odwyers-magazine-july-2014

FEATURE
Travel marketing pros: publish or perish
As the travel journalism industry continues to shrink, brands
specializing in hospitality and leisure have not only a newfound
opportunity to fill the content gap — they have a professional
obligation as well.
By Alice Diaz
When staff members at The
New York Times opined in
their leaked May internal
Innovation Report that “we are falling
behind in …. the art and science of getting
our journalism to our readers,” you
know the debate about how to connect
with consumers in a fragmented, distracted,
on-demand culture has reached
a new level.
The now-infamous Times report is
telling. The fact is, public relations professionals
and communications teams
in the travel industry are faced with the
very same challenge.
Travel is a vast global industry. It’s
crucial to the health of economies, and
it’s seen as a fundamental element of a
life well lived. Yet traditional spaces
for telling our stories are becoming less
numerous.
Most travel editors disappeared years
ago, and the pages they oversaw have
dwindled in many cities to a lifestyle
add-on. Glossy travel magazines have
shuttered, and survivors are remaking
themselves to appeal to readers who are
on the bus, waiting in line or walking
down the street.
How do destinations, cruise lines,
hotels and others break through when
broad circulation publications struggle,
multi-tasking readers cherry pick content
and consumers, especially
Millennials, are no longer trustful of or
influenced by advertising
Why storytelling matters
Boomers may travel for bragging
rights, and Millennials may travel for
experience. In either case the story is
the essential, and public relations professionals
long-ago mastered the art of
figuring out the story. Now we can pair
that expertise with the science —
understanding where travelers get
information, keywords they search for,
and real-time analysis of what they talk
about — enabling us to be the best storytellers
of today.
Traditionalists in the travel industry
may take exception to this approach;
they may feel that public relations
agencies are not Condé Nast Traveler
and should stay out of the publishing
business. Everyone is in the publishing
business these days, and the publishing
business itself changes every day. Trip
Advisor is not a traditional publisher,
and yet the experience and editorial
judgment that Travel Advocate Wendy
Perrin brings to the site from her days
as a writer with Condé Nast Traveler is
a valuable development none of us
would have predicted a year ago. And
as the contraction among travel writers
continues, our clients have not only an
opportunity but an obligation to customers
to fill the content gap.
The expert’s experience, insider’s voice
Why does public relations need to
lead the charge in storytelling for travel
clients In our Travel & Lifestyle
practice at Weber Shandwick, we are an
extension of the client team and
immerse ourselves in the business and
the experience. For many years, editors
had to hear the passion in our voices
and listen to our stories. Because we
dive deep into our clients’ experience
and learn its nuances, we frame richer
stories that go beyond the features and
benefits of a display ad. We can also
tell a story through the lens of consumers’
passions in a way that ensures
the content is being discovered and
shared in travelers’ news feeds.
Last, and most certainly not least, we
are exceptionally well connected to editors,
reporters, producers, bloggers and
influencers. We know the story needs to
be strategic, consistent with business
goals and well framed, but it also needs
to be handled as a dynamic piece of
content that must travel well from the
drawing board to the brand publishing
platform and on to the wider web of
connections through new and emerging
social channels to capture the attention
of consumers.
Publishing is just the beginning
The Weber Shandwick Travel &
Lifestyle practice has already evolved
alongside many clients, including
Royal Caribbean International, which
introduced the line’s newest ship,
Quantum of the Seas, not only with a
global media event, but also by utilizing
Mediaco, our brand publishing unit
that provides an end-to-end solution
helping brands become full-scale media
networks.
The plan was to facilitate expanded
media coverage but
also to self-publish
stories to ensure
consumers learned
about the worlds’
most technologically
advanced ship.
We provided the
Alice Diaz
expected “new
cruise ship” content
and dissected the
cruise story to create
culturally relevant
lifestyle topics that would expand
our reach.
But publishing the story is just the
beginning. The New York
Times Innovation Report proved that
publishers need to promote their own
content. Doing so ensures greater reach
with the right audiences.
Our Royal Caribbean team worked
directly with contacts at Gizmodo,
Eater, The Wall Street Journal and independent
influencers to drive
coverage. In addition, we saw publishers
like Yahoo! Travel, Just Jared and Condé
Nast Traveler pick up the content we
produced, demonstrating the need to
work with journalists as publishing partners.
No standard press release or native
ad could have ever been as effective at
reaching media and consumers.
The Times is a titan of journalism. As
its soul-searching treatise says, the goal
is “to get more out of the journalism we
are already creating.” It’s a good time
for marketing professionals to begin
asking themselves if they are fully utilizing
the talent and knowledge of their
public relations agencies, and whether
they even have a public relations
agency that is prepared to take advantage
of the opportunities that change in
the media industry has created. You can
publish and yet perish without the strategy
and connections to find, be found
and be shared by engaged consumers.
Alice Diaz is Executive Vice President
and leader of Weber Shandwick Travel
& Lifestyle Practice. £
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JULY 2014 4 WWW.ODWYERPR.COM