Starwood Hotels Gives Insider Access to Exclusive Events with New Auction Website

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. and its Starwood Preferred Guest program, the award-winning hotel loyalty program, has introduced a new online auction website where members can use their Starpoints to bid on exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Moments by Starwood Preferred Guest lets members transform their Starpoints into extraordinary lifestyle events - giving them insider access to red carpet movie premieres, closed rehearsals with today's top music artists, private dinners with world-renowned chefs, rounds of golf with PGA TOUR pros and more. Members can visit Moments and bid on a full range of specially created experiences not available anywhere else.

It's Better on the Inside...

Sit in on a private pre-show sound-check with Justin Timberlake or watch Gwen Stefani rehearse unscripted before taking a front row VIP seat at their concerts. Attend the premiere of Showtime's original series The Tudors and mingle with the cast on the red carpet, tour renowned artist Georgia O'Keeffe's private residence or sit ringside at the upcoming Oscar de La Hoya/Floyd Mayweather fight and celebrate at the private post-fight party. These are just a few of the exciting happenings that are now available for bidding. The auction site will be updated regularly and upcoming events include a private dinner with Jean-Georges Vongerichten at his signature, namesake restaurant in New York City, red carpet access to upcoming Hollywood premieres and more.

According to Robin Korman, Vice President of Loyalty Marketing for Starwood, during a three month pilot for the new auction site several events created a bidding war among members. A Justin Timberlake private sound-check session and VIP concert tickets started with a minimum bid of 20,000 Starpoints and was auctioned for more than 120,000 - the equivalent of a 12 night stay at The Westin St. Maarten or Le Meridien Cancun. A Superbowl package, including tickets to the game and access to several private pre-game events, started bidding at 250,000 Starpoints and ultimately sold for more than 500,000.

"Moments by Starwood Preferred Guest give our members access to once-in-a-lifetime events that go beyond just offering tickets to a concert or sporting event," said Korman. "We want to make an emotional connection with our members that extends outside of our hotel doors by providing them with rich experiences that go beyond the world of upgrades and free flights. Moments is designed to play to people's passions with amazing events that are available only to our members."

To make sure members don't miss out on the experience of a lifetime, Moments will introduce a cash and points option to the site shortly - allowing bidders to use a combination of cash and Starpoints for auction events. For more information about Moments by Starwood Preferred Guest please visit Moments.

Hilton Re-launches Two Web Sites and announces Spanish version of the Booking portal.

Hilton Hotels announced the re-launch of two of the brand's online channels - HiltonJourneys.com and HiltonToHome.com. In addition to the two refreshed sites, the brand recently completed the translation of its Hilton.com booking portal into Spanish, and is in the process of completing a French version of the site.

'The explosive and global growth of the Hilton brand has led us to rethink the way we use the internet to connect with our guests,' said Jeff Diskin, senior vice president, brand marketing and management - Hilton Hotels. 'With these refreshed sites we have three unique touch points that allow our guests to connect with Hilton in ways that are most relevant to them.'

HiltonJourneys.com

As demonstrated by its sponsorship of the Grammy Awards and the launch of its award-winning 'Travel Should Take You Places' advertising campaign featuring emerging musicians, Hilton's marketing initiatives use music to connect with consumers at an emotional level. At the new HiltonJourneys.com visitors will be able to follow the personal journeys of the six emerging artists featured in the ads. In addition to videos of the six ads, interviews with the artists and an acoustic performance from each, the web site also features 'Behind the Scenes' interviews with each musician discussing their favourite things to do while travelling.

Also featured on HiltonJourneys.com are many of Hilton's new products and services, including Hilton On Time, a system allowing guests to pre-order items - such as extra towels or pillows, snacks and drinks - for delivery in room upon check in.

HiltonToHome.com

This e-commerce site offers consumers the opportunity to buy 'for home versions' of the same products they enjoy in Hilton hotel rooms. Crabtree and Evelyn(R) La Source bath products, the Hilton Family Exclusive Clock Radio, and Cuisinart Two to Go Coffeemakers are just a few of the items found on this site.

In its upgraded version, Hilton leverages its relationships with strategic partners. The Hilton Serenity Bed Collection, including mattress/box spring and linens, are now branded with 'As Seen on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,' promoting Hilton's relationship with ABC's TV hit program. To further enhance Hilton's sponsorship of the Grammy Awards, visitors to HiltonToHome.com can purchase the 2007 Grammy Nominees CD.

World Travel & Tourism Climbs to US$ 7 Trillion in 2007

World Travel & Tourism is expected to generate in excess of US$7 trillion in 2007, rising to over US$13 trillion over the coming decade according to the World Travel & Tourism Council's (WTTC) Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) research, sponsored by Accenture and prepared by Oxford Economics.

The new TSA results show strong performance for Travel & Tourism Demand in 2007, growing at a rate of 3.9 per cent. This forecast points to a mature but steady phase of growth for World Travel & Tourism in the short and medium term, averaging 4.3 per cent per annum, between 2008 and 2017.

Some findings summarised from the report are:

• The US is still in number one position accounting for US$1,689,3 billion this year
• China is going to gain ground and grow at almost 10% per annum over the next 10 years
• By 2017 the Russian Federation will enter the top 10 countries
• The world’s highest performers are Montenegro, China and India
• Other high performers are Croatia, Romania, Namibia

No mention of South Africa… we ought to be there!

Global Hyatt Launches Bold New Brand - Hyatt Place™ - Designed Around Travellers’ Integrated Mindset

On March 26, Global Hyatt Corporation unveiled its new brand Hyatt Place™, an innovative hotel concept with strong appeal to the “24/7” lifestyle customer.

For this group of sophisticated travellers, personal and professional activities have intermingled. “Hyatt Place is the first hotel of its kind to cater to both the functional and emotional aspects of today’s business and leisure travellers,” said Tom O’Toole, senior vice president of strategy and systems, Global Hyatt Corporation. “For many, the separation between professional and personal life is obsolete, but unfortunately, hotels have not successfully evolved with this trend – until now. Demonstrating that we know what matters most to our guests, we’ve created a hotel brand defined by a mindset of a whole person who is combining personal fulfilment with professional growth while travelling.”

Hyatt Place is designed to meet the needs of this new customer segment and offers travellers a balanced mix of comfortable and functional guestroom amenities such as: 42-inch high-definition televisions with next generation entertainment content; free Wi-Fi access; a comfortable, eight-foot sectional sofa-sleeper, all within an oversized, suite-like room with 20 percent more space than the average hotel room. In addition guests can buy hot breakfast entrées along with Starbucks® specialty coffees or enjoy a free continental breakfast. Hyatt also offers a variety of freshly prepared, café quality items, including made-to-order entrées, sandwiches, soups, salads and pizza which guests can order 24 hours a day, seven days a week via a touch screen menu in the Guest Kitchen or from the Gallery Host.

more about Hyatt Place
press release

Starwood Hotels Brings a New Twist in Travel to Europe

aloha! Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and its much-anticipated new lifestyle brand, aloft hotels, announced it has signed an agreement with Thornsett Group Ltd, an Irish property development company, to develop the first aloft hotel in Europe, the aloft Brussels, Belgium. The deal was signed at the 10th International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin last week, when Starwood and its stylish W Hotels division introduced their aloft brand into the Europe, Middle East & Africa regions.

The 150 room aloft Brussels will be located on Rue Belliard, Leopold, in the 'European' quarter of Brussels. The property is conveniently located approximately 800 feet from the European Commission and European Parliament buildings, and just minutes away from the Council of Ministers building.

The site has full planning permission for a mixed-use development with a gross development value of approximately U.S. $105 million. In addition to the aloft hotel, the 74,000 square foot development will also include 108 one- and two-bedroom apartments and approximately 5,000 square feet of retail space with parking. Construction will begin in the Fall of this year, with completion scheduled for Fall 2009.

"We say aloha to Europe with the introduction of aloft hotels, a new lifestyle brand that will redefine travel, delivering style with substance and a fun new way to play and stay," said Ross Klein, President of Starwood's Luxury Brands Group and aloft hotels. "From Brussels to Beijing and beyond, aloft brings a sassy, refreshing oasis to a global market."

"With aloft we are reinventing the select service category, and are thrilled to be working with Thornsett Group to bring the first aloft hotel into Europe," said Roeland Vos, President Europe, Middle East & Africa, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. "Brussels is a great city for aloft's first exposure to Europe, and the hotel will deliver great style, comfort, design and functionality to travellers. We look forward to this development being the start of a long term relationship with Thornsett Group."

