Lonely Planet is one of a handful of globally recognised and successful travel guide publishers. We gain some idea of the competition in this area from the following excerpt:
"For those travelers who like to have a general idea of what will happen on a trip, the World Wide Web is fast becoming the one-stop source for current information. You can now visit a site maintained by Munich's tourist board listing restaurants and hotels or roam around online sites set up by established travel publishers, such as Conde Nast, Fodor's and The Lonely Planet Guide. The online lineup got another stamp in its passport this week with The Rough Guide, a British publisher of 70 books on popular and remote destinations, agreeing to offer electronic access to its U.S. guide. Launched in conjunction with HotWired Ventures, the San Francisco-based online magazine, The Rough Guides are similar to travel books, chock full of travel tips and idiosyncratic impressions, but with a difference. In a section attached to each destination dubbed ``Been There, Done That?'' the online traveler can offer up-to-the minute complaints, recommendations or travel essays about anything discovered along the road. In a section on San Francisco, a traveler named Paul complained that The Rough Guide had a ``wicked attitude problem,'' for complaining about the city's ``derivative architecture'' and the ``detached narcissism of the city's residents and politicos'' (Quinn 1995).
The Australia-based Lonely Planet knows to use integrated marketing communication to compete. It does so when looking to inform customers of the product attributes or benefits provided by its travel guides, or to persuade them to consider using this product category and maybe the Lonely Planet brand within the category, or to reinforce attitudes towards their brand and thus build brand equity. Perhaps Lonely Planet simply seeks to remind customers to consider and buy this brand over another brand such as The Rough Guide.
But what is Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), you ask? "Integrated marketing communication (IMC) entails co-ordinating the organisation's promotional efforts using such major communication elements as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct and online marketing, and personal selling" (Kotler, Brown, Adam & Armstrong, in press). Lonely Planet would no doubt agree with Don Schultz when he states that "almost all the IMC programs we develop use the database as the base for integration" (Smith, 1999 p.12). The tracking of individual customers then is an important key to successfully measuring the return from IMC and monitoring customer lifetime value.
Lonely Planet uses marketing communication to position the brand and develop its value positioning. The licensing of the Lonely Planet name for use by the Discovery Channel program of the same name, is part of their IMC strategy. Lonely Planet must also consider the positioning of their brand. As Kotler (1999) points out, Michael Porter's three broad positioning alternatives have, in part, given way to other views such as the value discipline framework proposed by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema. Kotler further points out that marketing organisations often focus customers on a "single major benefit positioning drawing from such possibilities as: Best quality; Best performance; Most reliable; Most durable; Safest; Fastest; Best value for money; Least expensive; Most prestigious; Best designed or styled; Easiest to use; or Most convenient" (1999 p.57). Some go further and focus their marketing communications on two or three benefits when positioning their brand. For example, Volvo cars are both safe and durable, while Smith Kline Beecham's Aqua-Fresh tricoloured toothpaste in the United States pushes three benefits: cavity prevention, breath freshness and whiter teeth. Of course, both offer much more as part of their total value proposition. Kotler draws these notions together succinctly when he states: "Thus we conclude that all the homework to find a core positioning, a value positioning, and a total value proposition ends up allowing a company to describe why its total offering is superior to a competitor's total offering (Kotler 1999 p.63). In short, the company provides an irrefutable answer to the customer's question: "Why should I keep buying from you?"
Turning to the communication of value propositions, Kotler (1999) identifies five value positioning choices that marketers might communicate: 1) More for more; 2) More for the same; 3) The same for less; 4) Less for much less; 5) More for less (pp.59-61). We will not expand on value positioning here. At the end of the day however, marketing organisations like Lonely Planet want their communicated value positioning to translate into sales revenue and earnings commensurate with investment.
In a move that altered their value positioning, Lonely Planet recently joined forces with an "Australian-funded Silicon Valley telecommunications start-up [eKit.com] to launch a $20 million interactive communications service for international travellers" (Beer 1999 p.3). Why might a travel guide publisher enjoin with a San Jose-based telecommunications company (telco) to create what they are terming their 'Ekno service'? It has everything to do with value transformation for the existing Lonely Planet customer base, as much as attracting new customers with an enhanced value proposition. Travellers wanting an email account and telephone communications simply buy an account membership online or via the application form in a travel guide.
eKit task is to work with existing international telcos as well as lower communications costs in the long term by using TCP/IP (Internet Protocol) as travellers communicate between 37 countries today, and a further 35 countries in the near future. With Ekorp, Lonely Planet also wants a share of the $US 10 Billion a year telecommunications spend by business and holiday travellers. Ekorp predicts revenues "of $A7 million in 1999, $A37 million in 2000 and $1 Billion by 2004" (Beer 1999 p.3).
