The old adage of any PR is good PR doesn’t necessarily translate into value in the firehose data-based web economy.
Struggling to cut through the clutter and sheer volume of noise is no trivial effort. Dealing with ADHD click happy web browsers is a challenge that everyone faces.
But Word of Mouth (WOM) analysis is an interesting idea.
Understanding the context of the dialogue around your brand is something that is becoming more and more important.
Travel, of course, is one of the web’s top topics.
So, with this in mind, I read an interesting piece from eMarketer recently on the subject of how WOM analysis can translate into qualitative analysis about a category and brand.
But, interestingly, travel doesn’t do as well as it could. Check out this chart:
As a category this supports my view that travel integrity is often an oxymoron - there has been little brand integrity around truth and honesty in context. particularly during the last economic crisis, when price became not just the prime thing, but almost everything.
Now that times have improved, there is a strong debate about the de-commoditization of travel products – particularly airline seats.
As an aside, this is at the core of the battle between American Airlines and Travelport.
Restoring brand differentiation is a focus clearly for the big airlines - unless of course you are Ryanair, which seems to have found a way to do this via ancillary revenue products in the unbundling of the core ticket that used to be ubiquitous and a commodity.
Nevertheless, I wanted to learn a little more about the tracking of WOM buzz, and found a good presentation from Keller-Fay Group with a case study on Delta Airlines.
So, in short, understanding your brand’s values and being able to analyze the context of the buzz around it online is critically important.
The context is increasingly emerging as a critical factor for how successful you can make your online presence.
Ignore this at your peril, no matter if you are a full B2C brand or even a B2B brand.
Just look at what has happened to ITA Software. It has become a well known brand and its value has increased significantly since the Google acquisition battle started in June this year.
Indeed it might actively think about upping costs if this battle continues much longer as its brand value has clearly risen significantly.