Influential Marketing Blog

Why Google & Virgin America's Online Scavenger Hunt Campaign Rocked

Early this morning Google Apps partnered with Virgin America to launch a unique campaign where they invited people taking Virgin America flights all day, as well as those sitting on computers at home or work to participate in an online scavenger hunt for clues to answer questions they would pose at you on a website called "Day In The Clouds." The scavenger hunt offered questions requiring you to use many different Google apps and online tools to find the answers, and integrated with Virgin America both for some questions as well as by offering free WiFi to any passenger on one of their flights today.

The campaign generated lots of positive word of mouth for the brands and though it is just coming to a close a few hours from now so the numbers haven't been reported yet, it will likely boost both brands and work strategically to promote what each of them wanted to: Google Apps and the cloud architecture from Google's side, and the ready availability of WiFi on all flights for Virgin America. Going beyond, here are ten quick lessons that you can take from this engaging campaign on what they know about marketing that is fun and engaging that many brands forget.

1. Built on their core products/services. The level of integration so that users had to use many of Google's tools to find the answer to questions and learn about Virgin America's planes, technology and flight schedules as well as how to use the Internet on flights was brilliant. It was done in a way that no other competing brand could have done.
2. Designed for simplicity without compromising. The site was easy to use and great looking at the same time. For every marketing person who has sat in a meeting and listened to a designer argue that it is impossible to do both, just send them the URL for this site.
3. Forged the right partnership. The choice of these two brands together worked perfectly to add to the popularity of the scavenger hunt. Both have high goodwill among their fans and drew a tech-savvy audience to participate.
4. Integrated the brand without being overbearing. The brands were definitely integrated in the questions without making every question about something boring and branded. The light hearted approach worked in this case, because people know clearly that they are on a branded site, and we should realize value of that - but don't necessarily need to shove it into a user's face at every turn.
5. Engaged through fun and competition while educating. The engagement on this campaign was high because the content was great. The format was fun and competition as built into this in a way that made people want to engage and do even better. There were even tweets from flights encouraging plane-mates to do better to beat a competing plane.
6. Created a sense of urgency. The timer counting down to zero as well as the choice to make this only a one day long promotion all added to the sense of urgency for this campaign. It also meant that even on an LA to SF flight (like the one Virgin America took media on in the morning) the time would be enough to complete the quiz.
7. Offered a real challenge. Like most puzzle and game related marketing that Google has done (including their smart Da Vinci Code promotion), they don't tend to dumb the solutions down or make it easy. As a result, they keep people engaged and have them try harder.
8. Involved the right ambassadors. In the morning, there was a media flight that several high-influence tech bloggers including Ben Par from Mashable and Beth Blecherman from Techmamas were on where they played the game and participated in the start of the campaign. These early ambassadors posted about it and drove more interest and traffic to the site throughout the day.
9. Made it shareable. Once you complete the hunt, you get your score and you have the opportunity to share it immediately (which I did) through Twitter and Facebook. It might have been smart for them to have prefilled text that didn't share a score too (in case someone was embarrased by their score and didn't want to broadcast it), but either way this final step meant that people could share via Twitter or Facebook, and also follow the campaign's Twitter account for updates.
10. Had real and tangible prizes. The last smart move the team putting this promotion together did was going beyond recognition and bragging rights. Those are nice, but the winners with the highest scores will get tangible prizes and that is a big motivator to continue to participate even if you may be in it and not want to finish.

Disclaimer: Virgin America is a current client of Ogilvy PR (my employer) and I have consulted on social media efforts for them in the past. I personally did not work on this campaign, however, and am not being compensated or incentivized in any way to write this post. It is my personal opinion of their campaign and nothing more.

