Danielle Courtenay, Chief Marketing Officer – VisitOrlando

Orlando, Florida is reportedly the world’s number one family destination with nearly 50 million visitors annually, 42 percent of which bring children. Eighty percent of Orlando’s visitors come on leisure trips and the vast majority are domestic travelers. While just 7 percent of visitors come from international markets, they account for 17 percent of spend. Visit Orlando has plans to attract more visitors from foreign countries, particularly Latin America and Western Europe. Visit Orlando CMO Danielle Courtenay manages a marketing budget of over $49 million with eight different language groups targeted worldwide. Here are some of her views and perspectives:

What are some of the challenges and complexities you face today in marketing your destination globally?

With each of our primary destinations in a different place regarding what’s gone on in the world economically, and then also the cultural differences, the challenges and nuances of the markets being so different from Europe to Canada to Latin America, it’s making sure you stay culturally relevant and connect with the consumers in each marketplace as they want to be talked to.

What makes Orlando a “go to” destination and how do you keep it fresh and inviting for repeat visitors?

First of all, we’re probably most well known for our theme parks. We have seven of the world’s top theme parks in Orlando. One of the ways to keep it fresh—and we’re very fortunate because we do have a high repeat rate—is that our brand tends to reinvent itself and the parks tend to reinvent themselves. The opening of Harry Potter brought a whole different perspective to Orlando that didn’t exist before. The same thing happened when Disney opened Animal Kingdom and Sea World opened Aquatica.

So the major brands within our destination brand are also always looking for how to stay relevant and fresh. And because their products are so different, we really can appeal to people “cradle to grave.” You may come here when you’re a small child, but then as you get older you may have more of an interest and come back because of the thrill rides, and then you may come back to play golf. Then you may come back on your honeymoon, for a business convention, and for graduation parties and the shopping, and finally, you may come back with your grandchildren.

So we have product. We have over 100 attractions in the central Florida area as well as being a golf destination and culinary destination, so there’s always something new. As we say, it would take you 67 days to see everything in Orlando, so they can come back multiple times and have a different experience every time.

Also, beyond theme parks, the rest of the product is so broad based that we really can take different messaging tactics to reach out for different audiences at different times.

How is your marketing budget funded and allocated from an advertising, media, digital channel, PR, and promotions standpoint?

We’re about a $50 million company, and 60 percent of that comes from the bed tax or the resort tax. We then generate 40 percent of our own budget through entrepreneurial activities, whether that’s membership in our trade association, selling advertising on our website or producing different publications. But what we look at from a global marketing perspective is ensuring all the marketing disciplines work very closely together.

We have a presence in seven international markets, and in most of those, we have a trade office and a PR office that can look at engagement. Where we’re running fully integrated marketing campaigns, we have advertising or media buying agencies. For the last two years, we’ve raised the investment on the PR side, and when it comes to straight media, we were about 60/40 international/domestic. And of our traditional media budgets, we’re probably spending 30 to 40 percent in digital.

In some markets, like the US, everybody is all about digital. In the German market, however, radio is still a very, very strong media. In the UK market, print is a very strong media. So what medium we use really depends on where those countries are in their various lifecycle as far as the media influence. So digital plays a role everywhere, and we take search engine marketing off the top as a cost of doing business. And then we look at it by campaign and determine where we feel the allocation for that particular message is best utilized.

Where and how are you embracing digital marketing solutions and channels of engagement?

Search engine marketing is a very important cost of doing business, so that’s taken off the top and doesn’t become a discretionary spend. It becomes an absolute spend. From there, we really divide our digital budget first into traditional digital, which is your mobile banners, Web banners, and sponsorships of casual gaming. These things are meant to drive people to an action, whether it’s going to our website, buying a ticket, or signing up for a vacation planning kit.

Then we have an engagement budget, and that might be things like a unique partnership we just did with Gowalla. We wanted to do something with proximity marketing, so we went out to all the proximity marketing partners and we said, “This is what we want to do. We don’t want to just be in Orlando. We want to be in other key cities.”

So Gowalla was willing to do this test with us in Philadelphia, Austin, Chicago and Washington DC, where people checked in at things linked to Orlando. They might be in a museum in Chicago and information about the Orlando Museum of Art comes up, and they could check in. And if they checked in at five of the 20 locations, they were entered to win a trip to Orlando. We introduced that campaign at South by Southwest.

It was the first time proximity marketing had been used in this way. And with that test, we gained a ton of followers. We had 20,000 check-ins where people were learning about Orlando as a destination. So we try to be innovative looking at that technology but using it in ways that meet our strategic needs. A couple of years ago when we wanted to get into social media, we did a worldwide search for a pair to spend 67 days in Orlando and blog and tweet and Facebook about their experiences. It was so successful that the next year we sent them on the road to our primary locations like Germany and UK and Brazil to talk to different people.

So we’re trying to do all of these activities not just to do them, but to really bring our brand to life and tell our story in a unique and different way.

