Hotels Increase 2012 Marketing Budgets for Mobile and Social Campaigns

From Travelclick: Hotels Increase 2012 Marketing Budgets for Mobile and Social Campaigns: Increases in Staff and Budgets Show Optimistic Outlook for Hotel Industry in 2012

Smartphone usage is rapidly increasing around the world. Recognizing this growing trend and the opportunity to capture market share among consumers booking travel via digital devices, global hoteliers are investing more resources into mobile websites and other marketing initiatives.

According to a recent poll conducted by TravelClick 50 percent of hotels plan to put more marketing dollars towards mobile websites and marketing. Overall, 43 percent of hotels are planning to increase overall marketing budgets for 2012. Of those surveyed, 34 percent expect to keep their marketing budgets the same as 2011, and only 3 percent plan to decrease their marketing spend.

"According to Nielsen, 40 percent of the Western Europe and 38 percent of the U.S. cell phone markets are dominated by smartphones. Given these rising numbers, it is essential that hoteliers optimize their websites for mobile use to increase direct bookings from travelers that are using their mobile devices to select rooms," said Jason Ewell, Senior Vice President, E-Commerce, TravelClick.

The poll, which was conducted during a webinar titled: "2011 Second Quarter Global Hotel Industry Update," also showed that almost all the attendees polled (95.3 percent) plan to either increase their workforce (50 percent) or keep their workforce the same (45.3 percent). Of the respondents planning to increase their workforce, 30 percent plan to hire staff specifically for social media.

"Not only are hoteliers increasing budgets for mobile websites and marketing, but they are also increasing staff in areas such as social media. Hoteliers are recognizing how important mobile and social media are to guests, and they have begun to put more resources towards creating and maintaining these channels through staff additions and marketing increases," continued Ewell.

Review: New Medalla Light Website

Wow, has it been THAT long. Late last year, I started a new category called websites. And I really had more intention to do this on a regular basis, but oops, you know, about a million other things have been filling my head, and it got lost in the clutter.

Back in September, I took a look at the Puerto Rico Coors Light web site, if you haven't seen it, take a look first, then you'll know what to expect from this review. And it sort of seems fitting that I'm going to pick this up, sort of where I left on the last one.

MedallaLight.com

A couple of weeks back I checked on last year's winner of the WebAd Awards, and to my surprise, the sight had been replaced by an under construction page. First of all, why do that? Put a teaser on the old site that something new is coming, but for me, a page under construction or site under construction is just pointless.

Anyway, so recently, Medalla Light announced that their new site was up and ready to provide a new level of interactivity. So I decided to head over there and check it out. First of all, let me congratulate Medalla and the designers of their new site Sajo, Garcia, & Partners along with Contactiva Interactive on one thing they have done that is VERY cool. They have broken out of the Adobe Flash paradigm. While the new site does use Flash, it is only to provide some movement to the site, but besides that they are using HTML, Javascript, and CSS. I really mean this, it is important that Puerto Rico Ad agencies and designers move away from Flash and it takes a bold decision to break out of the generic "do as everyone else does" pack.

While viewing the source to the site, however, they may want to evaluate their usage of Javascript, for while it does give a web page more interactivity, it can also slow it down. At times it seems that the new site is a little slow. This might be due to my connection, general Internet congestion, or a symptom of too much Javacript to execute. It's difficult to tell, but I think a little tweaking might be in-store to fine-tine the performance of the site.

The Medalla Light Brand

I think it's also courageous and bold to discard a winner. I thought the old site was very well done, and served their brand very effectively. So I'm not sure what they had as goals for the new site design, but I believe as the announcement I saw, they were hoping to build a platform which engaged their community more. I can't really remember if the old site had any of the functionality I see on the new site, but I do see some cool features.

From joining their community, to sending a link to a friend, to checking out their Facebook group, the new site does have many points for the visitor to interact. I tried out a few of the features and everything seemed to work. A couple of minor picky things. When inviting a friend to see a picture or to invite them to an event, the form doesn't give any feedback (other than clearing the form) that the form was submitted successfully. Perhaps they should use the same code they use on the registration form to simply tell the visitor that the message was sent.

Another suggestion I would make, is for them to customize the emails the page sends out. The message you receive from the system is generic, it should indicate that this is a picture, an event, a whatever. Although the link it provides is to the right content you want to share, the message itself is the same. Also, it doesn't include the name of the person who sent them the message. People are more likely to open a link that kind of looks like spam, if it includes the name and a message from someone they recognize.

Technology

Once again, kudos for not using Flash, but their push for innovation didn't stop there. Of course, they have an embedded music player supplying the bumping sounds. They also have a video section, and two new technologies: RSS and Facebook.

I could be wrong, but I'm not, but there might be a problem with the video section. Either that or the menu link is malfunctioning, because I never could pull up the video section. In addition,, unless the home page is the video section, the videos embedded in the home page are very slow.

