It starts with audience
With most Brits now enjoying access, and half of them enjoying the fast television-like experience of broadband, the potential of this market has exploded within just the last few years. We’re also all spending more time online than ever before, and this is true across all ages and demographics. There’s no sector that’s not yet touched by online, and with media consumption continuing to change in favour of the digital channels, this will only increase. The web is yet to find its natural level in the marketing mix, but from your personal experiences it’s probably easy to understand why the typical viewer is spending more time online every season than they did the season before, why they’re visiting more sites, and simply doing more. It’s become part of our lives, and its part will continue to grow.

Audiences have moved. Has your marketing really followed them?
That’s the question most marketers are now asking themselves. With news that UK marketing teams now spend more on web banners and search than they do on radio, we’ve witnessed a pivotal moment in media selection which is why it’s time for those not yet tapping into the real potential of the medium to reconsider.

Not new media, just media
Every travel service has a website. But that’s only scratching the surface of when it comes to what the web can really do for a brand. High traffic web media sites offer marketers audiences that rival television in their size or consumer magazines in their focus.

“It’s just another form of media”, explains Tony Sullivan from Media Campaign Services. “You have an audience, you have a media property, you have a marketing message. There’s been so much hype about the ‘newness’ of new media, that sometimes the real basics have been overlooked.”

Having been involved in planning online before the hype and the dot com bubble bursting in 2000, Sullivan is well placed to comment, but he’s not alone. Many senior executives are now consciously repositioning online as being simply another media channel that services any part of the media mix.

The travel industry explores the web
“Travel and financial services were early adopters in online”, explains Andy Jonesco, the Vice Pesident of Interactive Marketing at AOL’s UK operation, yet he’s convinced there is a disconnect between where the audiences are and where the marketers put their budgets: “The travel industry only spends about 2% of its media budget online. That compares to 44% in press, 20% on television and 19% on direct mail, yet online accounts for about 15% of the time we all spend with media. It simply doesn’t add up”.

Arguably, with online providing the channel to market for many travel brands, and being a lean forward medium in which every advert exposure is seen by the viewer, it could stake a claim to an even higher share of spend. Travel consumers are selecting the web as their medium of choice. Nearly half of all UK online consumers have researched an international flight, 39% have researched hotel accommodation and 25% have researched package holidays. For those who switch to the web there is little chance of going back to old habits and with the growing sophistication of airline websites and travel search services it is no surprise that they are using them more and more.

A shift in behaviour
And this is no short-term fad. There is a fundamental and permanent change going on in terms of how consumers research big purchases. The opinion of friends and family is rising, and the web is allowing customers to gain greatly enhanced access to information, helping them make better purchase decisions. Much academic research points to this and one of the largest studies - in 2002-3 from Dieringer - revealed the habits of 40 million US consumers. They uncovered that consumers were changing their attitudes towards brands as a result of their experience of a brand online. Empowered by a greater understanding of product features and benefits, it documented how consumers were changing their brand preference. The findings resonate in all industries but give particular lessons for the travel sector.

The way people use the web is changing fast and Jonesco argues that marketers can’t avoid facing up to this any more: “The numbers speak for themselves. We found from our own research that 77% of consumers claimed that information online was very important to their research process. 69% view their ability to compare product features online as an important part of the purchase process”. Sophisticated research by the Henley Centre helped AL understand the UK market and why consumers were turning to the web. It revealed that alongside personal recommendations consumers are using and trusting a combination of online tools: client websites, web media, search engines, review sites and price comparison tools.
“There’s also a halo effect from simply being online”, says Jonesco. “57% said they looked on brands more favourably just because they were online. Of more concern to many established brands is that 54% of consumers came across new brands they were not aware of, and 43% actually changed their brand preference as a result”.

The web’s clearly having a fundamental influence on the way customers see brands. Some online influences are more trusted and more important to consumers than others, and online influences are making consumers more susceptible to changing brands.

More information
For more information on the research referenced in this article contact AOL’s UK office
· For support in understanding the implications of the changing media landscape on your own marketing, contact Digital Strategy Consulting, the strategic training specialists for digital marketers – Danny@DigitalStrategyConsulting.com
· For copies of the slides from the keynote speech at the CIM Travel Industry Group email Danny@DigitalStrategyConsulting.com