What Do Teens Want?

by Tara Cousineau, PhD, Founder & CEO BodiMojo

If you spend any time with teenagers, you know that they are constantly in flux, always adamant about a need for something or someone. An iTouch, a smart phone, a Northface jacket, Bieber tickets, a prom date. They bombard parents with hyperbanter that can be mind shattering.

“I just have to have this, Mom. No one will talk to me if I don’t.“
“But Dad, all my friends are going. You just have to let me or I’ll die.”

Yes, there is drama and it is highly persuasive. Yet often, just as quickly, they forget about that something or some place and move on. This classic but elusive adolescent behavior is what marketers chase after. Just when brands think they have teenager audience, they disappear.

It may help to know a little about the teen brain to understand this fickle behavior. Other than the first few years of toddlerhood, there is no other time in human lifespan in which the brain undergoes such vast alterations. Think about it – toddler tantrums and teen moodiness. See any similarities? It’s all about control in one’s little orbit. In the teen phase, the brain is exploding with new connections and neural wiring: abstract thinking, problem solving, planning, relational acuity, creativity, identity and experimentation. It’s like the devouring vines in Little Shop of Horrors, but now it’s raining down hormones.

Over the course of the teen years and early 20s these neural networks become refined, behaviors mature, and goals, talents and desires develop continuity. In fact, people’s life habits and internal scripts about their self identity become pretty well established by the end of the college years. That’s why engaging teens in their health matters now. It’s when socially responsible brands can have a positive influence in educating young customers.

Engaging Teens as Co-Creators Creates Customers for Life

How does one leverage teen behavior when you want to sell them on a brand or message? How do you affect change now so that it will matter to your target audience later? It’s the brand loyalty challenge—Get believers early and they’ll stay.

This was one challenge in creating BodiMojo.com, a web and mobile platform to motivate teens to adopt healthy habits—such as eating healthy and being physically active. Yet creating a health product is a tall order when teens could care less about what might happen to them in 5, 10 or 20 years if they don’t eat five fruits and veggies or exercise an hour a day.

But you can’t sell a message teens already know. You can’t sell a message if it doesn’t matter right this second.
 
Personalization and customization have been a hot topic in both the behavioral sciences and most digital marketing and advertising departments. It makes sense: The smarter the customization, the deeper the metrics about your target group and better chance to affect behavior. The more the brand message has relevancy, the easier it is to track success.

Meet teens in the digital playgrounds they hang out in. Leverage that for the good, right?

The BodiMojo team set out to figure out what really mattered to teens about health. We spent time with girls and boys (13-18) in focus groups and field testing, including product naming, crafting health messages, and observing teen use cases. We invited teens to help write content and review health tools as they were being designed. We created algorithms to customize feedback and serve up content that was all about the teen user. We built a technology platform. Then, teens helped define the mobile messages, goal reminders and ways to share to create a feedback loop. Then we sat back and listened.

What matters is context.

You want to sell health and get teens to eat healthier and exercise? You want to promote designer water or butt sculpting shoes or a granola bar? Then attend to their emotional well-being. Truly, it’s all about emotional engagement. Teens are asking, “Who am I?” and the answer is always changing. What resonates for teens in the here and now is how they feel about their bodies, weight and appearance, and how their peers view them. They care about sexual health, relationships, stress and mood. And they worry about the welfare of friends and want to support them. But the adult world doesn’t support teens enough in managing and understanding personal health, in spite of the fact that this age group is buying deodorants, make-up, shaving supplies, lotions, clothes, music and cool gadgets.

Companies that Care: Leveraging Teen’s Desire for Meaning Making

Whether the ROI is a social impact metric or brand penetration, the product has to be meaningful and the message emotionally engaging. Every generation of adolescents is some version of a “me” generation. Most teens genuinely care about their bodies and their image. But selling “health” is harder today because the media incessantly bombards them with paradoxical messages about bodies, sex, and fitting in a manner that is unprecedented compared to earlier generations.

Today’s digitally savvy teens are eager to fill out quizzes, create personal profiles, join contests and then broadcast their results. This is not about narcissistic exhibition, although they are self-interested. This behavior is about testing out identities and seeking social validation. Teens are more media literate and discerning, too. For better or worse, they share. According to one survey, teens are ten times more likely to listen to a friend about a product than they are to a brand. Teens trust friends, not companies. Brands that engender teen trust and a positive emotional experience will likely succeed. So enlist teens as experts and co-creators from the get go.

Of course, it will be a rollercoaster ride that might not fit in with marketing time lines and quarterly benchmarks. Engaging teens is about trust, patience and adding value—meaning—to their lives. And you just have to go along for the ride.

Tara Cousineau, PhD, is founder and CEO of BodiMojo, Inc. She is a clinical psychologist and eHealth innovator. Bodimojo.com, the flagship product, is a health engagement platform for teens leveraging web and mobile technologies. The use of BodiMojo.com by teen girls has shown to have a significant effect on improving girls’ attitudes about their own body image.