While I can definitely understand wanting to be consistent with the branding, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to upload the videos to YouTube and embed them in the web site from there. Of course, they should already be on YouTube, if you ask me. The logic goes something like this, if you're not in the video hosting business, why host your own videos? Many business experts recommend outsourcing everything that is not your specialty, and in this case I think video hosting applies.

The site now has a news feed, I guess sort of like a blog. Two comments, first, in order to need a feed you have to produce content. The site, so far, is a little light on news. Second, a headline does not make it news. Each news entry should have a little meat on it. Besides that I think it's a nice addition. Time will tell whether they deliver on making the RSS feed valuable enough to want to subscribe to it.

Finally, in the community section they have a link to their Facebook group. Checking out the group it looks like they have a nice little community started. It also seems to be well synchronized to their home page. One dilemma most businesses are facing these days is the typical build or buy (use) challenge. In this case, why build a community on the website, if you've already got one going in Facebook?

Of course, in order to capitalize on the community in Facebook, might require a custom built Facebook application. But of course, they would need a software development company with experience in building those applications. Hint, hint! Leave us a comment if you would like DóndeEs.com to help you build that Facebook application. Oh did I forget to mention that DóndeEs.com is the only software development company in Puerto Rico that has already developed and implemented a Facebook application?

New Category: WebSites

With this post, I'm going to launch a new category for Dondequiera. This new category will be called Websites and the content of the posts will be reviews of web sites pertinent to Puerto Rico. I'm going to be looking at websites that I find as I research information for the blog and give a refreshingly honest and new perspective to how I and many other people, I'm sure, interact and relate to the site. Seen from another perspective we can consider these reviews as a case study analysis of web site design, usability, search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

While I promise not to dog every site I come across, I will not pull any punches no matter who is the subject of the review. At the same time, I hope that this honest feedback will give web site designers and advertising agencies some valuable information about what they are doing right and wrong. So which site will I use to start this new category? Now that I'm thinking about it, I should probably start with DondeEs.com, so just to be fair. I'll do us next, I promise. It's just that I was all set to blog about some event this morning and ran across a site that I think really needs to be reviewed. So while the adrenaline is flowing, I hope you'll indulge me in ranting first, then eating my own dog food second when I look at DonDees.com (as we warmly refer to it internally).

CoorsLightPR.com

So here's the deal, I'm researching this event that Coors Light is announcing everyplace called "Style", a fashion forward music event through the eyes of vanguard designer Eddie Guerrero. I'm like, that sounds pretty cool, but me being the fashion idiot I am, I say who is Eddie Guerrero? Here's the clincher and the reason for my rant, the advertisements say "Info at coorslightpr.com". Cool, I can get the down-low on this event at the site and figure out what to write. When I get to the website, after entering that I was born on January 1st, 1800, I enter the site. (I think that by law the alcoholic beverage web sites have to ensure that the person entering the web page is old enough to drink.) What a huge CYA policy, I mean does this really prove anything?

So I cruised through all of the links and tried to find more information about this event. I found a few links, but in the end I didn't find one piece of information more about the event than what was in the original advertisement. I think that really, really sucks. First I feel tricked to have wasted my time when I gained nothing for my effort. Marketers, please don't waste my time! Second, what a lost opportunity. I took action to go to your web page and you spit in my face. You could have really seized this opportunity and gave me more than I expected. The sky was the limit: paper dolls with Eddie Guerrero fashions, photos, videos, wallpapers, learn how to be a fashion designer, and on and on. CoorslightPR, You gave me squat and I'm mad at you for it.

History Repeats or Why does this site look so familiar?

It's probably worth noting that if you visit the Coors Light PR web page, it was recently redesigned and launched. According to the Director of Marketing of Coors Brewing for Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, Juan Casillas, "el relanzamiento de nuestro ya existente portal cibernético queremos ofrecerle al consumidor alternativas innovadoras para que se mantengan informados de todo lo que sucede con la marca”. First question, after insulting my intelligence as described above, why should I care about your brand, no seriously, the dilemma I have is does the public in general care about what's going on with the brand Coors Light? For me brand is something that seeps in while people consume content, entertain themselves, or get informed. Brand is something that, typically, only brand managers care about. For the rest of us, it's does this product make me feel good about myself? Yes, Ok cool I'll buy it. Does this product make me kick-ass, Ok here's my credit card.

It's rather obvious that all of the alcoholic beverage companies here in Puerto Rico believe that their target audience is 18 to 34. I'll have to take that at face value, without a doubt I know that's when I did my heaviest drinking. ;-) So to a certain extent, I guess it follows that the content, image, and aesthetic are going to be similar. However, since Medalla Light won the first ever Web Awards in the 2007 SME Puerto Rico Internet Forum 2007: Webolution, I have a strange feeling that more and more of the alcoholic beverage web sites are going to resemble that of Medalla Light.