How Social Media Could Have Saved FlyClear

This is the sad story of a company that died. Actually, it's more of a question of how it could have been saved. I'm talking about the now defunct FlyClear service run by a company called Verified Identity Pass that launched in nearly 20 airports across the country with a paid service that promised a way to avoid the travel lines at security with a dedicated "VIP" line. The reasons for their demise are relatively easy to understand ... as the number of travellers has reduced, the lines too have reduced and fewer people are seeing the value of paying $99 or more per year to access these special lanes.

Unfortunately for me and about 250,000 others who already signed up and paid for the service, we are now officially out of luck and left with many questions about the service. Will something take it's place? Will we manage to get any of our money back? What will they do with our profile data (including in most cases retinal images and fingerprints)? As a marketer, though, my first thought is about how preventable this seemed to be. After all, the people who had the service loved it. And as soon as travel from major airports started to recover (which is fairly inevitable), the security lines and hassle will again drive more people to consider joining.

So how could social media have saved FlyClear? Here are a few ideas:

1. Collect real life stories. One of the truths about the travel industry is that just about everyone has a negative story to tell. FlyClear was one company that could have benefited from this conversation, because their entire mission was to make the process of travel easier. If they did collect stories of the negative (and the positive stories of customers who had good experiences because of FlyClear), social media would have been ideal to capture them and prove the necessity for FlyClear.
2. Create an army of blog ambassadors. I was only one among many other bloggers who loved the service and blogged about how great we felt it was. Guy Kawasaki agreed, and even tweeted today about its demise echoing what many card holders felt when he said "Clear has shut down http://www.flyclear.com/ I just want to cry. I loved that service..." What if they had reached out to bloggers like myself and Guy and any others that had blogged about the service and brought us together to tell their story and drive members more than just offering us a "refer-a-friend" discount code? My bet is Guy would have jumped on it, and I probably would have too.
3. Leverage Twitter for secret offers and promotion. FlyClear did have a Twitter account that is now taken down, so it is tough to go back and see what they did or didn't do with it, but it would have been the ideal platform to run membership drives, share updates on travel delays and answer customers and potential customers directly.
4. Extend memberships through social media. The nice thing about the business model for FlyClear is that it scaled well ... ie, the more members they had, the better they could do. The problem they had was that they never hit that critical mass. To try and get it, they did offer free memberships to members of hotel frequent flier programs, but they could have done it more actively through their existing members - such as letting them extend free memberships to some friends, and then sell those friends extensions.
5. Launch a last ditch effort. Part of conversation about FlyClear's demise was how sudden it seemed. Surely they would have known about this financial trouble before today - and assuming they did, they could have taken any number of steps to try and get the people who loved the service to help make sure it would stay around. Some might have renewed, while others may have more actively gone out to their networks.

Like many of the FlyClear fans, I was sorry to hear it's gone and will definitely miss the convenience. The worst part is, I would bet that as soon as travel volume (and airport crowds) pick back up again, the other people who might have signed up will be sorry its gone.

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From ... Advertising?

When I arrived last night in Myrtle Beach, I didn't really know very much about this place, aside from my destination hotel where I'm staying. A mere half hour later I knew many things, including the fact that they have the World's Biggest Laser Light Show here and that selling beach homes and condo properties is a big deal here. I didn't get these facts from asking someone or reading a book - I learned them by reading the advertising along the way.

In just about any destination around the world, the advertising you can find there is much more than just sales messages plastered on billboards. It offers a cultural compass of the place you have just entered. it helps you navigate the area by sharing examples of places to go, brands that are popular and experiences that people there typically consume. While in Athens, I noticed many of the TV ads there were for all sorts of hair removal products (for men and women). In LA the ads are often for TV programs and movies.

This impact of advertising is not just about places and billaboards. One of my favourite techniques to get to understand a new world that I know nothing about is to pick up a magazine targeted to people with that passion or in that place. For example, I may not know anything about fishing - but after I pick up a copy of Salt Water Sportsman Magazine, I can learn the popular brands of fishing rods, the dream destinations that salt water fisherman want to go to, and some proper fishing techniques.

