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By Frank Cuypers

Words matter: Helping your residents understand brand

September 13, 2019 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Words matter: Helping your residents understand brand

We’ve noticed that the word brand makes some people uncomfortable. Has brand become a bad word? Most people don’t speak the language of marketing. Even if they do, they might not know your dialect of place marketing. It’s smart to assume that your stakeholders aren’t well-versed in the jargon and trends of our industry. You […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity Tagged With: DMO, image building, place brand, reputation

Place brands that lack substance are doomed to disappoint

December 7, 2018 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Place brands that lack substance are doomed to disappoint

Like many industries, place marketing has weathered some notorious brand disasters. This 2010 brand video for Downtown St. Louis received criticism for portraying itself as the next über-trendy scene for hipsters and fashionistas – a new New York, perhaps? Or consider Las Vegas. In the 1990s, city marketers tried to rebrand Sin City as a […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Topic: Place DNA Tagged With: downtown st. louis, las vegas, Topic: Place DNA

Place brand manager roles are expanding: here’s why and what to do next

July 13, 2018 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Place brand manager roles are expanding: here’s why and what to do next

“The wider any culture spreads, the thinner it gets.” -Stanley Edgar Hyman, literary critic This maxim – known as The Law of Raspberry Jam – describes a core challenge of destination branding: Without a coherent story and coordinated stakeholders, your brand loses its distinctive flavour. Unfortunately, many destinations spread their messages too thin. When people […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity Tagged With: manchester, singapore tourism board, the law of raspberry jam, Vancouver, visit bristol, wonderful copenhagen

Do your visitors trust you? Educate them with honesty

May 3, 2017 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Do your visitors trust you? Educate them with honesty

Your visitors spend months dreaming about their vacation. They research online, they see promotional material on websites, they read reviews, they plan, and they book. After weeks of increasing anticipation, they finally get on the plane, train, or car and try to have the experience they’ve been waiting for. Will expectations match reality? Every destination […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Consumer Engagement, Long Haul, Topic: Visitor Centres

Boutique destinations are making a massive impact

April 5, 2017 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

Boutique destinations are making a massive impact

In 2015, the Skift travel magazine declared “The Rise of the Boutique Destination” as a trend to watch. This mirrors the message put forth by urban expert Richard Florida, author of “The Rise of the Creative Class”. Florida has predicted the rise of the distinctive city and the people that support its identity, saying, “How […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, DMO Value Proposition Tagged With: amsterdam marketing, boutique, eindhoven, estonia, place dna, restaurant australia, tel aviv global, tour of flanders

Why loyalty management leads to growth

March 21, 2017 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Why loyalty management leads to growth

Imagine that for every one hundred arrivals to your destination, one hundred and ten returned next year. Ideally, how many of those would be repeat visits and referrals? Visitor retention is one of three growth engines for destinations (along with visitor acquisition and referral). A higher retention rate can reduce the risk of declining visitation. […]

Filed Under: Destination Marketing Strategy, Long Haul, Strategic Planning, Strategy & Performance Measurement Tagged With: bilbao, bilbao effect, copenhagen, guggenheim museum, loyalty management, product life cycle, southern norway, visitor retention

You’re not as famous as you think

February 14, 2017 by Frank Cuypers 2 Comments

You’re not as famous as you think

You might be the king or queen of your castle. You’re passionate and creative about your destination’s branding, its unique experiences, its messaging, and the reasons why it is a fantastic place to visit. You work hard to share that message with visitors. But how far does your fame reach? Some destinations truly are world […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, Strategy & Performance Measurement Tagged With: brand architecture, collaboration, endorsed branding, mono destination

Phygital tourism is here to change your world

February 8, 2017 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Phygital tourism is here to change your world

In an age of mashups and remixes, the word “phygital” is an apt hybrid. Phygital marketing seeks to seamlessly blend the physical and digital reality through omnichannel communications and experiences. This trend has huge implications for the future of tourism: phygital tourism will affect far more than consumer behaviour, it will also impact the way […]

