Reviewing the report yesterday we thought that was interesting to apply the following three levels studied in previous modules to Lonely Planet.
The levels are:
1. CORPORATE PERSONALITY, so the internal culture of the company.
2. CORPORATE IMAGE, so what the company wants to project of itself.
3. CORPORATE PERCEPTION, so what the people really perceive about the company and its products and services.
Checking the website to try to find some information about the corporate image and personality we realize that there was nothing. So, the only analysis we could do was based in assumptions.
So, after analysing Lonely Planet we think that the image and the personality of the company is very friendly and close to its consumers. We think that because of the history of the creation of the company and also because of the way that the company interacts with their public. Furthermore, we think that this is the perception that the public have, as they are sharing their pictures, experiences and tips with lonely planet and their community.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Types of Brands
Reading again the lecture notes of International Branding I think it is important to classify Lonely Planet under one of the three types of brands, so:
1-SEARCH BRANDS, brands with a high-level of substitution, impulse buying, physical sensations.
2- EXPERIENCE BRANDS, brands that depend on a physical experience. For example, restaurants, tourist destinations. (mainly services).
3- CREDENCE BRANDS, brands that require a high-level of trust. For example, high-tech, hospitals, bancs.
In the case of Lonely Planet I would say that is an EXPERIENCE BRAND, because the clients experience the recommendations of the travel guide and base they perception of the brand on their affinity with this recommendations and experiences.
1-SEARCH BRANDS, brands with a high-level of substitution, impulse buying, physical sensations.
2- EXPERIENCE BRANDS, brands that depend on a physical experience. For example, restaurants, tourist destinations. (mainly services).
3- CREDENCE BRANDS, brands that require a high-level of trust. For example, high-tech, hospitals, bancs.
In the case of Lonely Planet I would say that is an EXPERIENCE BRAND, because the clients experience the recommendations of the travel guide and base they perception of the brand on their affinity with this recommendations and experiences.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Blog Sherpa
I wanted to share some extracts of an article talking about Blog Sherpa, a very innovating tool I think. This platform will help Lonely Planet to create a gateway to their content and to reward their bloggers!
The article is available online on the Lonely Planet website:
http://inside-digital.blog.lonelyplanet.com/2008/11/14/working-with-bloggers/
It is called « Working with bloggers », published by Matthew Cashmore, Lonely Planet author, on 14 November 2008, 12:39pm
Here under is an extract:
”[…] Lonely Planet has always been about sharing, sharing our content, and sharing the insights that people have on the road with the rest of our audience. We’ve always had a fantastic relationship with our readers, and readily accept all forms of feedback. From emails to mailed-in guide books, we’ve always prided ourselves on incorporating all that feedback into the next edition of the book – and that’s something that’s informed the new website and importantly the new APIs and services. One of those services (currently code-named blogsherpa) is aimed at connecting the amazing content our authors produce with the stunning content that travel bloggers all over the world produce. The premise is simple. Allow Lonely Planet to publish your posts on lonelyplanet.com and we’ll use your Google Adsense ID on the adverts on that page – you’ll earn the cash – and we provide a better service for readers of the website...”
If you need more information, please read as well the article available on the following link: http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-swn-lonely-planet-to-share-ad-revenue-with-amateur-travel-bloggers/
The article is available online on the Lonely Planet website:
http://inside-digital.blog.lonelyplanet.com/2008/11/14/working-with-bloggers/
It is called « Working with bloggers », published by Matthew Cashmore, Lonely Planet author, on 14 November 2008, 12:39pm
Here under is an extract:
”[…] Lonely Planet has always been about sharing, sharing our content, and sharing the insights that people have on the road with the rest of our audience. We’ve always had a fantastic relationship with our readers, and readily accept all forms of feedback. From emails to mailed-in guide books, we’ve always prided ourselves on incorporating all that feedback into the next edition of the book – and that’s something that’s informed the new website and importantly the new APIs and services. One of those services (currently code-named blogsherpa) is aimed at connecting the amazing content our authors produce with the stunning content that travel bloggers all over the world produce. The premise is simple. Allow Lonely Planet to publish your posts on lonelyplanet.com and we’ll use your Google Adsense ID on the adverts on that page – you’ll earn the cash – and we provide a better service for readers of the website...”
If you need more information, please read as well the article available on the following link: http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-swn-lonely-planet-to-share-ad-revenue-with-amateur-travel-bloggers/
Plan Your Trip !
To bounce back on what you were saying during the meeting Maria, I wanted to share with you the short video published by Lonely Planet on their tool called “Plan Your Trip” which I found is a good start to help their users to plan their travels.
Please take few minutes to watch the online video because I really think it worth it ! It is a very interesting tool that is easy to use and help to save a lot of time on planning!
How to maintain your community users?
Sicilia M. Palazo M. conducted a study on the Coca Cola online brand communities. Their research paper described and analyzes the most successful online strategies developed by a global brand, Coca-Cola, in Spain. The authors argues that the Coca Cola website act as “a marketing tool helping to develop a group of loyal consumers around the brand” and that the company achieve it by “the creation of a virtual community, which provides functional, social, and experiential values”. What I have understood is that companies to maintain participation by its online virtual community need to provide to 3 different kinds of contents/values:
- > Functional values are about allowing people to create contents on forums, supporting spaces for people to debate online, enable their customers to download goodies about the brand (ie: wallpapers, games…)
- > Social values are about providing a platform where people can use to meet people (ie: social space, messenger, voting)
- > Entertainment values to create memorable experience, linked to the Flow criteria introduced by Hoffman and Novak (1996). This type of contents appeal to emotional, sensorial experience of the brand. (ie: Tournaments, games, prize winning…).
