Hotel Marketing Association Blog

Time to redefine Marketing? Forget the 4 P’s, it’s time for the 5 E’s!

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:10:47 +0000

I was preparing a presentation on digital marketing, when it occurred to me that ‘digital’ is no longer just part of the promotion ‘P’ of marketing, but rather has radically changed what marketing is.

The traditional definition of marketing as being Product, Price, Place & Promotion has been around a long time. It became trendy to add the P’s of People and Profit at one point. Then we moved into an era where marketing was defined as a culture, rather than a function with marketing being the responsibility of everyone! More recent definitions suggest that Marketing is any activities aimed at a customer which help a company to make a profit.

Well the reality in the hotel industry is that in most cases we are just given the product to market, with limited involvement in its development. Pricing is now the domain of the Revenue Managment function. Similarly ‘Place’, whether meaning the location of the hotel, which we have no influence over, or the place your product is sold, these channels are again the responsibility of the Revenue Managers, so Place is no longer within our domain.

So, what is marketing in 2010? I believe it is now the 5E’s of Excitement, Engagement, Ease of Purchase, Evaluation & Exchange of Views.

Excitement starts with the CEO (think Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Timberland etc) and permeates the employees and then the consumers.

Engagement with customers is really at the hub of Marketing. It is now facilitated by a mass of digital channels. Engagment with all stakeholders is key to a successful future.

Ease of purchase is why any company exists. We now have a global shopfront. Marketing should be continually exploring new ways to deliver the product to this global market.

Evaluation. Every company should encourage customers to evaluate them and their products and services, whether on third party sites or their own. These evaluations are now public and global. And, very importantly need managing by Marketing.

The final E stands for Exchange of Views. Social networking sites and blogs are here to stay. People exhange views, ideas, images and videos. Marketing needs to instigate some of this and participate in other exchanges so that they are genuinely part of the group. Marketing also has to monitor all of this activity, and ignore it at their peril.

The above is not just something I’ve written just to get people talking, but something, which after careful consideration, I believe reflects a need for marketing to move into this new decade with a fresh approach and new responsibilities

Link between advertising spend and brand performance?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:06:52 +0000

I read with interest in a recent issue of Marketing magazine that sales of Budweiser lager have fallen by 32% between 2004 and 2008, so that it is now the 8th best-selling lager in the UK rather than the 5th best-selling. It made me think back to Louis the frog (he was the meerkat of his day!) and those great ads, never mind the series of ‘Waaassssup’ ads that made grown men the length and breadth of the country walk into pubs shouting ‘Waaassssssup’ to a load of strangers. Bud was an iconic brand then. I’m sure there are many other factors contributing to the downfall in sales, but it doesn,t surprise me that the brands that have shown growth invest heavily in advertising and sponsorship.

Bring back Louis the frog!!!!!

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?

Compare the Meerkat?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:35:05 +0000

I try to stop myself, but can’t…. I keep singing ‘compare the meerkat.com’!!!!! Great ads create great catch phrases, that live on long after the ad campaigns are over. From the old days of ‘Don’t say brown, say Hovis’ to ‘Have a break, have a KitKat’ to the Budweiser ‘Waaasssup!’ But the comparethemarket.com ads have the extra component of the furry meerkat. He is even a furry toy sold in Harrods and has 600,000 Facebook fans. I can’t help thinking about the initial creative presentation to the client. Imagine a creative genius telling you to use a meerkat (a what?) to promote your insurance comparison website. It took a bold client. Can you imagine anyone in the hotel industry having the guts to go with something like that? I’m not sure I can. And perhaps that’s the reason why hotel ads have never been very memorable. Perhaps we just play too safe and stick to hotel lobbies & bedrooms (even if they do have Lenny Henry in them!)

50Cent – a truly global marketing success?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:31:23 +0000

50Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) the rap artist is not just a very wealthy businessman now, worth around $250million, but he has shown how using all components of the marketing mix can turn an individual (never mind a hotel chain!) into a global brand. His website gets 30 million unique visitors per month! All too often the hotel industry is too introverted in looking for great marketing ideas. Perhpas we would do well to try and emulate some of these ‘person’ brands who are not constrained by corporations and traditional thinking and don’t even have a marketing education (or in his case no education) but have truly embraced marketing in all its glory?

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.

Can hotels start charging for guests wanting specific rooms, along the lines of BA’s new policy of charging £10-60 for advance seat bookings?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:17:55 +0000

BA launched what they refer to on their website as their ‘ Enhanced seating policy’. This allows passengers to pay between £10 & £60 to choose their seat in advance. Only time will tell what percentage of people take them up on this, and if it will generate a much-needed increase in revenue. It made me question whether hotels could cleverly adopt a similar policy. Of course many hotels also charge more for sea view / river view rooms etc, but never allow the customer to choose a specific room. I know that rooming lists tend to only be done on the day, but surely we can be cleverer than that? Frequent business travellers inevitably end up with favourite rooms in hotels, or rooms in certain parts of the hotel. I have a feeeling that many of these would pay a supplement to gurantee their favourite room, just as BA are counting on passengers wanting to gurantee their favourite seat.

At a time when business is tough, this could generate incremental revenue and become another valuable revenue management tool.

A really great emailing!

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:40:25 +0000

An email just arrived in my inbox at 15.50hrs today, Friday, from ASOS (on-line fashion retailer). The subject line read – Open me quick! I expire at 6pm. The email then told me that if I ordered items now I would get free next-day delivery (yes, delivered on Saturday – it said!) and free returns. How simple, yet brilliant. Most ASOS customers are much younger than me, and they’ve no doubt now ordered their new outfits for Saturday night out having fun, knowing they will be deliverd free tomorrow.

This is how emailing should be used.

Anyone know of any similarly great ones from hotels?

TripAdvisor – friend or foe?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:00:02 +0000

Market research by BDRC (www.bdrc.co.uk) has now shown what we all believed – that business travellers are referrring to sites such as TripAdvisor before booking hotels. Their research showed that 28% referred to such sites and of those, 41% changed hotel choice after reading reviews. This is all great if you consistently get fab reviews, but what if youdon’t? What if the poor reviews are from before you owned or managed the hotel? What is the reviewers have never actually stayed with you? How do we as marketers get to grips with this ever-growing monster, that is out of our control?

Location, location, location…lies?

Pam Carvell, Marketing Consultant — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:12:33 +0000

We all know the value of location in driving business, but how far should you go in exploiting your location? The airport north of Oxford, previously known as Kidlington, has rebranded itself as London Oxford Airport, despite being nearly 60 miles from the city centre. The Oxfod Civic Society have described this move as ‘misleading’, while the airport owners believe it is giving customers more choice. Many years ago I recall the then Holiday Inn at junction5 of the M4 being called the Holiday Inn London Slough Windsor – with Heathrow thrown in from time to time.

Is this clever marketing or downright misleading?

Any other crazy examples?