As a division of W Hotels, aloft is shaking up the lodging industry with urban-influenced design, accessible technology, style and a social atmosphere. aloft offers a total sensory experience, with guest lofts featuring loft-like nine-foot ceilings and oversized windows to create a bright, airy environment. The centrepiece of the loft room is the ultra-comfortable signature bed, and large stylish bathrooms complement the guest experience with oversized walk-in showers and amenities created by bliss spa. Each guest loft is also a combination high-tech office and entertainment centre, featuring wireless internet access and plug & play, a one-stop connectivity solution for multiple electronic gadgetry such as PDAs, cell phones, mp3 players and laptops - all linked to a large flat panel HDTV ready television for optimal sound and viewing.

Designed in conjunction with world-renowned David Rockwell and the Rockwell Group, aloft stays true to W's heritage, offering atmospheric public spaces designed to draw guests from their rooms to socialize and make friends. Guests can read the paper, work on their laptops via hotel-wide wireless internet access, play a game of pool or grab a drink with friends at the re:mix communal lobby area and bar w xyz. The re:charge fitness centre and splash, the indoor or outdoor pool, give travellers options to de-stress and re-energize; while re:fuel, a one-stop food and beverage area, offers sweet, savoury and healthy food, snacks and beverages to grab & go, 24-hours a day.

The first aloft hotels are targeted to open in first quarter, 2008. For more information on aloft, please visit www.alofthotels.com.

To date, announced locations for aloft hotels are:
ALOFT BEIJING – CHINA - Opening in 2009, the 200-room aloft Beijing will be located in Haidian district, a major information technology hub in Beijing, as well as the Haidian government district and site of major universities and research institutes.

ALOFT CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA – USA - aloft Chantilly, a 131-room property featuring aloft's loft-inspired design, accessible technology and stylish, urban attitude is scheduled to open in Virginia in 2008.

ALOFT CHARLESTON AIRPORT, SOUTH CAROLINA – USA - Located in the historic coastal city of Charleston, South Carolina, aloft Charleston is just minutes from Charleston International Airport, and is scheduled to open in 2008.

ALOFT DORVAL, MONTREAL AIRPORT, QUEBEC – CANADA - The 136-room aloft Dorval will offer travellers a refreshing new place to stay in Montreal, right at the entrance to the Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport. Construction is scheduled to start in 2007, with a projected opening in 2008.

ALOFT RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CALIFORNIA – USA - The world's first franchised aloft hotel, aloft Rancho Cucamonga broke ground in Southern California in January 2007 and will open in early 2008. The 136-room aloft is the hotel component of HavenPark, a $60 million master-planned, mixed-use development.

ALOFT TORONTO, ONTARIO – CANADA - Featuring 250 rooms, the aloft Toronto is slated to open in 2008. The hotel is located adjacent to Victoria Memorial Square Park, an area known for its lifestyle offerings, including some of the city's best restaurants and residential projects.

2007 US Business Travel Awards

The 2007 Business Travel Awards aren't based on a reader poll or an empirical ranking a la Consumer Reports. Instead, it's chooses companies that do a great job of serving the "road warrior" --and the CFO. Take a look at these award winners and the stories behind them:

• Best Airline Value: JetBlue Airways
• Best Budget Hotel Value: Microtel
• Best Midprice Hotel Value: Hilton Garden Inn
• Best Upscale Hotel Value: W Hotels
• Best New Hotel Brand: Hotel Indigo
• Best Car Rental Value: Enterprise Rent-a-Car
• Best Site: Booking Buddy
• Best Blog: Ellipses
• Best Rewards: Rapid Rewards

Sun International to buy stake in Chilean firm

Sun International has agreed to buy a 40% stake in a Chilean firm that holds a 15-year casino licence covering the capital Santiago, it said today.

You can read the article on Business Day

Protea Hotels sold to Australian group

Australian travel services and hospitality company Stella Group has bought Protea Hotels, Africa’s largest hotel management company, for R1,48bn, or A$255m.

You can read the article on Business Day.

Got your MOO cards yet?

These days it's increasingly hip to be geeky. If you really want to make a statement about how web 2.0 centric you are, you put your commitment to humanising business, personalisation, niche marketing, and social networking right on your business card. And you do it in a format that deliberately bucks the boring uniformity and conformity of ordinary everyday business cards.

How? You have a batch of MOO cards made up for you, printed in a “widescreen” 70x28 millimetre size, with a range of colour photographs on the back that reflect your personal interests or passions.



MOO cards started out with people who spend a lot of their private time in the 3D virtual world of Second Life, allowing them to put screen shots of their alter-ego online avatars on the back of their calling cards. A simple viral concept, the craze spread rapidly, and now it seems everyone in the web world is doing it.

How do you get your own MOO cards? Online, of course, from www.moo.com

No longer limited to Second Life images, you can upload your own photographs or choose from thousands already available at their site. MOO’s online tools let you easily crop your photos to get the best effect. You order packs of 100 cards with as many as 100 different images per pack, for only US$20, and they will ship anywhere in the world.

Not only do MOO cards say a lot about your cutting-edge geekiness, they present an opportunity to promote your interests – or your business – in a way that regular business cards cannot. Because there is a distinctly casual and “fun” element to MOO cards, you can put photos of your your product, or your service in action without risking looking tacky.

There's another advantage, at least while MOO cards are relatively new. Ordinary business cards get stuffed in a pocket and forgotten. MOO cards are not only ice-breakers for your own first encounters, they get shown to other people long after you have gone.

Don’t let website developers rip you off

Here is a dire warning: read the small print before contracting a website developer, and make sure that it is contractually clear that you will own the code for both the resulting site and your domain name (that's the www.yourdomainname.co.za).

Don't accept the story that it is standard practice in the industry for a developer to own the code outright, because it is not. Any development work done for you should be done on a work-for-hire basis, so there is no legal presumption that the intellectual property resides with the contractor after the job is complete.

The same is true of any artwork or photography you buy for your site -- you, not your developer, should own that intellectual property agreement. Of course graphics and photography are slightly different from code in that you rarely own the original image outright, but you acquire rights to use it in specific ways.

Small businesses in South Africa appear to be at the mercy of unscrupulous website developers, who exploit the inexperience of first-time site buyers. How widespread the scamming is, and how well penetrated it is in larger and supposedly smarter client organisations, is hard to tell. But over the past two months virtually every business owner we have dealt with has a similar tale of woe: the company who developed their website refuses to let them have the code for their site, will not allow them to move to a different support company, and, in many cases, will not release even the domain of the business.

As if this cyber-squatting and code-grabbing were not bad enough, the reasons that most people are wanting to move to new web support companies is that the customer service that they originally signed up for has simply faded away. If it takes you weeks, and a great deal of money, to get a simple change made to your small business site, you have every right to move on. Any web developer worthy of the name knows that sites have to be dynamic and evolving, and that static brochureware sites belong in the 20th century. If their development business is not equipped to handle the creation and maintenance of modern business-oriented websites, they should not be in business.

The horror stories of attempted extortion make your hair curl. One business owner was told that she could have her domain (which costs about R200 per year) only if she paid the developer R200,000. Others wanted to have third party programmers work on their site since the original developers were unable to make desired changes, and were refused access to the code. Still others created new sites after successful legal action to get their code, and found that new site vindictively hacked.

Developers will try to persuade you that to own your code you will have to pay a lot more, but this is rarely justified. In some instances your site may be sharing certain software applications, such as database software or content management software, with other sites being hosted by your developer. In those instances it is perfectly fair to let you know that should you move to another hosting company you will need them to provide similar services.

If the developer absolutely refuses to let you own the code and you really do not want to use someone else, at the very least ensure that your written agreement grants you a free license in perpetuity to use a copy of the code for the purposes of running your own business, and grants you the right to modify the copy of the code as you see fit.

But do not allow bogus claims of how much money you are saving by not owning the code make you captive to ongoing hosting and maintenance fees, with no recourse if customer services are inadequate. The internet in South Africa is evolving rapidly, with newer, better, cheaper services appearing all the time. You need the freedom to put your business where it gets the best attention. If a developer tries to play hardball on intellectual property ownership, find another developer.

