Ms. Willmott

Sales & Marketing

Marketing:Technology is Changing the Rules

By Kristie Willmott, Group Director of E-Business & Customer Development, Jumeirah

Picture a virtual universe (known in the business as "metaverses") where millions of real, adult consumers may spend hours a day. While there, they spend real money to stay at your virtual resort while they play golf, shop, dine, meet one another and sightsee. They live your brand.

This is no fantasy; it's already happening, and some of the world's biggest brands - though very few in the world of travel and tourism - are taking full advantage. And, why not? Where else can you grab the attention of potentially your most valuable customers, for hours instead of seconds? How else can you reach consumers where they really want to be, in real time, while they're doing what they want to do? A newspaper advertisement glanced at quickly and thrown away? A tagline on the radio? A television commercial that is TIVOed away?

Technology - particularly personal technology - is changing the rules of marketing and advertising with blinding speed. As quickly as new communications and information managing devices change consumer lifestyles, new consumer expectations demand even newer technologies. Remember VHS? The Walkman? It has been estimated that, today, the lifespan of any single consumer communications device is less than 18 months before it is reconceived or improved. The result is what Trendwatching.com has called the "Master of the Youniverse," a "new consumer who creates his or her own playground, own comfort zone, own universe."

The expectations of today's consumers, spurred on by technology that puts a world of information and entertainment within instant reach at any time of day or night, are dramatically different from those of only a few years ago. Technological advances that were predicted to create more leisure time have, instead, empowered people to live vastly busier existences, even to live multiple lives and have multiple identities. For the marketer, and especially the marketer of lifestyle products or services, the new consumer represents enormous opportunities and daunting challenges. Because the online universe is still largely best understood by the young, that new consumer also represents our future market (how we make our current customers, who may be less "cyber-savvy," comfortable with technology is of tremendous importance and will be addressed in a future article).

How have the rules of marketing and advertising changed? Today's "instant world" means that our audiences expect their content, their information and the access to it, to be available when and how they want it. They expect instant access (even dial-up internet access is now unacceptable) and instant gratification. With every second of their lives occupied and bombarded by incoming information, their time is limited, they want to able to make decisions quickly. They have no time to wait and no interest in sifting through information that does not interest them. So, how do we reach them? Some observations:

• The static content of offline marketing is out; no time lags are allowed. As the Economist has pointed out, consumers used to be viewed as a "theoretical audience" to whom advertisers had "the privilege of exposing" their message. Adopting what I view as almost a "one size fits all" approach, the traditional marketer could only "hope" that the message caught the eye when the reader closed the magazine or passed the billboard enroute to work. Today, we need to make it possible for the consumer to interact with the message in real time and take measurable action.

• Today's consumers are in charge. They decide what they want to hear, when they want to hear it and from whom. Increasingly often, it isn't from us. With the ability to gather information and exchange it with others on a global basis, frequently they'd rather be persuaded by other consumers, total strangers. Online social networks are increasingly popular. What amounts to word of mouth marketing crosses huge divides in culture and language. Hence such heavily trafficked websites as TripAdvisor.
  
  The marketer is left looking for effective ways of saying, "I have what you want, what you may have always wished for," and saying it not to mass audiences but to individuals. Should we even bother with placing adverts, or trying to get consumers to respond to us when the real challenge is going to them, becoming part of their worlds?

• Google virtually anything - left-handed white wine lovers - and chances are there will be an online forum or membership group to match. Technology and information management has enabled consumers to explore and identify with virtually any interest or characteristic they might have, and find other consumers with similar interests. Increasingly, they no longer see themselves in the traditional broad demographics that we, as marketers, once depended upon. It's no surprise that mass culture, as reflected, for example, in network "one size fits all" television programming is rapidly dwindling away; too many consumers have too many highly specific interests and tastes that they are completely able to enjoy.
  
  As marketers and brand owners who rightly strive for on solid return on investment, how do we direct our creativity and resources? The answer is with nimbleness and flexibility: instead of trying to be all things to all people we need to find ways to be the right thing for each of a staggering volume and variety of narrowly defined markets. One way to succeed is to create marketing so compelling it becomes entertainment and draws consumers to it. A major American automobile company, for example, created a website where visitors could create or submit their own advertisements for the company's latest model. Risky, yes - negative commercials were posted - but the end result generated major awareness of the vehicle.

• Remember the AIDA marketing acronym: Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action? This was once a process that required the co-ordinated efforts of field or tele-sales teams and a marketing department. Now the entire process can be achieved in a single electronic communication. Perhaps we should manipulate the same acronym to reflect today's world of the 'always on, always available and always changing' to mean: Access (your customer), Interact (with them in real time - 'notice them'), Develop (a two way relationship - get to 'know them'), and Action (their purchasing decisions).

The new technologies

Metaverses, where consumers live in online societies, able to reinvent themselves for cyberspace, may be on the cutting edge of today's marketing opportunities - the hugely popular world of online games is another - but a great assortment of other technologies are rapidly being put to use. What they all have in common is a shift from passive to interactive communication, real time engagement, fine tuning of target audiences and a sometimes breathtaking ability to deliver a highly personalized experience. A summary includes:

Ironically, as we all begin to redirect our marketing resources from offline to online, in its many guises and often surprising manifestations, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We may be trying to understand revolutionary technology that has the power to change human nature, but what are we really after? As always, a deeper relationship with our customers, a deeper understanding of how they think and feel, a better grasp on the media and the technology that supports and shapes their lives. In essence is that so different than trying to decipher who really reads The New York Times?

Aside from the considerable cost of adopting new technologies for marketing and advertising (as well as for virtually all other aspects of hotel operations) and the need for skills that most of us (except youngest staff) were never raised to understand, the greatest challenge in mastering today's marketing possibilities is simply keeping up with them. It is likely that technology will continue to evolve at ever faster rates. Devices, techniques and systems that today seem beyond belief will be pass'e in a matter of years. What hospitality marketing will look like in ten years is anyone's guess but, in the meantime, we're not likely to experience a more awesome adventure.

Kristie Willmott is Group Director of E-Business and Customer Development for Jumeirah. Kristie heads the online strategy to grow sales revenue and deepen consumer relationships. Kristie has held positions with Le Meridien, Utell and Virgin Atlantic Airways, where she developed web affiliate programs, 3rd party onward distribution, loyalty programs and sales. Kristie holds a First Class Bachelor of Arts Honors degree from the University of North London and is an Executive Officer on the HEDNA Board of Directors. Born in Holland and raised in the UK, Kristie now lives in Dubai, UAE. Ms. Willmott can be contacted at 971-4-3300111 or kristie.willmott@jumeirah.com Extended Bio...

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