:38:30 +0000

In a recent article in Caterer & Hotelkeeper, Peter Hancock, Chief Executive of Pride of Britain said that ‘there is no such thing as succeeding in marketing because the job is never completed’ and advocated that ‘tracked sales is the icing on the cake’. He explained that ‘you devise initiatives, try them out, then improve or adandon them like a gardener constantly nurturing plants and banishing weeds’. This is not marketing as I know, love and practice it! Perhaps he was deliberatly trying to be controversial? It may be the way the hotel industry practices marketing, but I don’t think that approach would last very long in other industries.

Is Marketing accountability destroying creativity?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:22:48 +0000

I have always been a fan of marketing being accountable. A payback analysis should be part of the development of any campaign. However, in these increasingly digital-days, we measure just the last ‘click’, ignoring all the marketing that may have gone before to build brand awareness, or the multitude of emailings that generated initial interest. In this economic climate, we are therefore seeing masses of very similar emailings from all the hotel chains and websites that say little about the brand, but simply prompt you to reserve a room. This makes me believe that this need for accountability is destroying creativity and innovation in marketing, at a time when what we really need is exciting new ideas.