While we are at it, it seems that developers are also pressuring site owners into putting a promotional link on their home page which takes your visitors away from your site to the developer's site. Don't accept this, unless the developer is willing to pay for the advertising, and even then put the link deeper in your site, say on the contacts page. Make the site linked to opens in another browser window. You work very hard to get visitors to come to your site – don't lose them that easily.

At Britefire we interact with an awful lot of people who are relatively new to website development, and we are more than happy to pass on recommendations of good companies to deal with -- as well as warnings about those whose business ethics and integrity are suspect. Let us know about your experiences.

Advertising agencies get a digital wake-up call from Nike

Just Do It! Nike just did, ditching its running shoe advertising agency of twenty five years not because it was unhappy with creative or because of costs, but because Wieden & Kennedy just didn't have the digital media passion or expertise needed to adequately engage the new consumer.

While Nike moving its running shoe business after so long and successful a partnership is news in itself, what is really making waves in the agency world is the reason for the move. Agencies worldwide are generally still doing a half-hearted job of leveraging the internet and related technologies for brand building, and most of them know it. When a manufacturer as intimately in touch with its consumer as Nike is sees the need to do more and do it better, and is willing to just do it, the agency world looks over its shoulder to see who is next to go.

Wieden & Kennedy are not a minor agency – they have long been a creative powerhouse doing work for companies like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola. They must have seen this coming, and probably had plenty of warning from Nike, but were simply unable to change fast enough to keep the account.

In February, Mark Parker, Nike's CEO, told investors

The Nike brand will always be our strongest asset, but consumers are looking for new relevance and connections. We're fundamentally changing the way we're organized as a company. It's really all about going deeper to get deeper connections and deeper insights, to get more innovation and more relevance, and to make us ultimately more competitive in each of the discrete pieces of our business. This allows us to be more informed and more surgical in creating products and optimizing our go-to-market strategies within each category.

Nike gets it. The consumer – particularly in Nike’s demographic – is now calling the shots, and companies who insist on pursuing a 1980’s-style mass-market broadcast approach to communicating risk being marginalized or, worse, becoming irrelevant.

As the New York Times put it,

The message is clear: No matter how talented an agency's creative team or how well the client's management likes the firm's executives, the agency is of limited value unless it embraces digital media.

That means, just as the web has permeated the lives of consumers, agencies must permeate digital culture throughout their organisations, instead of regarding “internet stuff” as an afterthought, add-on, or external business. For many markets, digital thinking needs to be a foundation of advertising strategy. And while it makes sense to start digital operations as a separate entity (thus bypassing all of the legacy resistance), there has to be a plan to reintegrate online operations as soon as the “interactive agency” is up and running.

But advertising agencies the world over are still dragging their heels. Given that the internet attracts more advertising money than radio worldwide, and was second only to TV in the UK last year, it's hard to keep on regarding online as something that is still not important.

Last week at the Online Media Marketing & Advertising (OMMA) conference in Hollywood, a panel of industry insiders agreed that most ad agencies are simply not ready for the digital era. Tim Hanlon, from Publicis, was adamant that the traditional structure of ad agencies is an obstacle, and that de-siloing brand advertising and response advertising is essential to create the flexibility and spontaneity necessary to get to the online consumer.

Bant Breen of Interpublic was of the opinion that acquiring so-called interactive agencies is easy, but integrating them into existing agencies is not, and that’s the thing which is necessary for a more powerful approach to advertising which can do things like build customer relationships and enable transactions.

What’s the problem with traditional ad agencies?

Firstly, the whole structure within agencies (and the communication structures between agencies and clients) makes change a painfully slow process. Not good when rapid and disruptive change is a key characteristic of online consumer environments. How long does it take to brief, pitch, create and roll out a campaign? Given the aversion to risk within agencies and clients, it can take months. Online, you need to be able to do this stuff in days if not hours. The risk of not operating quickly vastly outweighs the risk of moving so slowly you are effectively doing nothing. Agencies need to be given more latitude to act almost spontaneously, but it is unlikely clients would allow that, and even less likely that agencies would want it.

Secondly, agencies and their clients are way too precious about protecting brand identity. Remember when the primary role of a brand manager was to police the “brand bible” and ensure the eternal purity of the proposition? In a web 2.0 world, consumers want to talk about products. And, in the words of the Cluetrain Manifesto, whether the news is good or bad, they tell everybody.

Trying to protect a brand from consumer comment, being afraid that customer opinion may pollute or hijack your carefully crafted identity, is no longer a valid marketing activity. But encouraging discussion and being ready to respond to it, and making sure you are structurally able to maximize net advocacy, are alien concepts to many marketers and their ad agencies.

Thirdly, the traditional approach to broadcasting generic messages to largely mass markets is inappropriate for digital media, which is all about sharply focused messages for niche audiences who are discerning, informed and impatient. When your medium is newspapers or television, you have to communicate across the broad mix of audiences that they reach, and being too focused in your message risks completely missing important components of those audiences. True, satellite TV and niche publications do allow for a more narrowcast approach, but it is nothing compared with the laser-focused nanocasting and individual consumer conversations that the web allows – and requires. But the broadcast mentality of traditional agencies results in nothing more imaginative online than generic corporate banners on mass traffic sites like directories and online newspapers.

Fourthly, the online business model does not work well for agencies. If a major part of your income originates in placement commissions paid by traditional media, it is very hard to look at online opportunities as anything but financially retrograde. So the only real financial incentives to pursue digital strategies are macro incentives: you’ll pull in big accounts if you are seen to be on top of this web thing, or you’ll lose big accounts if you are not. Ad agencies need to reinvent their business models for the 21st century, because their old models are a significant handicap to progress.

Telkom acquires 75% of Nigeria’s Multi-Links

Telkom is gaining momentum in its plans to march across Africa with a $280m deal to gain control of Multi-Links Telecommunications in Nigeria.

This raises two questions: 1) Why is Telkom spending all of this money expanding internationally instead of investing in providing a superior, lower cost service in South Africa, and 2) How will Telkom manage in an environment where it actually has real competition?

Massive municipal Wi-Fi project for Mexico City

The Mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, has just announced that the entire city will be one free, wireless Internet hotspot by 2008. With a population of over 25 million people, it’s one of the world’s largest cities, though this project may initially only cover the central district with its smaller population of 9 million.

The project "will accelerate the technological development of the city," Ebrard said after signing a contract with the Chinese telecoms and networking giant ZTE.

Social networks for KLM passengers and business travellers

Loyalty programmes are invariably about a company trying to create a relationship with a customer, with the primary motivations being to secure repeat business and cross-sell services. That’s so web 1.0. These days, the objective is not so much to form a company-customer relationship as to facilitate customer-customer networking relationships with the company providing the context.

There is probably no industry in which loyalty programmes are so widespread as travel, so when a major airline starts trying to get social networks working for its frequent flyers, it may be the first sign of a significant evolution. Not surprisingly it is the Dutch, who gave us the compact cassette and the CD, who were the first to move in this innovative direction.

KLM is the first airline in the world to build online social networking communities for its customers. Aimed primarily at frequent business travelers, and currently centered on specific destinations and activities, KLM’s communities connect people with common travel interests. Its first two destination communities, KLM Club Africa and KLM Club China, and its first activity community, Flying Blue Golf Club, are at the moment available only by invitation.





The benefit of belonging is that members of the networks can get to meet and share experiences with people working in similar markets, facilitating connections that might otherwise never happen. Members also get access to services such as translation, travel advice, or legal assistance provided by KLM business partners. And the networks are not exclusively online: face-to-face networking events take place regularly in he destination zones, as well as back home in the Netherlands.

Members of the golfing network (ever meet anyone from the Netherlands who doesn’t love golf?) can use the community to create profiles of their playing ability, arrange to play with other members who are going to be in the same place, and even use frequent flyer miles to pay for games or buy golf equipment.

It is a fairly bold move by KLM to try to unite its customers. Most airlines prefer to keep customers at bay with a divide-and-conquer mentality. But KLM has a good product and an already very loyal customer base. What KLM has done is leverage and lock in that loyalty not by offering “me-too” benefits like more comfortable seats or better in-flight entertainment, but by offering a unique service of potentially great personal value which other airlines might find harder to mimic.

In a similar vein, a new company called PairUp is offering to help travelers (on any airline) to connect face-to-face with fellow travelers with whom they may already have an online connection. PairUp members uploading their contacts list (from Outlook, or whatever their e-mail or contact management tool is). When they schedule a flight or participation in a conference, they put their flight and accommodation information in the system.