This is also why I love Time Out Travel Guides - because they present advertising alongside the travel advice in the book. Many people complain about the ubiquitous advertising they see around them and about being "targeted" and treated like, well, consumers. Maybe it's just me and my biases as a marketer, but there is a side of advertising that is chronicling our culture and that of others around us as it is, whether we like it or not.  When I'm in a new place or learning something new, I'm actually myself grateful for it.

The Worst Hotel In The World

Imagine for a moment if you were the marketing director in charge of a considerably seedy backpacker hotel in Amsterdam. The property you are responsible for promoting is so spartan that they have pictures of chairs on the walls as an ironic replacement to having an actual chair in the rooms. There is no guarantee of toilet paper in the bathrooms. If you were like most travel marketers, you might decide to find a great photographer with a very wide angle lens and considerable creative talents. Then you'd find the best possible way to photograph the property and focus your marketing on some other angle, such as cost or location.

For Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam, the right strategy was exactly the opposite: embrace their awfulness and talk about it honestly. For 15 years, the hotel has been promoting itself as the "worst hotel in the world." As anyone who has ever worked on promoting a destination or travel property knows, sometimes expectations can set you up for failure. Some frequent fliers expect to be upgraded to a seat they didn't pay for, and then get angry when they are not. Patrons of luxury hotels expect perfection, and often feel justified to complain about any little thing, no matter how small. The solution, reasoned Hans Brinker's agency KesselsKramer, was to lower expectations to a point where people could no longer be disappointed. Thus the concept of the "worst hotel in the world" was born.

The hotel uses innovative posters and direct marketing to promote their "experience" to their target audience of young backpackers. After all, what twenty-something wouldn't want to return home to boast to their friends and family that they stayed in the worst hotel in the world while in Amsterdam? The campaign has turned the property's biggest negative attribute into the only reason for people to stay. And it has worked, with a 42% increase in occupancy. Their success has even led to a newly launched book. What's the lesson in this for travel marketers?  Sometimes being honest and giving people something to talk about is the only thing that really matters.

NOTE: This post was originally shared on the new Ogilvy PR Travel & Economic Development blog called Being There, Doing That ... which I am a member and contributing writer of. Check it out for lots more great travel marketing tips and thoughts.

Why Singapore Needs A World Class Airport

Singapore Changi International is one of the best airports in the world. Despite being a tiny country, Singapore is home to one of the largest international hubs for air travel in southeast Asia, and home to one of the best airlines in the world - Singapore Airlines. Why would such a tiny country need such a huge government supported global airline and such a world class airport? For any place, the airport is the gateway to success. Having a well developed airport allows you to attract more flights and more flights means more tourists and more business travelers. More importantly, businesses looking to set up international outposts are very concerned about the Airport. Not having a good one could mean losing millions or billions in investment or tourism income.

Singapore does even more to make their airport a destination through innovative cross promotions, the long standing "Singapore Stopover" - and even the "World's First Airport Butterfly Garden." All add to the appeal of Singapore as a destination for work and leisure.  So why do so few cities focus on building a world class airport? Obviously, it's expensive - but usually it's because the link between the airport and prosperity is not always immediately obvious. There are other things like roads, climate, culture, education, accommodation and attractions that matter - I'm not saying they don't, but the airport is pivotal. Many things in business are the same way -- including social media. The real power of customer conversations, authenticity and everything that social media can bring aren't always obvious. Sometimes it's just easier or more critical in the short term to fix the potholes (figuratively speaking). 

Eventually, every great company realizes that having a quality product or experience is only half the battle. The other half is having a good gateway (or airport) to get your customers there.

What You Can Learn From Airlines On Customer Service (Not A Joke)

The idea that airlines are doing something right when it comes to customer service seems laughable for anyone who has had to fly recently and endured rotten service, delays, crowds and any other indignity that has become an everyday part of the travel experience. Still, there is one area where airlines have pioneered a system that other industries would do well to at least consider.