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Myth and Reality - Community and the brand
MYTH : Build the brand, and the community will follow.
This quotation is from Fournier S and Lee L. written in partnership with the Jump associates companies (a US fifty-person strategy firm with offices in the San Francisco and New York city). This emphasizes the fact that “the brand community services the people in it more than the business”, indeed putting the brand second is essential for a marketer if he wants to build a strong brand community. Consumers are joining brand communities for very different and complex reasons, not only to express their shared-valued around one specific brand; they connect to build relationship, to look for emotional link or for encouragements. To sum up “joining a brand community is a mean to an end not an end itself”, as demonstrated in the article.
Virtual Community
Reading the academic article “Relationships and online consumer communities” wrote by Julian Farguhar and Jennifer Rowley we find the definition of virtual communities as “any group of people who share a common bond, yet who are not dependent on physical interaction”.
The article also cites the different types of virtual community strategy (Barnatt, 1998) being:
1. Communities around hobbies, professions or other topics of interest. In this case we can find the groups that the consumers can create at Lonely Planet website.
2. Communities in collaboration with other organizations in the same sector that offer the customer a wide range of products and assistance.
3.Communities that “piggyback” in other communities. In this case we can see how Lonely Planet uses the influence of Twitter to communicate with their public.
The article also cites the different types of virtual community strategy (Barnatt, 1998) being:
1. Communities around hobbies, professions or other topics of interest. In this case we can find the groups that the consumers can create at Lonely Planet website.
2. Communities in collaboration with other organizations in the same sector that offer the customer a wide range of products and assistance.
3.Communities that “piggyback” in other communities. In this case we can see how Lonely Planet uses the influence of Twitter to communicate with their public.
Different online communities forms - Pool, Web and Hubs
I was reading an interesting article yesterday about online communities, written by Fournier S and Lee L. in Harvard Business Review, April 2009 “Getting brand communities right”. It was saying that brands were busy creating brand communities, and that it was a good timing, because consumers are looking for connection and brands which add value. The article was describing the different forms of brand communities: POOL, WEB and HUBS. As I understood it, Pool community only gathers people around a share-value or lifestyle. Lonely Planet can have these kinds of community forms, they might only have people that loves the brand, stating it on one social platform and that is it without interacting more online with others users. Whereas as Web communities tend to create more one-to-one relationships among users. I think Lonely Planet is part of that form of community, because people use to create a real relationship exchanging tips and information’s about their travels to helps others users. Hubs community concerns people that are all connected and gathering around one central character. This last community forms concerns more communities building around singers, actress, and media people.
People around these communities aren’t bounding for the same reasons and interacting in the same ways and level of intensity. The main idea of this article was that brands need to create different platforms to attract brands communities, and that “to strengthen pools and hubs, brands need to create web communities".
Monday, 19 April 2010
Website analysis
To analyse the Lonely Planet website and more precisely its community and different tools, we decided to set-up criteria.
For instance, we will analyse:
- the way blog/forum/group conversations are managed using the Hoffman and Novak framework: motivation, interactivity, flow and navigation
- the level of involvement of the users using the Hoffman and Novak framework: Push or Pull strategy
- the interactions between the different stakeholders using the six-part model from Fober, Foltz and Pugliese: What is the relation between the sender and the receiver? Is there any control of the message sent?
- the moderation and regulation issues
- etc.
For instance, we will analyse:
- the way blog/forum/group conversations are managed using the Hoffman and Novak framework: motivation, interactivity, flow and navigation
- the level of involvement of the users using the Hoffman and Novak framework: Push or Pull strategy
- the interactions between the different stakeholders using the six-part model from Fober, Foltz and Pugliese: What is the relation between the sender and the receiver? Is there any control of the message sent?
- the moderation and regulation issues
- etc.
Who creates the brand?
I found an interessting video on YouTube in relevance to who creates the brand online. The moderator, Mr. Dixon, claims that "in the online world advertisement is dead...it's death of branding...it's the death of online marketing, it's the birth of information. In fact advertisement becomes information...the online community becomes revelation".
In regards to Lonely Planet it might be interessting to analyse how active Lonely Planet communicates with their consumers and in which way they use third-party advertisement....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeB9kElnO3Q&feature=related
In regards to Lonely Planet it might be interessting to analyse how active Lonely Planet communicates with their consumers and in which way they use third-party advertisement....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeB9kElnO3Q&feature=related
Choice of the company
Lonely Planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/uk)
This will be the company that we will be studying to apply and learn how the New Media is influencing the way that people and brands communicate with each other.
We chose Lonely Planet because the travel industry gives a lot of importance to consumers experience and feedbacks. That is why communities are so involved in this sector.
Lonely Planet has a community with forums, groups and blogs. The company can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
Through the analysis of these tools, we want to see who is creating the content and who is interacting in the community.
This will be the company that we will be studying to apply and learn how the New Media is influencing the way that people and brands communicate with each other.
We chose Lonely Planet because the travel industry gives a lot of importance to consumers experience and feedbacks. That is why communities are so involved in this sector.
Lonely Planet has a community with forums, groups and blogs. The company can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
Through the analysis of these tools, we want to see who is creating the content and who is interacting in the community.
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