Adobe Flash

You're going to get sick hearing this one, but until everybody learns it, repeat with me "Just say no to Flash", I'm going to continue to hammer on this point. People, people, people we have to stop the madness. Stop making Adobe Flash-based web sites. I won't deny that web designers can make some very pretty eye-candy web sites, but there are more ways available to achieve many of the same flashy effects. There are ways to make Flash work and do all the things that a good web site should, however, unfortunately very few people take the necessary time to learn how to create effective rich user interfaces with Flash.

You're probably wondering, what's so evil about Flash? Well besides making it easy for web designers to make very annoying designs with buttons that make noise every time you pass the mouse over them and cramming too much crap together on the same page, in a word: search results. Well technically that's two, however the point is that if a Flash web site is not done to meet the highest standards of search engine optimization, the web site is invisible to a search engine. You think I'm just ranting? Then let's hit the search engines and see how the Coors Light Puerto Rico web site does....

Searching for "coors light PR" - Ok since the search string matches exactly their domain, it's pretty hard not to be #1.

"coors light Puerto Rico" - Well isn't that interesting! They aren't #1 any more they are 8th, they barely made the first page of results.

"coors light PR style" - What we now see, when trying to search for content that appears within the Coors Light PR web site, is that anything contained within the Flash movie is invisible to Google. This is typical of a Flash movie where the "content" is contained within the movie (a binary proprietary file format), and is not integrated with the Flash at the point of viewing (which would be a combination of the binary format along with text). In general, if content links are not available to Google in the form of text, it cannot see those links. And remember, no links = no indexing = invisibility in Google. Here are a few other search terms I tried, but all with the same result: "coors light PR imagenes" and "coors light PR video podcasts".

Viralability versus ownership

Speaking of video podcasts, the search for "coors light PR video podcasts" is really a huge lost opportunity, because they believe that the videos will really connect with the company's target market. And they are right, they will connect with the young drunken demographic in Puerto Rico, but by being hidden within their website, with no inbound links how will anybody find them?

One of the keynote speakers of the 6th annual convention of the Sales and Marketing Executive Association, Andy Sernovitz, author of the book "Word of Mouth Marketing, How Smart Companies Get People Talking" recommends "Making it easy for consumers to spread the message faster and farther". So with that goal in mind, here's the million dollar question: "What has Coors Light done to spread the message"?

"Build it and they will come....", no I'm not quoting from "Field of Dreams", I'm quoting the mantra that has always been the honey that attracts marketers to the web. In essence, marketers believe that if they build a good web site the traffic will come. While this might have been true back in 1998, it has stopped being true since search engines emerged as the most popular way to find web sites. And it now has been completely erased from the face of the web with the popularity of sites like YouTube and Flickr combined with blogging.

Marketers stuck with the "Field of Dreams" marketing approach also believe that you must tightly control your content, less it become copied and shared around the web. And rightfully so, because they spend a lot of money (the marketers) developing that content, so they don't want to lose it. So they put that content in a Flash movie where it can't be copied, can't be linked to, and can't be shared. So what they end up with is spending a lot of money on content and then putting it within a castle tower with no way to access or learn about the availability of the content. Hmm, isn't that kind of the opposite of what they had in mind when they built their web site and developed the content?

Oh and by the way, it's only a podcast if you can actually subscribe to the "channel" that produces the content. According to Wikipedia podcast is: "a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers." If I can't subscribe to a feed, then it's not a podcast it's merely streaming media. I think that Coors Light calling their videos "video podcasts" is the lowest of lows in marketing. Trying to capture the buzz of a buzz-word, without actually understanding what the term means, degrades the message marketers will try to broadcast, especially to those consumers that do understand what the term means.

Suggestions for Coors Light

The first one should be obvious, get rid of Flash or get it right so that your content gets indexed. You're spending good money and probably aren't reaching as much of your target market as you desire. Second, become interested in search engine optimization and search engine marketing. They are both extremely cost effective ways to spread your message.

Finally, you have some great content. I really enjoyed seeing some footage of the recent Daddy Yankee concert. The video montage is well done and gives a good feel for what the concert was like. While some 40,000 people were lucky enough to attend the concerts, that leaves hundreds of thousands of people who might want to see what they missed. Keeping the video locked up within the coorslightpr.com domain is a waste. So first, create a YouTube channel and publish the Daddy Yankee video and all of your other videos. Let your content go! If you want to spread your message further, setup a RSS feed so that subscribers can download the videos to their iPods or Computers. To facilitate that you might even want to establish the feed on the iTunes Music Store.

The same goes for all of the photographs you have in your gallery. Setup a Flickr account and start sharing the photographs. If you're clever you'll make sure that every picture includes the Coors Light logo in the image so that when people start plugging the images into slide shows and MySpace pages, you've multiplied the exposure of your message and brand for merely the cost of a Flickr account.

Oh, and remember, say it with me "Just say no to Flash!"