Filed Under: Day Trip, Innovation & Trends, Visitor Experience Tagged With: google tango, mixed reality, omnipresenz, paul milgram, phygital

Meet your visitors’ needs and avoid marketing myopia

December 23, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

Meet your visitors’ needs and avoid marketing myopia

In 1960, Theodore Levitt coined the term “marketing myopia” in Harvard Business Review as a cautionary description of a common marketing mistake. Levitt’s concept claims that companies are short-sighted when they view marketing as merely a tool for selling specific products, rather than meeting the needs of their customers. The video below gives a short synopsis […]

Filed Under: Destination Marketing Strategy, DMO Value Proposition, Research and Analysis, Seat 16B Tagged With: harvard business review, marketing myopia, visitflanders

Destinations: Beware the better mousetrap fallacy

December 16, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 3 Comments

Destinations: Beware the better mousetrap fallacy

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” This quote attributed to the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson illustrates a common misconception in business. The “better mousetrap fallacy” is the mistaken belief that a superior product will automatically generate customers, which would remove the need for building that “path […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, DMO Value Proposition Tagged With: brand

Don’t drown in the sea of sameness: A destination branding paradox

November 30, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 6 Comments

Don’t drown in the sea of sameness: A destination branding paradox

Destination marketers tend to believe that good branding is about standing out in the crowd. This is understandable, as traditional marketing training encourages new marketers to create unique, compelling messaging that simply must be heard due to its creativity and emotional resonance. This creates a problem and a classic branding paradox: If everyone tries to […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, DMO Value Proposition, Seat 16B Tagged With: branding, charleroi, hotelling's law, iceland

3 essential elements of the place brand formula

November 3, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

3 essential elements of the place brand formula

How does the rest of the world see your destination? Shift perceptions in your favour by defining and communicating your authentic place brand that flows outward from your destination’s DNA. The outer layer of place branding has three essential elements that can help your destination become known for the right reasons. These elements are so […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, DMO Value Proposition, Topic: Place DNA Tagged With: branding, place brand, place dna, Topic: Place DNA

Can destinations reconcile competing logos and brands?

September 8, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

Can destinations reconcile competing logos and brands?

Changing a logo is like a divorce. It can be messy, painful and take years to complete. It’s no wonder that some of the most successful destination logos (like those of New York, Paris, Berlin and Spain) have been left untouched for decades – because fundamentally, a whole community must feel ownership of the destination’s […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Destination Leadership, Seat 16B Tagged With: brand identity, brand management, frank cuypers, logo, strategy

Need better visitor stories? Improve your place product

August 26, 2016 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Need better visitor stories? Improve your place product

“How was your trip?” The answers to this question are the stories your destination’s visitors and residents tell. Travel has infinite variety, but the resulting stories all have one thing in common: memorable experiences. This means that if your destination marketing organization (DMO) really wants to grow awareness and visitation by telling the right stories […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, DMO Value Proposition, Topic: Place DNA Tagged With: brand, Destination British Columbia, DNA, ostend, place product, Topic: Place DNA, USUS, visit flanders

A logo is not a brand

August 15, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 2 Comments

A logo is not a brand

Think about your favourite or most unforgettable logos. Whether it’s the Nike swoosh or “I Love NY”, we know logos are important because we remember them and begin to identify with them over time. For destinations, new marketing is about making connections with those specific people who might be interested in exactly what your destination […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, Destination Leadership Tagged With: brand, brand identity, logo

How should destinations respond to Airbnb and the sharing economy?

June 27, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 3 Comments

How should destinations respond to Airbnb and the sharing economy?

