Forget social media. Most conversations about brands take place in the real world among real people. How can digital campaigns spark those conversations?
And what influences the tone of voice used and ultimately what impact does that have on brand consideration and travel?
When conversations in Western Europe take place "offline" about travel destinations, 45% of those conversations mention the US, 25% Australia, and 20% Canada, according to a new study.
Among airline brands, Air France led the pack, being mentioned in the past four weeks by 38% of respondents, with British Airways following second at 36% and Lufthansa at 35%.
Those conversations were positive about the brands, teaching social circles new things about the airlines, such as by reassuring friends and family members that they would have a good flight if they hadn't flown an airline recently. About 18% of survey respondents say they were successful in persuading someone else to try a particular airline.
The study, published today, surveyed online 1,600 people evenly divided between in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.
The research was done by InSites Consulting for inTV, a group of nine international television channels, including BBC World News, CNBC, Sky News, France 24, and EuroSport.
Key influencers to target
The study identifies "connectors" as influencers worth targeting because they talk to lots of people and 16% of them are champions of destinations and airlines.
The research suggests that women are more likely to be champions for travel destinations than men and the recommendations of women have the greatest influence in real-life social circles.
When asked "how often do you talk about travel destinations," about 60% of survey respondents said once a month and 40% said once a week — in both cases, mosty with families and friends.
Another group to target is the audience for international TV stations, who are nearly three times as likely to talk about destinations regularly among friends offline than people who don't regularly watch those channels, according to the study.
DMO insights
What matters for direct marketing organizations isn’t whether people are talking about their destinations, but whether that conversation has the potential to convert their friends, family members and co-workers into visitors.
Brand USA launched its first media campaign in the UK in May 2012, spending a £2.3 million. The organization says that the percentage of those who intend to visit the US grew 14% in the months since the launch of the campaign, though the threat of a triple-dip UK recession appears to have delayed some travel plans.
In an interview with MarketingWeek, Greg Klassen, senior vice-president, marketing strategy and communications for the Canadian Tourism Commission says:
Travel is a high-value, reasonably high-risk product category to buy, but you can’t try it on and you can’t see what it looks like in a showroom.…
It is great to see that Canada is at number three in terms of conversations that people are having. My question is how do I work harder to translate some of those conversations people are having about Canada and turning that into an actual booking?
We work to a ‘path to purchase’ model and find that the challenge is trying to translate the good will and conversations into actual visits. In that situation, we find direct paid advertising works the best.
Digital marketing campaigns can be central to generating the stimuli to shape offline conversations into conversion moments.