The system shows them people in their list whose uploaded travel details coincide with theirs, and lets them pick the contacts that they are interested in getting together with. The system is not exclusively for use by vaguely connected people – it can be used as a coordination tool by colleagues who need to share travel plans.



PairUp also provides a version of its tool to event managers, allowing convention organizers to offer a pairing-up service directly to people who register for their event. Anyone who has participated in major conferences where you struggle to find out who is attending, then battle to track down the people you want to talk with, can see the benefits of such a tool.

Online video ads get more clicks than static ads

South Africa’s bandwidth premium is of course a significant obstacle to advertisers who would like to use more than the old static banners or animated gifs. Indeed local web surfers are likely to avoid or resent any imbedded ads that chew voraciously into their meagre bandwidth rations.

When Flash animation banners first started appearing a few years ago, they were contentious even in the USA, though the concern there was that such ads were slowing down the browsing experience rather than using up any allocated download quota. Delivery technologies have moved on, and typical download speeds in the US have lifted from being approximately what South Africans experience today to anywhere from 4 mbps to 45Mbps, and online video has come into its own. But is a video ad more effective than a conventional ad?

DoubleClick studied 2.7 billion online video ad impressions for 300 campaigns, comparing them with data for non-video ads, and concluded that video ads are significantly more powerful than most other formats. They found web surfers are twice as likely to click the “play” button in video ads as they are to click through standard static image ads, though they rarely watch the video more than two-thirds of the way through. Those clicking the “play” button typically watched 10 seconds of 15 second videos and 19 seconds of 30 second videos.

Obviously the lesson, as with most things on the web, is to front-load your message rather than building to a punch-line.

The actual click-through rate for video ads ranged from 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent, compared with click-through rates for static image ads of between 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent.

Of course it’s not just a numbers game – the quality of your creative is clearly important contributor to click-through rates, as is the relevance of the ad content to its positioning. And click-through rates themselves are irrelevant if your conversion rates let you down. But it seems clear that video ads online are finally starting to have an impact on brand awareness and traffic generation.

Online Advertising Spend Just Keeps on Growing

Global spending on internet advertising increased from $18.7 billion in 2005 to $24.9 billion (£12.6 billion) last year, according to ZenithOptimedia, the media-buying agency. Worldwide, the internet will overtake radio by next year and become the world’s fourth-largest advertising medium.

In the UK last year spending on online advertisements overtook spending on newspaper ads and, at 11.4% ad-spend share, reached just over half of TV ad spend.

And Google was second only to ITV in UK advertising revenue. According to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, UK online advertising expenditure jumped 41.2% to £2.01bn during the year, compared with £1.9bn spent on newspaper ads.

In the USA, Internet advertising revenues for 2006 reached $16.8 billion, a 34 percent increase over the previous record of $12.5 billion in 2005. Fourth-quarter revenue for 2006 totalled just under $4.8 billion, making that quarter the highest on record.

Google to provide a pay-per-action advertising model

In the past if you wanted to advertise using Google you went the pay-per-click (PPC) route, having Google place your ad either on its search results page in response to a search term you had bid on (the AdWords model), or on a web page in response to some context-relevant content on that page (the AdSense model).

In either case, you as an advertiser paid Google only if a web visitor actually clicked on your advertisement. If you wanted to place ads where you would pay the website publisher only if the clicker actually performed some action (such as buying something, subscribing, or providing information) you could use other services. Prominent among these pay-per-action (PPA) services are secondary search engines like Snap, PPA broker Turn, and affiliate marketing networks like Commission Junction and LinkShare.

In March, Google announced that it was putting a pilot PPA product on the market. That’s huge news, because Google is such a dominant player in online advertising. The implications for advertisers are significant. A PPA model lets you pay only on successful conversion of the traffic that your ad sends to your site, instead of making you pay only for the clicks themselves. Many PPC ad clicks are of no value – the clicker made a mistake, was merely curious, or was deliberately fraudulent. Or your landing page and site structure were poorly designed and just got in the way of them doing business with you.

With PPA, you don’t pay for those clicks that go nowhere. But the sites hosting your ads expect something in return, namely a bigger payoff when they do deliver a visitor who actually becomes a customer.

Unlike with Google’s PPC product, where sites displaying the ads don’t get to choose the ads and are not allowed to encourage clicking those ads, sites displaying PPA ads are being given a lot more ability to both select the ads, or a basket of ads, and urge people to click. So expect much more traffic to sites, and correspondingly lower conversion rates – but higher ad ROIs.

Because a PPA payout depends on clear policing of what action (if any) was actually taken, it requires a system that can automatically monitor and verify those transactions. And because of this additional layer of technological complexity, PPA has not been widespread on the web. Till now. Google has the clout and the tech muscle to make this work, and work well, and the existing PPA players must be expecting their businesses to feel a great deal of pain once Google gets into full swing.

For small advertisers, Google’s PPA could be a boon, the equivalent of paying a small sales commission only on closed deals rather than their existing PPC approach which involves paying each time a visitor wanders in through their virtual doors.

Google is also testing ads that appear in text, similar to those currently run by Intellitext. These ads appear as words or phrases that have been double-underlined. Hovering a mouse cursor over those phrases pops up a small box containing the advertisement. As more and more online content is read through RSS feeds, the importance of in-text ads grows, so it is not surprising to see Google move into this space.

Major broadband speed increase only a year or two away

A great thing about the internet is the way consumer demand pushes suppliers to perform better, not only in the commercial arena, but also in the technological arena.

America’s network companies are under real pressure to enable what online customers want to do – and currently they want to access more and more video online. That puts a huge strain on existing bandwidth, with some analysts suggesting the internet may actually collapse under the load. If you are Telkom, your reaction to massive demand is to push up your prices and put a cap on bandwidth supply. If you are Alcatel-Lucent or Siemens, your reaction is to invest in ways to supply more bandwidth.

Since putting in new networks of fiber-optic cables is massively costly, researchers are trying to find ways to push more data through the existing infrastructure. And they are succeeding.

The current bandwidth target is 100 gigabits per second (Gbps). Siemens claimed this month that it has sent data at 111 gigabits per second over 10 channels on a single fiber over a distance of 2,400 kilometers. Bell Labs (part of Alcatel-Lucent) have just demonstrated that they can get the current 40 Gbps backbone (those long-distance data pipelines that connect cities together) to carry 100 Gbps. They are forecasting that, at least in America, video on demand is going to make up 90 percent of online data, and there will be a tenfold increase in the demand for bandwidth.

(If you think 100Gbps is impressive, Bell Labs also successfully transmitted data across 80km on a single fiberoptic strand at a speed of 25.6 terabits per second, which is like downloading more than 43 thousand music CDs in only one second…)

So, just as ADSL technology allows us to get relatively high speed data over existing phone lines, anyone in the world with access to existing fiber-optic networks should in the near future be able to get much better data rates through them.

Now if only Telkom can be persuaded to stop spending money acquiring other African phone companies and start investing in South African infrastructure, maybe we can start to catch up with 21st century economies.

Using buses to get rural areas online

At the other end of the bandwidth spectrum, rural villagers in India, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Paraguay with no landline connection to the web are getting online using a fleet of wi-fi equipped buses and motorcycles. The vehicles do the rounds, visiting each village several times a day, and connect with the local village computer(s) via an antenna.

It’s not real live internet – essentially the vehicles update their web databases in the city before going back out to share the updates with the villagers – but it brings them those aspects of the web that really matter. Villagers can request specific content, which is available on the next visit, a sort of time-shifted web surfing.


The founder of the United Villages initiative Amir Hassan told BBC News that in addition to delivering and collecting e-mails from the villages, the buses satisfy limited online interests, at least for now. "They want to know the cricket scores, they want to see the new Aishwarya Rai photos, and they want to hear a sample of the latest Bollywood tunes."

The system also enables e-commerce for products like fertiliser, pesticides, books and medicine. The wi-fi bus is used not only to facilitate the order, but to deliver the products.

Optimise your site with NOODP and NOYDIR metatags

Yahoo has just announced that it supports a new metatag, and it is a good idea to use it! When someone searches on Yahoo or Google, and a page on your site appears in the search results, the description that is displayed for your page may not be what you have coded for that page.

