Untrue Claims Nibble Away at Brand Credibility

Jun 17, 2022 | Advertising, Branding, Tourism, Uncategorized

In an episode of the great TV series The West Wing, a former staffer had written a tell-all book that included some stories that were totally fabricated. The media loved interviewing the author who gladly repeated his false claims on every show to sell more book. Most of the remaining White House staffers thought it was a minor story from a low-level assistant getting his 15 minutes of fame and thought the best course of action was to ignore it. One lone presidential advisor was outraged and wanted to fight back. He wanted to aggressively counter every false story with the facts and ruin the author’s credibility. Finally, near the end of the episode, the President asked the aide why he was so bothered by what everyone else thought was insignificant. He said, “I just don’t think we should be so cavalier with the truth.”

Brands, and those responsible for building brands, should feel the same way. Brands have to be built upon a foundation of truth. Destination branding is not the place to be aspirational. A community should not brand itself as the biggest and greatest of something simply because they have a long-term goal to achieve it years down the road. The general public will not hold back on sharing its thoughts on how the community doesn’t live up to what it claims to be. That’s a branding fail.

I don’t think it happens as much as it once did. By now most people know the importance of basing a brand strategy on good research. That’s only part of the story. Smaller untruths or exaggerations will nibble away at a brand’s credibility. We see it happen all the time. For example, every tourism office needs to mention their dining, shopping, arts and other things on its website and visitor guide. It’s in marketer’s DNA to want to enthusiastically sell their community’s assets. Just use caution with over-the-top claims about world-class this and epic that, and never say you have something for everyone. Save the superlatives for what your destination truly is the best at. Rest easy knowing it doesn’t have to be the best at everything. Before making a huge claim, ask “can we really deliver on this promise?” In other words, don’t be cavalier with the truth.

Break is over. We’re back to blogging.

Jun 8, 2022 | Advertising, Uncategorized

Here at Mikula-Harris we took a little time off from blogging. We have written consistently for our clients — blogs, e-newsletters and other content, but we have enjoyed a bit of a break from posting on our own blog. We’re refreshed and returning to regular posting. And believe me, we have a lot of things on our minds that we want to talk about.

In the coming days, weeks and months, we will:

• Take you behind the scenes on some interesting campaigns and projects

• Comment on important developments and trends in advertising, branding, tourism and more

• Tackle complicated and perhaps controversial topics, including the idea of outsourcing some functions of a tourism program. You may know that we have a unique perspective on this subject.

• Share lessons we have learned over our 30 years in business. Some of those lessons may be surprising to our readers.

• Most likely veer off subject occasionally to tell you about some wonderful people and places. Will our perspective be influenced by whether these places are clients? Maybe, but we’ll be accurate and not embellish the truth.

What you will not find in this space: Politics. Negativity. Meanness.

If you have topics that you’d like to see covered by a member of our team, please let us know. Our years in business and the breadth of our team members’ experiences means we have opinions on issues of branding, marketing, management, technology, communication, the creative process and much more.

Tourism Recovery Begins

Jul 27, 2021 | Advertising, Blog, Branding, Campaigns, Tourism, Travel, Websites

Lately, there is not much on the evening news that puts me in a good mood. This brief mention of tourism in Bath County, however, made our entire team happy. This is what we work for.

Bath County video from WDBJ7

This segment on WDBJ in Roanoke is just a brief update, but if it were a more in-depth examination of the post-pandemic tourism recovery in Bath County, what else might be included in the report?

It’s true there is pent up demand for travel and a lot of destinations are seeing visitors return. It’s also true that Bath County has amazing lodging properties that all have loyal repeat visitors who are likely itching to return to what they have missed for more than a year. If it seems like Bath County is slightly ahead of some (but not all) destinations, I for one will not be surprised. I don’t believe in coincidences.

