Bertrand Cesvet is brilliant. Yes, a brilliant communicator and AdMan, Cesvet is the chairman and chief strategist of award winning agency Sid Lee. The AdMan term in this day and age is not quite appropriate. The advertising business has been turned on its head by the advent of social media and the power of the consumer. Cesvet understands this better than many in the advertising and communications business. His book Conversational Capital, co-written with Tony Babinki and Eric Alper is a case in point. Cesvet understands that today conversations have more power than ever. We've always known that positive word-of-mouth is the most powerful advertising any product can have. The difference today is that this word-of-mouth can now spread virally to thousands of people (and in some cases hundreds of thousands) very quickly in social media. Enter Conversational Capital. At its simplest, I understand Conversational Capital as the value of the conversations generated by a product, service, artist, or in the case of tourism, a destination or an experience. The hard part is how to create this Conversational Capital. It's very hard. But not impossible. And, contrary to what some people may think in regards to social media, creating word of mouth does not only happen through happy accidents (Banff Squirrel, Knut the Polar Bear), but through careful planning, flexibility (you must be ready to act at a moment's notice) and lots of creativity (Dove). And it may not be inexpensive as some people think when it comes to social media.
-
The challenge for tourism marketers is to translate the lessons of the book into action. Tourism is very different than most other products, especially those that are known by their brands. One of the reasons for this is that the relationship with tourism product is normally very fleeting, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Not much repeat business -except perhaps for tourism products in certain categories, like skiing and beach getaways and business trips that take a traveler to the same city over and over again. While, I don't have hard data, I tend to believe that most vacationers want to go to many places around the world, but will not necessarily go back again and again, given the myriad destinations available. Thus the relationship with a destination is not the same as with other products like a car, a smart phone, an artist who has a new movie or a new album out every so often. Once, you've been to Paris you may want to go to Rome next time.
-
So how can you work with the 10 engines of Conversational Capital - Rituals, Initiation, Exclusive Product Offering, Over-Delivery, Myths, Relevant Sensory Oddity, Icons, Tribalism, Endorsement and Continuity - to attract tourists to your destination or attraction? This is the key question, one, that I'm sure Bertrand will address during his keynote presentation at Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2010 next January in Montreal. Try not to miss it. Register at www.canadaeconnect.com .
-
Jaime Horwitz
Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010
A TIAC conference in cooperation with PhoCusWright
No comments:
Post a Comment