First, some very fundamental rules of website development:

1 – Every page of your website should have a description and a title. That’s not the heading that web visitors see on the page itself, but text that you insert within the title tag and the description metatag in the HTML code of each page. A lot of sites do not have these titles and descriptions, because the developer did not bother to insert them, or, if they exist, they are hastily created poor marketing copy. You can see these tags by opening each page in your browser and clicking View then PageSource, or Page then View Source, depending on your browser. Check yours today!

2 – Before you submit a new site to Google or Yahoo, you have to submit it to the major directories DMOZ and Yahoo Directory. The people who edit these directories make decisions about the classification of your site which Google and Yahoo and most other search engines build into their own review algorithms.

Now, back to the NOODP and NOYDIR metatags.

Your site’s descriptions may not be what you see in search engine results pages because Yahoo and Google spiders often defer to the descriptions that have been written by the human editors of those primary source directories, particularly DMOZ (the Open Directory Project) in the case of Google, and the Yahoo Directory in the case of Yahoo.

The discrepancy between what you think should be in the description and what actually appears may be because you have edited your page description subsequent to submitting it to one of the directories, or because the editors of the directory decided that they could produce a more accurate description, or – most likely – because at the time you submitted your page you did not have a description in place.

Now you can get around this problem by including a line of code on each page which tells the search engines to ignore the tags that the directories have, and override them with what your page code has in place.

The "NOODP" metatag is already supported by all major search engines, and it tells them to ignore the ODP (Open Directory Project, or DMOZ) tags. The new Yahoo “NOYDIR” metatag tells the Yahoo search engine to ignore the YDIR (or Yahoo Directory) metatags. To invoke these two overrides, simply add the following code between to the HEAD and /HEAD text of your web page code:

meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOODP, NOYDIR"
remembering to enclose the line between angle brackets<>

The only impact this will have will be to ensure that the descriptions and titles within your site code are displayed in search results rather than those logged in the directories. But it puts you in control of how your site is described!

Data Security Jargon

Some data security and privacy terms you need to know:

Social Engineering
The single most common source of data loss, social engineering describes an intrusion that uses human rather than technical interaction, and often involves fooling someone into breaking normal security procedures.

Shoulder Surfing
Shoulder surfing is the process of getting information by stealthy direct observation, such as looking over a person’s shoulder or eavesdropping on a conversation. Shoulder surfing is a common and effective technique to acquire personal information.

Dumpster Diving
Dumpster diving is the act of looking for value in someone else's garbage, an activity which is actually quite legal. In the contexts of computer security and personal privacy, dumpster diving is any technique used to retrieve discarded information that could be helpful in getting into a personal computer or network, or which could be used to steal an identity.

Post-it Peering
The act of finding usable sensitive data such as passwords by scanning someone’s personal notice board or the Post-It notes that they tend to stick around their desk.

You can visit Britefire’s online glossary of terms for an explanation of most internet and e-marketing expressions.

Why ‘Care’ for Your Customers when You Can ‘Love’ Them?

This is a delightful and refreshing article that renews one’s faith in leadership and in leaders who dare to think beyond motherhood, who dare to have passion, emotion, and who dare to dream.

I don’t know how many times in my corporate life that I have been told that I’m too emotional and that I care too much. The body corporate doesn’t like these characteristics – and if you have any hope of climbing the corporate ladder or navigating the corporate politics, these emotions (in their eyes, ‘weaknesses’) must be banished for more acceptable corporate behaviour.

Reaching for the stars and aiming beyond the horizon are viewed as silly. The hospitality industry knows it is selling and providing an experience to its customers. And I suppose you can describe an experience in cold and calculating terms like – we aim to exceed customers expectations. Duh! If that’s all you are doing then perhaps you should be selling railway sleepers to the department of transport!

It is precisely this dreaming that spells the difference between being mediocre and being special. Isn’t it time to take out the dusty mission and vision documents and to breath life into them and create a strategy that takes you, your staff and your guests on a magic carpet ride?

Top 10 Trends in the Hospitality Industry

Ernst & Young released a report on February 15, 2007 where they identify ten key trends that will influence the hospitality industry in the US and major hospitality markets internationally.

Top trends that will influence the global hotel industry in the year ahead include the stabilizing of the U.S. lodging market, increasing capital flows into the hospitality sector from a broad range of investors, including offshore funds, and superior performance among luxury hotel brands, according to a report released today by Ernst & Young LLP.

“In this report we’ve identified ten key macro trends that, taken together, we believe will shape the hospitality sector this year and for years to come in the U.S. and in major hospitality markets around the world,” said Michael Fishbin, national director, Hospitality & Leisure, Ernst & Young LLP.

The ten key trends identified in the report are:

#1 Supply and Demand in Balance — Perhaps the biggest positive trend for the industry in 2007 is that supply growth is relatively low with a 2.5 percent increase projected this year. This, combined with last year’s 1.8 percent growth gives owners a chance to upwardly reposition existing hotels and grow revenue per daily room (RevPAR) and average daily room rate (ADR). Stability is good for the industry’s short term profitability and, as a result, the outlook for 2007 is positive.

#2 More Good News for Luxury — The hotel sector generally is experiencing positive growth, but the performance is particularly strong in the upscale sector. With no sign of a drop-off in the primary demographics populating upscale hotels, more stellar performance is expected.

#3 Construction Costs — Developers will have to be more creative in planning and building new hotels due to high construction costs. Look for more mixed-use developments incorporating hotels, especially in the upscale segment, more creative financing strategies and maximizing of project density to make the numbers work in a more expensive development environment.

#4 Operating Costs — For hotel operators, better control of energy and other major operating costs will be a key objective in 2007. For the last two years, costs such as labor, energy and insurance have skyrocketed. While automation has historically helped manufacturing, it has played a very limited role in reducing costs in service-based industries, such as hotels. Yet hotels’ use of web-based systems is increasingly helping the bottom line.

#5 All the World’s a Stage for Hotel Investors — One aspect of the phenomenal influx of capital into the hotel sector is that the sources of this capital wave are truly global, creating a worldwide investment market with growing cross-border transaction activity. In an increasingly complex business environment, investors are likely to seek out deals in all corners of the globe. However, the U.S. hotel sector, as the most transparent market in the world, will continue to garner more than its share of foreign capital.

#6 Will New Passport Rules Dampen Tourism? — The U.S. Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative may cause a short-term drop-off in travel to the Caribbean and Mexico as U.S. tourists balk at the almost $100 passport fee or get caught in a lengthy application process. Some hotels are proactively moving to offset the passport cost by offering discounts to first time passport holders. The passport impact is likely to be short term and may even help U.S. domestic tourism.

#7 Pricing Issues May Cloud Sector’s Future — The last few years have seen solid market fundamentals, limited construction of new product and low interest rates, the combination of which has driven pricing on some deals into the stratosphere. With more construction ahead, hotels’ operating growth levels are unlikely to be sustained. We’ll begin to see this year what return on investment these top premiums will yield.

#8 Private Equity’s Love Affair with Hotels — Private equity players were the biggest single buyers of existing hotels in 2006, and they are expected to continue to buy in 2007. Since many do not have significant lodging industry experience, the question remains, how will they perform as owners? And when and how will they execute their exit strategy? We’ll begin to learn the answers to such questions this year.

#9 Growing pains for condominium hotels — With the U.S. building boom of 2005-2006 now over, there may be headaches on the horizon for developers and owners who jumped into this market with both feet. An estimated 8,000 new units are expected to become operational in the next 12 months in the U.S. despite last year’s cooling of the development market. By 2008, developers and owners will have a good idea of what worked and what didn’t in the condo hotel craze. Meanwhile, the hotel condo craze has hit the Caribbean, Mexico, the Middle East and Europe’s resort vacation spots.

#10 The hotel market as an engine of economic recovery — In Mississippi’s Gulf Coast region, the inventory of hotel rooms leaped 23 percent between March and September 2006, contributing significantly to the area’s tourism and gaming recovery and boosting its struggling economy. Communities around the world have a growing awareness of the impact hotels can have on their economies and will move quickly to support rebuilding of this critical sector in the event of natural disasters or human conflicts.

“In general, the hotel sector continues to perform well and has been especially adept at attracting new investment,” said Fishbin. “But continued growth within the sector depends on many of these factors.”

Ernst & Young offers a range of services for every major hospitality segment, from lodging to travel and from tourism to attractions – including hotels, resorts, mixed use developments, convention and conference centers, stadiums, amusement parks, golf courses, and other leisure-related assets.

For a complete copy of the Ernst & Young Report ‘Top Ten Thoughts for the Hospitality Industry in 2007’ please visit www.ey.com/us/realestate.