  • During the pandemic when some destinations paused marketing, the county Office of Tourism proceeded with most of its planned advertising. The message was carefully crafted, but the objective was to remain top-of-mind when travel resumed.
  • The targeted advertising included 1.8 million impressions in print outlets; 3.1 million impressions on online outlets including websites and e-newsletters; 404,000 video impressions, including online pre-roll and streaming TV services.
  • Over the past 12 months, traffic to DiscoverBath.com was up 50% over the same period a year earlier. That followed a 57% between last year and the year before. Page views have more than doubled within two years.

Bath County tourism marketing was on the rise before the pandemic struck and brought travel to a complete stand still. We were confident at the time that the solid metrics of website traffic, visitor guide requests, newsletter opt-ins and social media followers combined with the decision to continue marketing through the downturn would all lead to a swift and robust recovery. We will not know economic impact numbers for quite a while, but early indicators suggest that we were correct.

…in between is pure bliss

Jun 1, 2021 | Advertising, Branding, Campaigns, Tourism, Websites

The Mikula-Harris team is just getting started on a branding project for the Town of Appomattox, VA. It’s a cool small town located east of Lynchburg. The drive between our office in Vinton and Appomattox is especially wonderful because most of the miles are in Bedford County. Returning from a meeting recently, I was driving west on Route 460. Once past the congestion of Lynchburg, you begin to see the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. As the sun slowly sank on the horizon, I was reminded where the inspiration for the ad campaign “Where Ordinary Ends, Bedford Begins” came from as well as the line of ad copy “To the east and west are bustling cities, but in between is pure bliss.”

The message perfectly hits the nail right on the head for Bedford. We knew instinctively that the branding and creative work we did for Destination Bedford was gold. Now that some time has passed, we’re able to see that it’s helping move the needle. All of the newly branded campaign materials hit the street in early 2020. The website launched in March and traffic grew steadily all through the year. There were three times as many users and page views in April 2021 than during the same period in 2020.

What are the reasons for this success? As with most tourism marketing success stories, it’s not a single magic thing. It’s a combination of things:

• The new website follows all best practices for SEO. Result: Organic Search as a source of traffic is up 490%.

• Social media as a source of traffic is way up because the team at Destination Bedford is working hard at consistently posting quality content.

• The management and marketing team at Destination Bedford is investing its advertising budget in the right places — building brand awareness and generating website traffic.

The future looks bright for tourism growth in Bedford County. In the meantime, the present is pure bliss.

A Fun Tourism Promotion for New Hampshire Unfolds on Twitter

May 24, 2021 | Campaigns, Social Media, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

One day last week while sitting at my desk in Virginia, I enjoyed a virtual tour of some tourist hot spots in New Hampshire. The production value was barely adequate — looked like much of it was filmed on a phone. The tour guide’s authenticity and love for the state was abundantly clear. The guide happened to be the Governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu. The entire, action-packed day was chronicled on Twitter under the hashtag #Super603day. If you’re wondering, 603 is the area code that covers the entire state.

Full disclosure, I was raised in New Hampshire and have spent time in many of the places featured during #Super603day. I actually grew up in the same town as the governor. I’ve never met him, but I did vote for his father who was the governor more than 30 years earlier.

Obviously, I love to see all governors support tourism. During my career in tourism marketing in Virginia, our governors have all supported tourism, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Sununu, though, takes it to new heights — almost 6,000 feet above sea level to be exact. One of the coolest parts of his trip was hiking into and then skiing Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington. I have hiked the trail several times, but never skied it. The journey continued south to Lake Winnipesaukee for boating and fishing. The Roanoke region of Virginia shares a special connection to Lake Winnipesaukee. The movie “What About Bob” with Bill Murray is set on the NH lake, but was filmed at Smith Mountain Lake. I can say from personal experience, that they are quite different but both very beautiful lakes. The governor’s day ended with a swim in the frigid ocean water at Hampton Beach. Many people don’t even realize that New Hampshire has beaches. The NH seacoast is only 18 miles, but it’s beautiful from Seabrook to Portsmouth.

As a tourism marketer, I enjoyed following the governor’s journey. No social media “influencer” could have brought as much sincerity. As a transplanted Yankee, it was a walk down memory lane. 

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