With an airline, everthing is about levels of service. You get a different level if you are in a different class and you get treated differently if you are a frequent customer. Sure, you get the loyalty cards (lots of places do that), but you also get many small priveleges with it. Being an "elite" member of an airline frequent flyer program means you get to board first, don't have to pay to check your bags, get upgraded as a priority and usually even get a dedicated phone line for customer service so you don't have to wait on hold for too long.

Despite all the other difficulties the airlines have, for a long time most have had the ability to set their best customers apart and treat them differently. They even give them luggage tags. What you are doing for your best customers?

Taj Hotel Reopens And Welcomes Travellers Home

I have had the good fortune to stay at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai twice in my life and both visits were amazing experiences. As you may recall, the Taj was involved in the recent terrorist attacks and had closed for a period of time. Well, the Taj is reopening tomorrow and using outbound email to former patrons like myself to spread the word. Here's what they say:

We are delighted to announce that The Taj Mahal Tower will reopen on December 21, 2008 at 7:00 pm. Mumbai will rediscover its nesting place and play host to the world again.

We're bringing back the clink of champagne flutes, even pile carpets that muffle the footfall of commerce and the perfect sea view. You will feel the buzz of business as usual and experience hospitality that is quintessentially Taj.

To commemorate the special occasion we have introduced exclusive services at The Taj Mahal Tower. Presenting the private world of The Taj Club, impeccable butler service, luxury Jaguar transfers and splendid suites.

Feel at home once again at The Zodiac Grill, Souk, Masala Kraft, Shamiana and Starboard. Reawaken your life force at our Jiva Spa and experience the priceless luxury of an expansive retail emporia.

And very soon, expect to discover the inspiration, romance and intrigue of the legendary Palace Wing.

Welcome Back.

If I had an upcoming trip to India, I would certainly stay there and highly recommend the experience for anyone else making a trip to the region. Now more than ever, a stay at the Taj sends a statement to the terrorists that they can't disrupt our lives and things will go on. Not to mention, it's still one of the best hotels in the world.

Trust me, I stay at a lot of them.

4 Ways Social Media Could Save The Arts

Last week I had the fortune to be part of an event that we should all care about. It was a meeting of the National Arts Marketing Project, a conference sponsored by the Americans for the Arts and designed to help art based organizations around the country use marketing to drive more engagement, subscriptions, and attendance with patrons (a much better word than consumer, by the way). To understand the vibe of the event you need to look no further than a colllection of titles from some of the sessions put on during the three day conference:

• Are You An Urbanite? Attracting Young Ticket Buyers and Donors
• Hacking Copyright: Making "Free" Work In The Arts
• She Says Pithy, I Say Prissy. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off: How Marketing And Development Can Sing In Harmony
• I Can't Do That! How To Make The Big Ask For A Major Gift
• Release Your Organization's Inner Blogger
• Strategies For Countering The Reasons Patrons Resist Subscribing

My own session was called "Embracing Your Accidental Spokespeople: How Obama Let His Best Supporters Speak For Him, And Why You Should Too" and in the roundtable format, we talked about how to find the voices that are passionate about what you do, and unlocking them to share their experiences more widely online and through social media. Over the course of two round table discussions, I learned a lot about the unique challenges that many arts based organizations are facing, as well as discussed several engaging ideas for solutions. Here are a few of the creative solutions that we all came together and discussed as a group about how social media and interactive marketing techniques might help arts based organizations to better promote themselves:

