Amazing, Truly, Uniquely, WOW, even Bloody – you name it, every adjective has been thrown at destination branding.
But is there still too much legacy thinking attached to the business of destination branding when customers are changing so rapidly?
At every tourism conference I attend, there’s always plenty of angst that surrounds destination branding.
The recent national MICE conference in Subic Bay, Philippines, was no exception.
A panel discussion debated the merits and demerits of the “WOW Philippines” brand and slogan. But when a strawpoll was conducted, the majority voted for a change.
It seems in today’s world of instant everything, everyone’s always wanting to change something.
We do it with our gadgets. We do it with our celebrities – instant fame and then, instant nothing-ness. We do it with our social networks – from “friend” to “unfriend”.
With branding, change usually comes when there is, well, change at the top. A new chief executive takes over and usually the first thing he or she wants to do is new branding.
This is perhaps because branding is the most visible thing one can do to prove they are doing something.
It is, of course, also one of the most expensive and intricate things to do. A rebranding involves more than just a slogan or a tagline, it creates a chain of change from top to bottom, from side to side, from every which way to any which point.
Every destination has struggled with branding and spent millions of taxpayers money in the process.
Australia had some good campaigns until “Where the bloody hell are you?” blew its reputation out of the water.
Thailand had an “Amazing” run until political troubles erupted and now the word has taken on an amazing twist. Taiwan tells you it will “Touch Your Heart”. Malaysia claims it is “Truly Asia”. “Uniquely Singapore” is accused of simply reproducing bad English.
Brett Henry, vice president of marketing of Abacus International, believes all this talk of destination branding – one slogan, one tagline – is legacy thinking. He believes travellers travel by interests and may not be influenced by the choice of destination.
Being a kite-surfer himself, he seeks out the best waves for his sport and will go anywhere, regardless of destination, as long as the waves are good. He thinks more and more travellers are like him, experience-driven rather than destination-specific.
And in today’s world of social media, which allows people to be grouped by interests regardless of where they are, he feels this is the way destination marketing should go.
“Coming up with some slogan and tagline and then advertising in traditional media, that’s pretty old school to me. I don’t think people say I will go to Malaysia because it is ‘Truly Asia’.”
Morris Sim, CEO of Circos Brand Karma, is less dismissive of the idea of destination branding, provided it is executed well.
He thinks people like Henry, even if they are only after the best waves, are still seeking the spirit of something – freedom, adventure, for example – which can be captured by a brand. So, to him, destinations still need to capture some form of spirit in their brand promise.
However ask him the best destination marketing initiative he’s seen in a long while and he cites Tourism Queensland with its Best Job In The World competition in which the state body offered A$150,000 to the right candidate to be an island caretaker and to promote the islands of the Great Barrier Reef to the world.
Sim proposes that the Philippines, with its more than 7,000 islands, and obviously a limited marketing budget, should dream up a similar competition. “It’s tailor-made for such a viral campaign,” says Sim.
So let’s see – how about a “7,107 Dream Jobs” competition?
About Siew Hoon Yeoh
Excellent article. We really do need something radical to shake up DMO thinking to recognise the paradigm shift we face in how our customers think, research, plan and purchase travel.
I blogged on this just today, hope you find it interesting
http://mccallumsolutions.com/redefine-success/
I don’t know. The “Malaysia, Truly Asia” slogan has stuck pretty well for me. I won’t lie, it has shaped my perception of the country as a destination.
I think Brett Henry is right to say that people are seeking out experiences. And that’s actually exactly what the “Malaysia, Truly Asia” slogan does. It says, “you can come to one place and *experience* everything that Asia has to offer”. Not saying it’s really true, but it does make you think of the country as diverse. To me, it’s effective.
But that Malaysia campaign is an anomaly. A slogan like “WOW Philippines” says nothing to me.
Every destination wants to create an impressive logo and catchy slogan to attract visitors but this is not what makes a brand and is no guarantee for either continued attention and stead visitor numbers. There are too many other factors that influence both. All too often, as you state, some new executive comes on board and wants to bring about change. The most visible manifestation of that is creating what then is called a new “brand image” by changing logo and slogan at great expense. This also happens much too frequently when staying power and consistency is called for.
Switzerland is a great example for the latter. Their logo has been in use since the mid 1990s with only the tag line being changed maybe once or twice. Most partners of the national DMO have integrated the national symbol in their own marketing creating a positive, cumulative effect. This is only possible when there is some consistency.
In the end, success depends on the delivery of a visitor experience that exceeds expectations raised in the marketing effort. Many destinations are lacking in this key criteria. They should spend much more attention and effort on increasing the professionalism and service delivery level of their many local suppliers who are responsible for delivering on the brand promise. That would mean they have their priorities right. Let the next DMO CEO leave logo and slogan alone and start focusing on the essentials.
A thought provoking and interesting piece.
As you quite rightly point out, the first thing to understand with destination branding is that a new name, tagline or logo is not a brand. It can also be detrimental to the brand to try and use the same message for multiple markets.
For instance when we carried out brand research for Tourism Malaysia on the ‘Malaysia, truly Asia’ tagline, responses were mixed. Americans loved it, the Vietnamese however were offended. One interviewee said, “We have 4,000 years of history, what can Malaysia tell us about Asia?”
You mention the flop that was the ‘where the bloody hell are you’ campaign. I would bet the farm that that campaign was based on the ‘shrimp on the barbie’ campaign of 1984 which was very successful.
Unfortunately the world is a very different place to the one Paul Hogan inhabited in 1984. That campaign was part of a large effort (much of it fortuitous) that developed the Australia brand. Australian music – Men at Work, AC/DC. Olivia Newton-John etc were in the charts worldwide. Australia had just won the America’s cup. Crucially, there were only a few TV networks in most countries (US 3 networks, UK 3 and limited if any cable TV). It was much easier to build a brand using mass media and a one-size-fits-all approach to create awareness.
Australia found out to its cost in 2006 that the world is very different when it used the same mass media approach to try and drive visitors to the country. The ‘where the bloody hell are you’ campaign flopped for many reasons but primarily because Australia is no longer a novelty and because there are now 6 nationwide networks in the US, 500 cable/sat channels and massive advertising clutter everywhere. It could not stand out from the rest.
Briefly, to build a destination brand in the customer economy, requires an acceptance by the destination that you cannot be all things to all people. The destination must take a comprehensive and honest look at itself (One reason why you need brand consultants because they will be honest and have no agenda) and determine what it has to offer and to whom. The destination must carry out extensive research and training both internally and externally and get buy in from those stakeholders relevant to the strategy.
Only then can a brand strategy be drawn up and once that strategy is drawn up and communicated to stakeholders and other constituents and their role in the process is understood, can the strategy be implemented. I’ve published a case study of the process here http://brandconsultantasia.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/case-study-use-research-to-form-the-foundations-of-a-tourism-brand-strategy/
Using one-size-fits-all mass market advertising or a new tagline to try and build a destination brand is a futile exercise that will simply add to the clutter and will do nothing else but line the pockets of the advertising agencies and upset stakeholders.
We are even more amazed with web marketing because of observing how the the next generations deal with with the world through technology. My 14 year old daughter just sent me a site they had created to organize cool topic for their online friends. They wanted to know the way to establish advertising on the site to generate revenue. I must tell you I am very proud and amazed.
Thank you for sharing helpful knowledge. Consumers decisions matters a lot in it as they collects information prior to consumption or purchase and then their ability to sort out that information to make a useful decision. As far as destination branding is concerned in making a worthwhile decision the main players are word-of-mouth, mass media, travel agents, and lastly personal experiences.