Hotel Websites Are Tops in Customer Satisfaction

Recent studies in the US show that hotels' web sites have finally overtaken online agency portals in terms of customer satisfaction. This has been accomplished with a lot of hard work on their websites by the hotels, who can now enjoy a level of independence from the online travel agencies to develop their services for customers and increase their customer loyalty.

The Market Metrix Hospitality Index (MMHI) is a quarterly study that is the largest and most in-depth measure in the US of hospitality company performance. What the data reveals is the increasing popularity of hotel website usage and satisfaction with the online experience. More people are researching their trips online and more people are booking online.

Another significant trend is that people who book online in the US are looking to make their booking directly on the hotel’s website rather than a travel portal. In 2004 and 2005, travel portal sites like Yahoo Travel outstripped hotels sites for satisfaction with the online booking experience. Since then hotels in the US have worked hard on improving their navigation, design, usefulness of information, ease of booking and other critical components of the online experience. As a result of this, hotels are less dependent on the travel site portals, are paying them less and are establishing a relationship directly with their guests.

The message for South Africa is that international customers expect an online experience that is of international standards. If a site doesn’t meet their expectations, they can (and do) quite easily move on to the ones that do - all with the click of a mouse. Online customers expect that they can book easily, safely and securely online, and the US experience shows that customers would prefer to deal directly with hotels for their bookings. They may research, shop around and compare prices and packages in multiple places on the web, but when they come to book, their preference is to book with you directly.

And the reasons are multi-fold. Customers prefer hotel websites because:

• they can earn rewards points in the loyalty program
• there are no additional/hidden fees
• it’s easier to cancel and change the booking
• they already have an account with the site
• the hotel site provides true availability
• they get better customer service
• they feel hotel websites are more trustworthy

Online travel agencies have the edge when it comes to the selection of hotels on offer, they frequently offer cheaper hotels and the customer can get the best rate guaranteed, and they offer bookings for flights, cars and other activities.

The 5 most important factors that would most influence a US consumer to make a booking on a hotel’s website would be:

• if hotels offered best rate guaranteed
• offers of specials and promotions
• the ability to earn points and rewards
• making it easy to make, change or cancel reservations
• to provide better descriptions of rooms on the sites

Loyalty is the big buzzword at the moment. Everyone is trying to develop relationships with the customers and this is more so online than anywhere else. Studies show that certainly in the US, customer loyalty is on the rise. Guest loyalty is important because satisfying and retaining customers helps companies grow revenues, reduce costs, generate referrals, and enjoy price premiums. But loyalty is not rising for all hotels. People tend to be more loyal to the higher priced hotels and less loyal to the lower priced. This is because higher-priced hotels generally offer more attractive loyalty programs, and have a better online booking experience. People booking lower priced hotels tend to be price sensitive bargain hunters who are therefore less loyal to a specific brand.

For more on the above, check out the following links:
Loyalty is the Key to Online Travel Market
Are Online Customers Less Loyal?
Hotel Web sites scroll to the top in customer satisfaction
Hotel Web Sites Now Score Higher In Satisfaction Than Popular Travel Sites

South Africa in E-marketing Drive

In its ongoing commitment towards implementing world-class international tourism strategies in order to increase awareness and grow arrivals to destination South Africa, South African Tourism has kicked off 2007 by sealing a landmark deal with BBC World.

The deal is an e-marketing campaign that comprises online advertising and commercial presentations and will be aired on BBC World across Europe, Africa and North America from February to July this year.

If one asks the age old question –– what’s in it for me (WIIFM) – then I would suggest a lot! This campaign is a great opportunity for all hotels in South Africa who target countries like the UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, the US and the African states to leverage the South Africa marketing exposure to with their own individual campaigns.

Finding out more about the schedule from the South African Tourism campaign and using it would give individual organisations synergy and publicity that is difficult for one organisation to achieve alone. Indeed a concerted effort by several organisations for the benefit of South Africa Incorporated would bring extraordinary gains for everyone.

2010 – Help for Small Businesses

South African Tourism CEO, Moeketsi Mosola South Africa was speaking at a business forum hosted by the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein when he announced that for the first time in its history, Fifa will be contracting non-hotel accommodation (eg national parks, B&B’s, lodges, guest houses) during 2010.

However, in order to qualify to be contracted the establishment needs to obtain a grading rating from the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa. Establishments can apply to TEP for assistance to partly cover these costs. TEP (Tourism Enterprise Programme) is a R170-million investment by the Environment Affairs and Tourism department to stimulate small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) development in the tourism sector.

Mosola pointed out to that accommodation is not the only area where people should be looking as there are many other opportunities for 2010 – for example in the support services like housekeeping, food and beverage supply and laundry services.

In writing this, I took a look at the Tourism Grading Council website. The grading process looks time-consuming and bureaucratic, not to mention expensive. The process is still very much document driven but the instructions are reasonably clear and the criteria documents are available to be downloaded directly from the website. The cost is not inconsiderable – if you have a 3-room establishment the cost is R1,292 (R1,236 + R56) and if you have a 30-room establishment the cost is R3,373 (R3,148 +R225) and if you have anything over 151 rooms, the cost is (R5,279 + R225) R5,504.

But the establishment of standards and having a grading system which serves as a communication tool to customers is great. Of course such a system is only as good as the high (world class) standards that are set, the frequency that those standards are revisited and updated, and the organisation and people who manage and enforce them. Gearing up to 2010 and putting in place these systems could indeed help move South Africa towards one of the world’s top destinations of which Mosola talks!

Under-developed Business Travel Could Offer Opportunities

In his address to the African Business Tourism Conference in Sandton, Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that business travel is lagging considerably behind the leisure market, accounting for 5% of the total tourism market.

When you bear in mind that on average business travelers spend three times more than leisure travelers and return to a destination within 5 years, this must surely be an opportunity area. Of course this relies on the fact that business travelers need to, or want to come to South Africa. They will need to come to South Africa if they are doing business with South Africa – so in this sense the hospitality industry is a support or secondary industry to the real driver of businessmen and women to South Africa – business and investment in or with South Africa.

The other side of business travelers coming to South Africa is if they see it as a place to host their meetings and conferences, and in that area we have much to offer as long as we stay competitive with other international destinations. And yes, there’s a lot of competition out there so we need to be able to provide outstanding services at competitive prices.

And of course we can’t hide away from the security issue in our country. These are things we need to address face on to become players in the international economy and to bring benefits, wealth and opportunity to everyone in our country. I refer to the recent survey done by South African Tourism Update (free registration needed for access), an independent monthly trade magazine, in conjunction with the South African Tourism Services Association and other tourism organisations where the results are overwhelmingly conclusive – over a million travelers decided not to come to South Africa because of crime.

The survey conclusion is that crime is holding back the growth of the tourism sector and its ability to create jobs. Natalia Thomson, editor of the magazine asks the thought-provoking question – “where would tourism in South Africa be without crime?” Where indeed! And let’s face it – there are other places in the world to go. But if we get our act together, the tourists and business travelers would come over and over again to our beautiful country with all that it has to offer that is indeed special!

Tourism to South Africa

The tourism industry in South Africa is a significant player in the country’s economy. It brings in money from abroad and is a valued source of employment. Everyone is getting hyped for the opportunities that 2010 will or should bring to the industry. Tourist arrivals are up by 14.5% and from Jan – Sept 2006 over 6 million people visited South Africa.

Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk gave 2006 data for SA Tourism in an address to the African Business Tourism Conference in Sandton where he said that Africa had achieved the fastest growth rate of any region worldwide.

A summary of the numbers is:

• There was a 14.5% increase in 2006 from 2005 in tourism arrivals
• Over 6 million (6,055,726) people visited South Africa between Jan – Sept 2006.
• The largest source of arrivals are from Africa – 18.3% are from the African continent.
• The Number of Visitors from specific regions/countries changes as follows:

• North America grew by 9.7%
• Russia grew by 42.4%
• Hungary grew by 24.1%
• Finland grew by 17.4%
• India grew by 17.5%
• Asia grew by 4.5% (“excellent growth” in arrivals from Japan, Thailand, Singapore, but China, Malaysia and Philippines declined)

The Internet Audience Keeps on Growing

Data released today by comScore for January shows that the internet audience worldwide just keeps growing. The numbers are mind-numbing.

