Different and distinctive – the irrefutable case for both in tourism
When it comes to tourism marketing, it's important for both differentiation and distinctiveness, argues Phil Watson, creative strategy director at Circul8.
Unless you’ve been trapped in some sort of programmatic lower funnel hell for the past few years, you will likely have come across the sometimes heated debate around the roles differentiation and distinctiveness play in marketing success.
There’s plenty of good analysis out there; this article isn’t going to try and explain the nuances. However, here’s a quick refresher for anyone who needs it.
On one side you have the amusingly sweary Professor Mark Ritson who champions an inclusive approach that acknowledges the necessity of distinctive brand assets, but also demands that we consider differentiation to be real and meaningful, even if it’s just relative to the competition.
On the other side, you have the less sweary but amusingly forthright Professor Byron Sharp who urges us to consider that in reality people largely don’t consider brands to be ‘meaningfully different’ and that the research suggests that success relies greatly on developing ‘meaninglessly distinctive’ brand assets and making sure everyone – and that really means everyone – sees them.
As noted, this is not meant to be an exhaustive breakdown of the two points of view. In the interests of transparency, I should also point out that your correspondent is a graduate of the Ritson mini MBA, but has also read ‘How Brands Grow’. I was also once anointed with approval by Lord Bryon himself, in a place no less prestigious than the Mumbrella comments section.
Hopefully that means you’re getting a balanced point of view, not a load of “horseshit” as Prof Ritson would no doubt have it.
More importantly, this is being written from a hotel in Tahiti, on a shoot for Tahiti Tourism. Spoiler alert: Differentiation literally looms over everything here in the form of dramatic, lush mountains that rise from sea level to over 2000 metres.
From this idyllic viewpoint, creating ‘meaninglessly distinctive’ brand assets to promote Tahiti as a tourism destination would be an act of almost deranged adherence to a principle that only reliably holds true in certain circumstances.
Tourism marketing frequently deals with unarguably ‘differentiated’ propositions. Tahiti is a perfect example: the mix of French and Polynesian culture, a diverse landscape that is both tropical and mountainous and the more subtle concept of ‘mana’ – the life force that flows through everything.
Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania are other examples that have undeniably ‘different’ characteristics. It’s not even ‘relative difference’ in the case of the kangaroo – it’s absolute. Unless you are stretching the boundaries of what ‘meaningfully different’ means – in which case you should be reading philosophy, not advertising commentary.
Like philosophy though, this can feel like a problem of language. In tourism marketing what’s distinctive is also what’s differentiated when it comes to the types of assets you should use.
That’s not to say that distinctiveness on it’s own has no role to play. There is a history of fantastic tourism work for Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand that makes a significant effort to build distinctive assets. However, they seem largely rooted in what’s actually different about the place.
There aren’t many destinations that have the same issue that many mass FMCG products face; that is, they are undeniably undifferentiated to the competition. If you removed the branding people would be unable to distinguish their taste, appearance or effect.
FMCG products also tend to be accessible and potentially useable by everyone, again something that tourism destinations don’t tend to contend with. The Ehrenberg-Bass rule of reaching all possible buyers all the time may well lead to a few new customers for tourism destinations, but it would be an unwise use of budget when there are audiences who are far more likely and able to respond.
Where tourism destinations do share similarities that make them more ‘undifferentiated’ – and without precise research to prove it this probably means generic beach and resort type vacations – the use of distinctive assets will likely come much more strongly into play. And possibly more primarily the distinctive assets of the tourism operator.
In conclusion, when it comes to tourism marketing, the case for ‘bothism’ as Mark Ritson puts it, is clear. Differentiation does exist and should form the basis of your distinctive assets. And if you haven’t got a kangaroo, a tropical mountain or a wildly pure landscape, you might need to lean more towards Byron Sharp and invest in a creative agency to give you something distinctive to help make your marketing more effective.
Thanks for reading. I’m off for some definitely differentiated but also distinctively delicious Tahitian speciality: Poisson Cru. Mauruuru.
Phil Watson is creative strategy director at Circul8.
