Running a destination brand on an international market
A destination brand has no customers, it has residents, tourism professionals and an international audience that may never visit. It is the most institutional account I have run, and the one where you learn fastest that a community is not a vanity number.
Over six months the community grew 128%, 70% of it virally and 30% through advertising. The page climbed four places in nine months to become the third on the territory, and the fifteenth in its sector nationally. Engagement came in at +62% against the average of the top fifty local pages and +393% against the top fifty French pages.
And alongside it, an international acquisition system that revealed a gap nobody expected: on the same campaign, run simultaneously on two European markets, cost per sign-up was six times higher on one than on the other.
An island destination in the Indian Ocean, with a tourism board, a network of professional members, and competition from better funded neighbouring destinations. The mandate covered the website rebuild, a dedicated site for a distant English-speaking market, community management, monitoring and crisis handling, search, member training, and email relationship management segmented by accommodation type.
A destination brand is judged by people who buy nothing. An elected official, a hotelier, a competing board, a resident: each has a legitimate opinion and none share an objective. Add the distant market constraint, where the destination has no spontaneous awareness and must compete with islands that spend more. And the crisis constraint: on a territory, bad news travels through the community in hours, and that community is also the population.
1 · Week one: listen and decide.
On site. Understand what the cooperative does, what its buyers and partners need to believe, and what the members are proud of. Positioning written and validated in the room, not by email.
2 · Week two: build the identity.
Visual identity designed against the positioning: name system, marks, colours, typography, and rules simple enough to be applied without a design team. Every choice tested against one question: does this raise institutional trust?
3 · Week three: ship the assets.
The working kit the cooperative actually needed: documents, signage, presentation materials, templates. Delivered with a short guide and a working session so the members could produce their own materials next month.
4 · Spend where perception changes.
The budget went into the few physical touchpoints partners actually see. Nothing was spent on deliverables that flatter the consultant.
2012 to 2014 mandate, destination brand.
- Community up 128% in six months, 70% of it virally
- Over 18 million impressions in one month, up 82%
- Over 130,000 engaged users across three months
- Engagement at +62% against the top fifty local pages and +393% against the top fifty French pages
- Third page on the territory, fifteenth in its national sector, four places gained in nine months
- International campaign at close to 50 million impressions, cost per thousand of 0.15 euro, and a cost per sign-up gap of 0.70 to 4.39 euros between two markets
- Sends segmented by accommodation type, open rates of 21 to 28% against a 17% standard
A destination brand is run like a brand, with a benchmark, a split between earned and paid, and a market-by-market reading. What sets it apart is that it is not allowed to lie: its community is also its population, and it checks. The day the report announces a decline before the client discovers it, the relationship changes nature.
Is your brand judged by people who buy nothing?
The first call30 minutes. We talk about your traction and what is blocking it. You leave with 2 or 3 moves you can act on. No pitch.