There are 747 million people worldwide using the Internet (some sources have it at over a billion), which is up by 10% from the previous year. The largest country is still the US which grew by 2% to 153,447,000. With seven out of ten people in North America accessing the web that market is already saturated with internet users. The same is true for countries like Germany, UK, France and Spain, where the percentage growth is less than 5%.

But look at China and India. They are both growing at phenomenal rates. China is the second largest country after the US in terms of number of people accessing the Internet (86,757,000). Chinese internet users grew by 20% over the year, yet the penetration of the internet in China is still less than 10%. The story about India is similar though less radical. The total internet user population in India is 21,107,000 and it’s growing at 33%.

Africa is a blip on the radar – in the entire continent of Africa there are 33 million users of the internet, which accounts for only 3% of world internet users. (The total number of people who have access to the internet in South Africa is 5 million of which 2.5 million access it monthly. Yet approximately 7.5 million people access South African internet sites each month, which shows strong foreign interest).

The Latest Outlook Makes E-mail Marketers Unhappy

E-mail marketers are far from happy about the latest release of Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail client, due to be released later this year. Despite its legendary user unfriendliness, Outlook is one of the most widely-used programs for sending and receiving e-mail, so any change in its programming has an impact on the design of e-mail marketing messages. This time those impacts are significant. Where all earlier versions of Outlook have used Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to interpret and present HTML e-mails, the new Outlook will use Microsoft’s Word to do the HTML processing.

That is real cause for concern since in the past Word has had a very clunky and inefficient approach to HTML. Such e-mails typically use a system called Cascading Style sheets or CSS to make the representation of fonts, colours, and images efficient and consistent. A style sheet is essentially a short-cut reference menu where you define a style once (e.g. large headlines are always 14 point Verdana font in orange, left aligned, with specific spacing attributes and so on) that saves you from having to repetitiously write out big chunks of code every time you want to format a frequently occurring component.

Most e-mail programs can accommodate CSS as typically used: either in a complete set of specifications at the top of a message in the hidden header code, or as individual instructions imbedded in the body of the message. The latest Outlook cannot handle that.

Online security is a big and still rapidly growing issue, and one of the penetration vehicles most frequently used by virus designers and hackers is e-mail, particularly HTML. In what appears to be an attempt by Microsoft to pump up the security of HTML e-mail processing, they have reduced the flexibility (and therefore creativity) that e-mail message designers have enjoyed for years.

The reduced flexibility of Outlook 2007 means that HTML designers are going to have to do a lot more coding to get messages to look the way they want them to. And since commonly-used elements such as Flash and animated gifs will simply be removed by the new Outlook, the creative design process will have to be revamped. Outlook 2007 will force designers to go back to techniques long since abandoned, such as using tables to lay out text. It also means that the templates being used by everyone from newsletter senders to legitimate marketing communicators will have to be re-thought and thoroughly tested.

The Best Marketing Blogs

If you are active in the online marketing field, one of the best ways to stay on top of new developments and emerging ideas is to read the more popular blogs that discuss specific aspects that interest you, or to read the often less popular blogs of thought leaders in the field.

Finding those blogs is a process of search and elimination, but since this is the “collaborative web” there’s plenty of advice out there.

A good starting point is Todd Adrlik’s list of the Power 150 Marketing Blogs that he compiled by creating a novel evaluation approach that incorporates the popularity rankings of each blog awarded by a number of different sources. By comparing various indices such as the number of subscribers to each blog as registered by Bloglines, Google’s PageRank, Technorati’s ranking, and some more or less subjective personal criteria, he produced his list of the top 150 marketing blogs in America.

To read each one of these could take you a while, but they are probably all worth a look at least once. Most people will find that they do not have the time to read many blogs on a regular basis, so the trick is to treat a list such as this like a bookshelf in a bookstore: skim through each one when you can and shortlist a few that appeal to you. Then come back and dig deeper into the shortlist, and decide which you want to follow in depth on a daily or weekly basis, and which are worth skimming through every month or so.

You can make this process easier by subscribing to the content of each blog in a feed reader such as Google’s Reader, so it comes to you in one place, rather than you having to go out to each blog to get the latest entries. We’ll cover how to choose and set up an RSS feed reader in the near future.

How Alasoop Uses MailChimp to Help Local Restaurants

MailChimp is an e-mail marketing service provider that makes managing e-mail campaigns very simple. Where services like Constant Contact charge a flat monthly fee that increases with the size of your mailing list, MailChimp charges a very low fee per e-mail sent.

On MailChimp’s site there is a great case study about how Webstellung (a small communications business) in Paris is using MailChimp’s e-mail marketing tools to help local restaurants market themselves.

They created a service whereby they get lunchtime restaurant patrons to sign up to receive via e-mail the daily menus of local restaurants who provide a high-quality but reasonably priced lunch. The service (branded " Alasoop", a tongue-in- cheek phonetic rendition of French for "Dinner's on the table") helps office workers find out about restaurants they may not have tried and let’s them know what’s on special today. It also helps restaurants – none of which have anything like an advertising budget -- find new customers, and to fill their restaurants every lunchtime.

Apparently the restaurants currently piloting the service are receiving increased business and increased repeat business. There is a coupon program built in to the e-mails to provide a little incentive, and it seems there is very little unsubscribing in the mailing lists.

You can read the full case study here on
MailChimp’s site.

Jeep's Comic Book Competition Seeks Consumer Buzz

In an attempt be more appealing to a younger more environment-conscious consumer, DaimlerChrysler have systematically been rolling out smaller and smaller models in their Jeep range over the past few years. Their latest and cheapest model, the Jeep Patriot, is using some web 2.0 thinking to generate buzz: DaimlerChrysler are asking fans to create a comic book that features the car, if not as the hero, as a key character in the storyline. How’s that for leveraging user generated content?




Together with Marvel Comics, of Spider-Man and X-Men fame, Jeep is inviting budding comic authors to enter “The Patriot Factor” competition and submit story lines for the pending comic book. Marvel’s artists have jump-started the project, posting the first few pages at PatriotAdventure.com

Jeep’s ad agency, Organic, believes that the consumer-generated content approach will help them get exposure in their target demographic which is younger, male, first-time car buyers. They are also pushing the Patriot through social networks and video games, though there is as yet no mention of making it available in Second Life, the virtual world now so popular with marketers. (GM’s Pontiac, Toyota’s Scion, and Nissan’s Sentra have been selling virtual cars there for some time).

The winning entries will get author credits in actual comic books to be drawn and published by Marvel later in the year.

Clothes Shopping 2.0

As the passion for mash-ups and social networking goes mainstream, it was inevitable that shopping for clothes online would start to get more interesting. A number of shopping sites are popping up that let you do more than shop at one brand or one store, but let you put together outfits from components and accessories being sold across many different stores. And it would not be 2.0 if the opportunity for consumers to share ideas, experiences, and recommendations were not also part of the mix.

One site that is creating a buzz right now is FashMatch. FashMatch is a social networking site where visitors can put together various combinations of clothing from different designers, and exchange their combinations and recommendations with other shoppers online. And it has a very user-friendly visual format.



Shoppers can search in a number of different ways (say by price or by style), and can then look for “matches” to see what other shoppers have combined with the item that they are considering. In effect, you get to see what other people are wearing, or at least what they think looks good. A voting system lets visitors express their opinions of other people's outfits -- possibly a introducing a whole new level in peer pressure.



When you have put together the outfit you want, FashMatch helps you buy it from the various designer stores from which you have chosen the items.

Online Businesses Beat Offline Businesses in Customer Satisfaction

One of the prerequisites of successful online business is a commitment to customer satisfaction. The online customer simply doesn’t take the kind of abuse, disregard, or obfuscation that the offline customer is often resigned to. Online customers can go elsewhere at the click of a button; off-line businesses often perceive their customers to be captive because of the difficulty of going elsewhere, which can lead to habitually poor service by offline businesses.

The University of Michigan and ForeSee Results have just released the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which shows that customer satisfaction with e-commerce now surpasses that of offline business by 11.6 percent.

The Customer Satisfaction Index is a 100-point scale, and on that scale e-commerce scored an average of 80 against off-line businesses average of 68.4. Online retail scored 83 as opposed to offline retail’s score of 74.

Pepsi Goes Beyond 2.0

The Pepsi Generation is very much the web 2.0 generation, so it is appropriate that for 2007, Pepsi (through their agency Tribal DDB) is taking consumer online engagement and brand dynamism to a level not often seen.