Unlike many companies using the Internet (Web) without a clear strategic reason, Lonely Planet joins others like E*Trade, eBay, Yahoo! travel, PassPorter Online and The Rough Guide Online who also have a clear strategic reason for being online (Crowe 1999; Adam & Deans 1999). Many others have simply moved the "e" from earnings and placed it front of their company name in the hope of lifting share price into outer space.
In this section we look more deeply into Lonely Planet's IMC and value transformation strategies:
Have your classmates form syndicates and then have each syndicate select a particular country they would like to visit. Next have them visit bookstores and note the travel guides provided by various publishers. Also have the syndicates note the pricing for the guides, as well as any value-adding services they provide. Do visit the websites listed below as part of this research into travel guides:
http://travel.roughguides.com
The Rough Guide Online (and other travel information)
http://www.fodors.com
Fodor's Travel Online
http://www.cntraveler.com
Conde Nast Traveler
http://www.passporter.com
PassPorter Online
http://www.travelweb.com
Travelweb
http://www.hostels.com
Internet Hostel Guide
Lastly, have each syndicate explain which travel guide they would choose and why. Also have the syndicates describe the likely target market for each brand of guide.
The reason for this survey is to establish the positioning strategies of the various travel guide publishers, and examine the value positioning strategies of each publisher.
Consider the following statement:
Solenium lasts four times longer and uses 40 percent less material than ordinary carpets-an 86 percent reduction in materials intensity. What's more Solenium is free of chlorine and other toxic materials, is virtually stainproof, doesn't grow mildew, can easily be cleaned with water, and offers aesthetic advantages over traditional carpets. It's so superior in every respect that Interface doesn't market it as an environmental product-just a better one." (Lovins, Lovins and Hawken 1999, p.153).
In their discussion on a new approach for protecting the Earth, but at the same time improving revenue and earnings, these authors cite Solenium brand carpet as one part of one firm's (Interface) to eliminate waste. The company defines waste as "any measurable input that does not produce customer value" (Lovins et al 1999 p.153). Under a zero-waste approach advances such as a solar-powered carpet factory have been developed. The authors point to the success of the firm in that "between 1993 and 1998, revenue has more than doubled, profits have more than tripled, and the number of employees has increased by 73%" (Lovins et al 1999 p.153). The company has moved to offering a floor-covering service (Evergreen Lease) rather than selling such floor-coverings. This has resulted in lower costs to customers and enables recycling among other benefits.
Think about the value proposition this firm might communicate. Might they communicate with the entire market for floor coverings? Which media would you consider? Do you see growth in this type of service? Why or why not?
Ask a sample frame which is as near as possible representative of the population about their (particularly overseas) travel habits both for business and holiday. Also ask respondents to nominate the sources of information they would use to decide on overseas travel. Next, conduct a written interview (facsimile) with two travel agents. Offer the travel agents a copy of your final report after it has been reviewed by your instructor as an inducement to cooperate with your class project. Ascertain from the travel agents how they define the market for business and holiday travel. Also ask the agents where they communicate their offerings (mass media, in-store media, targeted media, and one-to-one media). Lastly, compare and contrast the responses from the sample frame with those of the travel agents. Be sure to highlight and discuss and major differences between the views of the travel market and those of the travel agents.
Adam, Stewart and Kenneth R Deans."WebQUAL: An E-Commerce Audit", Refereed paper, AusWeb99 Conference Proceedings, Southern Cross University, Ballina, April 17-20, 1999, p.253-262.
Crowe, David. "Net Gets a Slice of the Auction", The Australian Financial Review, May 12, 1999, p.15.
Kotler, Philip. "Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win and Dominate Markets", The Free Press, New York, 1999.
Kotler, Philip; Linden Brown, Stewart Adam and Gary Armstrong. "Marketing, The Millennium Edition 5/e"(in press), Prentice Hall Australia, Sydney.
Lovins, Amory B., L. Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken. "A Road Map for Natural Capitalism", Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1999, p.145-158.
Quinn, Michelle. "HotWired, British Publisher Jump on the Word Wide Web", The San Francisco Chronicle, Friday 13 October, 1995.
Smith, Byron. "Long Live IMC!", Professional Marketing, Australian Marketing Institute, April-May, 1999, p.12&27.
- Stewart Adam & Maureen Adam