As more people participate in the new sharing economy, companies like Airbnb, Inc., VRBO and Wimdu are disrupting the travel industry by offering travellers direct access to peer-to-peer accommodation rentals. A surging demand from visitors who want to travel like a local is forcing many destinations and places to respond and balance the needs of […]

Filed Under: Day Trip, Destination Development, Destination Leadership, Destination Marketing Strategy, Technology and Innovation Tagged With: airbnb, berlin, dubai, iceland, p2p foundation, residents, sharing economy, vrbo, wimdu

Use Place DNA™ to define your destination’s core identity

June 21, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

Use Place DNA™ to define your destination’s core identity

Place DNA™ is at the core of the three layers of place branding that help destination marketers understand how residents, visitors and potential visitors perceive a place. By articulating the intrinsic character of your destination, Place DNA™ provides an authenticity test for all marketing activities that follow. Identifying the elements of Place DNA™ will help […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, DMO Value Proposition, Long Haul, Topic: Place DNA Tagged With: charleroi, cleveland, DNA, gattaca, place dna, pretpark nederland, singapore, the netherlands, yubari, zutphen

Why destination marketers need to understand Place DNA™

May 30, 2016 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Why destination marketers need to understand Place DNA™

What is the DNA of a place and why is it important? Why is a destination’s DNA relevant to place making, place marketing and destination marketing? Defining Place DNA™ Simply stated, a destination’s Place DNA™ is the definition of its intrinsic character, the meaning that people ascribe to it, or more often, a mixture of […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Day Trip, DMO Value Proposition, Topic: Place DNA

How destinations can demonstrate value by using Blue Ocean Strategy

May 6, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 2 Comments

How destinations can demonstrate value by using Blue Ocean Strategy

Now that you’ve learned why place marketers should use Blue Ocean Strategy, how can destinations put this into practice and demonstrate value? As the last article explored, most business leaders understand the two common business strategies framed by economist Michael Porter, which demand a choice between creating a high-value product and striving for low-cost implementation. […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, DMO Value Proposition, Long Haul Tagged With: Blue Ocean Strategy, Hotels, value

Mexico City demonstrates the power of crowdsourcing

May 4, 2016 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Mexico City demonstrates the power of crowdsourcing

In these times of transition, technology is making direct democracy and co-creation more possible every day. Mexico City has just begun an effort to crowdsource its new constitution, as Iceland did in 2012. Whatever the local political ramifications, this reveals a trend destination marketing organizations (DMOs) should be aware of. As destinations struggle to define […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, Destination Leadership, Re-fuel

Why place marketers should use Blue Ocean Strategy to improve their value proposition

April 29, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

Why place marketers should use Blue Ocean Strategy to improve their value proposition

A successful strategy for place marketers needs to focus on value innovation. Blue Ocean Strategy offers a way to do this, and could be an eye-opening concept for those seeking to differentiate their destinations effectively. Most strategists will agree that marketing and business are all about making hard choices. People often think in terms of […]

Filed Under: Brand and Identity, DMO Value Proposition, Long Haul

Strategy is not what you think it is

April 18, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 2 Comments

Strategy is not what you think it is

“For a destination marketing organization (DMO), strategy means formulating a vision for providing lasting, sustainable value for residents, visitors and companies. Strategy is the shortest road between your mission and your vision.” We trust a driver who keeps his or her eyes on the road instead of on the dashboard. Tracking speed and mileage is […]

Filed Under: Destination Marketing Strategy, Long Haul, Strategic Planning, Strategy & Performance Measurement

Overcome disruption with responsive DMO leadership

April 13, 2016 by Frank Cuypers Leave a Comment

Overcome disruption with responsive DMO leadership

Some experts will say that they can solve the problems you face within a changing industry, but the best way your destination marketing organization can adapt is through responsive leadership from within. Frank Cuypers, Senior Strategic Consultant for Destination Think!, explains four types of leadership. If you’ve attended enough marketing conferences, there’s a good chance […]

Filed Under: Destination Leadership, Destination Marketing Strategy, DMO Leadership, Long Haul

Why place branding needs to be built from the inside

April 13, 2016 by Frank Cuypers 1 Comment

Why place branding needs to be built from the inside

There can be no city branding without citizens and no destination branding without residents. From afar, city and destination branding often looks like Italian lasagna. As district, city, province, region, country and private partner brands combine, their messages stack on top of one another in messy layers. When the layers don’t blend well, it can […]

Filed Under: DMO Value Proposition, Long Haul

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