Pepsi will be launching a new can/bottle design every three weeks, with each can design being themed to a consumer passion, and linked to a different online microsite that engages consumers in generating content around that theme. The dozen or so themes will include cars, music, fashion, entertainment and sports.



Pepsi’s first site was thisisthebeginning, which encouraged visitors to use a series of templated tools to collectively design a Pepsi billboard. The winning design will become a real billboard that will appear in Times Square.



The next site, pepsifreeride.com, focuses on cars, where visitors can play an online driving game and enter a lottery to win a specially customised Subaru Impreza.



Future microsites will let visitors design their own Pepsi can, with the possibility of the winner’s can actually making it onto the market. Another site will let visitors use their computer keyboard to create music.

You can see all of the Pepsi can designs at pepsigallery.com.

Advertising Breakdown by Industry and Type, December 2006 and January 2007

Nielsen//NetRatings have released their December-January report that gives the US industry breakdown of online advertising placements and types, as well as the top 25 companies placing sponsored links. You can see the summary tables at this ClickZ page.

The boom in bandwidth has had an impact on how advertisers are trying to pitch customers. It looks like Flash adverts have finally come into their own in the US, and in many industries the number of impressions that Flash ads received in January exceeded the number of impressions received by standard images. Rich media ads, not surprisingly, are not making much of a showing at all. In South Africa, where bandwidth continues to be in short supply, we can expect Flash and rich media to continue to have a limited presence, at least for another year or two.

For example, the automotive industry had 2.3 billion Flash impressions compared with only 1.3 billion standard image ad impressions. Flash is ahead in the consumer goods industry, entertainment, electronics, software, telecommunications (12.8 billion Flash vs 3.3 billion standard), travel, and even the health industry. Flash still plays second fiddle in financial services, retail, public services, and business-to-business.

The report also details the top 25 companies placing sponsored links. Here eBay still dominates the top slot with 4.6 billion sponsored link impressions, with Google way behind in second place with 1.5 billion impressions and QuinStreet in third place with 1.1 billion.

What keywords do you have to buy to get that kind of exposure? Well among the top keywords that caused eBay links to appear were “happy new year posters” and “new year graphics.” For Google, it was simply “map” and “gmail.”

How does direct marketing firm QuinStreet get so much exposure for its clients? Long tail keywords like “how to apply false eyelashes” seem to do the trick.

If you are using contextual advertising systems like Google’s AdWords, Microsoft’s adCenter, or Yahoo’s Panama, you will find that not only can longer search phrases get you great exposure and click-throughs, they can be a whole lot cheaper than one- or two-word search expressions that everyone else is bidding for.

Online Advertising Set to Hit 20 Percent of Total 2007 Ad Spending

Last year there was a major discrepancy between the share of US marketing budgets going to online media and the share of consumer media consumption time that went to online media (around 20%).

It looks like marketers might be catching up to what their target audiences are doing. According to an advertising spending study just released by Outsell, online ad spend will reach 20 percent of the total U.S. ad spend in 2007. That leaves print at about 40% and TV and radio with the rest.

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are expected to lose one percent of ad spend share while cost-per-action (CPA) ad spending will increase.

New Google AdSense Policies

AdSense is the Google service that allows websites and (more typically) blogs to host small pay-per-click text advertisements that are dynamically served to their pages depending on the context of the page's content. Keywords that happen to appear on the page trigger the specific ad: write an article about boats, and an advertisement for boats will appear in the Google AdSense placeholder. If a reader clicks the ad, the page owner gets paid a piece of Google's pay-per-click fee.

As with everything Google, there are policies. The AdSense policies have now been updated and made more reader-friendly, having not changed since March last year. Here's what's new:

By far the most significant change is that Google no longer allows its AdSense ads to appear on any site (not just page) which also hosts other non-Google advertising that is formatted to look like AdSense advertisements. Here's their language: "In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads."

Effectively, Google is enforcing a design trademark on its ads, presumably because it feels that the "look" of its ads conveys some kind of quality to potential clickers, or more likely because it wants to maximise the click rate by eliminating competing ads,particularly other contextually targeted advertisements.

There are other changes that affect sites who host AdSense ads. Sites may now place up to two AdSense referral links or buttons on a page per product referred. And referral offerings must be made without requiring users to provide any information such as e-mail addresses from users.

Many blog authors make significant amounts of money from AdSense, and will go to extraordinary lengths to increase the click rate and therefore their income. So Google is now also regulating the use of images next to AdSense ads. So sites may not draw attention to ads by, for example placing large "Click here" arrows next to the ads, or place any images next to the ads designed to mislead users.

If you use a Google search box on your site, you can now also place an AdSense ad placeholder on the search results page.

Finally, Google has broadened its previous policy which forbad the placement of AdSense ads on pages that contained any media such as MP3s or newsgroup postings to include "web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content." So don't expect to see AdSense ads on YouTube any time soon!

Google Updates Its Ad Quality Scoring

Google is rolling out an improved ad ranking algorithm for AdWords, with a little more transparency than before. They actually now give you a vague idea of what your ad quality score is.

AdWords is the system that places small text advertisements on a Google search results page or places text/image ads on pages in thousands of AdSense enabled sites around the world. (This is relevant for South African advertisers, because Google lets you target the pages on which your ad may appear by location -- so your ad could show exclusively on South African websites if that was your wish).

Those ads are designed and created by advertisers, and are associated with keywords that the advertiser "bids" for. When a searcher enters a search phrase that is or contains a keyword that an advertiser has bid for, the relevant ad appears as a "sposored link" in the upper right hand corner of the search results page.

But many people will bid for the same keywords, so several ads may appear. And the ad at the top of the list is not necessarily the one whose creator has bid the most for the keyword in question.

The Google algorithm takes more than just bid level into account when deciding which ads get precedence -- the "quality" of the ad plays into the ad ranking as well. (If that sounds confusing, it's because you are not supposed to know how it really works -- that way advertisers can't cheat the system and Google's competitors can't easily copy it).

One of the elements that go into the AdRank calculation which scores the quality of your ad is the quality of the landing page -- the page searchers get to if they click your ad. (The other elements are the actual click through rate your ad gets on Google, and the relevance of your keyword and ad text). In theory even if your bid is low you can have your ad displayed at the top of the list if you have a very high quality score, say because you have a good landing page. And, if your quality score is high, you can find yourself paying less per click than the ads placed below you.

This is because Google does not charge you the maximum you have bid for a keyword. You pay only one US cent more than you would have had to to pay if you were the next highest ranking ad.

Here's an example of how it works. Remember that you never actually get to know what your quality score is -- Google will tell you that it is good, average or bad but will not disclose the number. In any event, the score is recalculated every time a relevant keyword search is run.

Joe's Garage bids a maximum cost per click of $0.40 for the keyword "fanbelt"
Jill's Garage bids $0.65 for the same keyword.
Pete's Garage bids only $0.25.

Joe has a well worded ad that gets better click rates and has a good relevant landing page. Jill has not taken much care over her ad, doesn't get a lot of clicks, and sends clickers to her home page. Pete is somewhere in between. Google does its quality calculations and produces Quality Scores of 1.8, 1.0, and 1.5 for Joe, Jill, and Pete respectively.

Google multiplies Joe's maximum bid by his Quality Score and gives him a ranking number of 0.4 x 1.8 = 0.72.
Jill's ranking number is 0.65, her maximum bid (0.65) times her Quality Score (1.0).
Pete comes out as 0.25 x 1.5 = 0.38.

Joe goes to the top of the list, since he has the highest ranking number, with Jill second and Pete third. But what do they actually pay each time their respective ads get clicked?

For Joe to be listed in second place he would have to pay Jill's ranking number divided by his quality score (0.65/1.8), or $0.36. But he's ranked above her, so he must pay one cent more, or $0.37. Note this is lower than the $0.40 he actually bid.

For Jill to be listed in third place she would have to pay Pete's ranking number divided by her own quality score (0.38/1.0), or $0.38. But she's ranked above Pete so she pays a cent more, or $0.39. That's a lot less than she bid, but it is more than Joe is paying in the top slot.

Pete has nobody below him, so he pays only his minimum threshold fee (in this case only 4 cents) every time someone clicks his ad.

The moral of the story is that you can really lower your CPC rates by making sure you create good ads and use focused relevant landing pages. And being third on the list can be a really cheap option..

To become an instant expert on AdWords, go to Google's AdWords Learning Center".