1. Create a sonic brand. Though more specific to groups that create or promote music, one idea that we collectively talked about was what it might be like if every venue or group had a sonic brand. So, for example, like you might hear the Intel jingle at the end of an ad, you would hear a signature piece of music to signal the end of intermission. Something that offers a recognizable brand for a music based organization, while offering an apt extension of a brand based on something that is inherently a part of it.
2. Offer creative material openly for mashups. As more and more people create content online, they will need material like music, still images, and video clips to incorporate. One of the marketing tactics I am fond of at istockphoto.com (a site I use all the time to purchase images to use in my posts and presentations) is having an image for free download each day. What if an arts organization created their own collection of content and offered it for free reuse, dependent on giving credit back to the organization? It could be a great way to spread some brand awareness, as well as offer something viral and useful to content creators.
3. Invite social capital donations. Many people using social media tools are supporters of the arts, but not necessarily donors or people to go to art events. Though it may be difficult to convince them to open their wallets, it may be much more acceptable to have them donate their influence. One brilliant example was a campaign run across both parties during the recent election where you could "donate your Facebook status" to remind people to vote for your guy on election day. It's an example of letting people donate their social capital instead of real money.
4. Allow patrons to share their experience. This topic raised some concerns among the group for a variety of reasons. The two most vocal were that sometimes performers have union contracts that prevent any recording, and that sometimes the artists are afraid of negative criticism that may come with letting their work be freely shared. Still, there are other ways to let people share their experiences - perhaps through live Twittering, or making a cast available after a performance for flipcam interviews with video bloggers. The point is that every arts group needs to find a way of helping word of mouth about what they are doing to travel.

High Peaks Resort's Recession Marketing Strategy

As everyone talks about how the recession may change their business, one industry that will likely feel the effects severely is travel. More specifically, leisure travel as people put off that next vacation, or choose to stick close to home rather than heading to more exotic destinations. You might think there's not much any one property or destination could do to change that, but High Peaks Resort in Lake Placid has a brilliant idea that is doing just that. 

They tied their room rates to the Dow Jones. So when the Dow goes down, their rates for rooms do as well. On a recent day, the Dow closed around 8300, which meant their room rates were $83 - a significant discount from the usual $250 they charge. The menu items at their restaurant also change prices based on this sliding scale. The effect is not only a great promotion that is generating big word of mouth for a single resort that most people would never have otherwise heard of, it's also generating millions of dollars in free publicity and media. While companies like Exxon Mobil continue to post record profits, and many other businesses continue to try and make a few extra bucks off their customers, High Peak Resort's example is a powerful reminder that sometimes the best marketing is to find a way to show your customers that you share their pain ... and give them a real reason to choose you.

Checkpoint Charlie Uses "Passport Marketing" To Attract Visitors

You may not know it, but this weekend is the 18th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and there is a celebration in Germany called Unification day to celebrate the reformation of one Germany. An important remaining part of this story is a place called Checkpoint Charlie. During the war there were 300 of these "checkpoints" spread out across the perimeter of the wall. They were manned by soldiers whose only job was to make sure that people did not try to cross the wall - often using deadly force to carry out their duties. Estimates range in the hundreds (or thousands, depending on whom you talk to) for the number of people who were killed by this checkpoint squad during the time the wall was up. As is often the case with some of humanities worst moments, today the three remaining checkpoints are all tourist destinations.

At Checkpoint Charlie, the most frequently visited of these checkpoints, there is a special marketing program designed to attract travellers. When you visit, they will put a stamp in your passport commemorating the former separation of Germany. You usually carry your passport with you for ten years, and through that time you collect stamps from countries you visit, visas from exotic places, and a living record of where you have been and what you have seen. Most international travellers use their passports as the ultimate travel keepsake. For those travellers, getting a unique stamp from a now defunct destination is an appealing idea. For some, it is probably even their sole reason for visiting Checkpoint Charlie.

Though there is some conversation on travel forums such as the Lonely Planet site about how this technique may invalidate your passport, most of the travellers visiting the site seem to have had no such problems. Assuming the international community doesn't start some sort of crackdown on people getting these sorts of stamps in their passports, how many other places in the world could use this technique? I wrote in the past about how some nation's Tourism Bureaus are using their stamps to connect with philatelists and offer something unique to a certain niche of travellers. Perhaps passport marketing is in the same category as the new undiscovered marketing technique for national tourism boards ...