A friend of mine shared with me the following story – illustrative of the power that properly placed words can wield.  I found it charming and fun — but also instructive.  In this modern era of lightning-fast communication… Words are still important.  Enjoy…

“When copywriter Robert Pirosh landed in Hollywood in 1934, eager to become a screenwriter, he wrote and sent the following letter to all the directors, producers, and studio executives he could think of. The approach worked, and after securing three interviews he took a job as a junior writer with MGM.

Pirosh went on to write for the Marx Brothers, and in 1949 won an Academy Award for his Battleground script.”
(Source: Dear Wit.)

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land’s-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024

I bought an apple IIc computer in 1984. I don’t remember what I paid for it but I remember that is was extraordinary. Even in those early years, I felt that it had more capacity to do things than I had the capacity to figure out how. It was a wonderful tool and now as I compose this on it’s great great great grandson Macbook Air, my feeling remains unchanged. RIP Mr. Jobs. ~ Robert

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger began many news conferences with the question, “What questions do you have for my answers?”  His honesty in how he was approaching the interviews was refreshing.  But the schtick has gotten old.  If Amazon can profit from selling one book to one person millions of times over or if iTunes can profit from selling artists with a tiny almost insignificant audience, what does this imply for the communications consultants to political campaigns?

It’s pretty clear that the marketers who advise political campaigns stick to the Henry Kissinger method, carefully scripting answers to broad questions to try and influence the voters. They believe in the broad-brush stroke slogans and traditional marketing that have helped candidates win elections in the past. All but ignoring one simple fact: In a digital age, markets are highly fragmented. And that includes the market for voters.

Based on the recommendation of a good friend, I’ve taken to reading this extraordinary book.

Undoubtedly you are probably like me in that you never considered this seemingly unrelated point in history. But did you realize that the Apache Indian Nation held the Spanish Army at bay for nearly 200 years in spite of the fact that the Spanish Army was the modern day equivalent of a superpower. With the lack of resources and sheer disadvantage in size, they manged to do what would appear to be the impossible.

So how is this relevant in any way to what I do? Simple, the authors are presenting a profound argument about the hidden power in leaderless, decentralized or distributed organizational structures in contrast to the typical hierarchal structure. Think of the leaderless organization, how would that be different from the status quo of markting teams today? Are today’s marketing head shots, “leaders” or “catalysts”?

Fast forward their discussion to modern times and the case studies are compelling: Wikipedia, Craigslist, SKYPE, Toyota.

The leaderless organization focuses on the team and not the leader. I cannot count the number of job descriptions I’ve read for a senior marketer that required them being a “team player” yet they hire highly centralized thinkers. The type A personality. Or the implementers who will do the bidding of the senior executives “ideas” rather than be the catalyst for the creation of successful marketing strategy, design and execution at the ground level by the team. I think this discussion is critically important, not just in the context of this fine book but in the context of each business asking itself what to do with its marketing for the future. There are countless board, executive committee and marketing meetings where the topic of marketing change or transition is an agenda item. So what to do about it? Maybe the answer is not in the job description.

The book is extraordinary and on the FORMO recommended reading list, the FORMO recommended implementation list and the FORMO “how we view what we do” list. In retrospect, its clear that I’ve always positioned myself as the catalyst in lieu of the authoritarian leader. I don’t view myself as the “expert” in all subjects but rather as the catalyst that can craft a network, a structure, an organization of highly talented individual cells that in turn imagine, design, create and implement.

The latest figures from America’s property market were unremittingly gloomy.

So starts the article in The Economist. Probably not a great surprise to anyone, although I was startled by the graphic in the article. While I can’t suggest that I have the solution to the housing problems on a macro scale, I do propose that at the very least, I have an rational idea for the housing market in resort and second home communities.

The idea is simple: You have to reinvent your marketing model.

In February of last year, Credit Suisse published a study on The Power of Brand Investing. Their highly detailed study evaluated 27 brands that they believed would, “significantly outperform the market over the next three to five years…” In it they cited, “The big mistakes brand companies often make include not knowing when to say no, failing to innovate, underinvesting, inexperienced management…”

So my idea, again: Reinvent your marketing model. But not recklessly and without a plan. Here are my six suggestions on where to begin.

I N N O V A T E

1. Innovate by investing in a detailed understanding of the long-tail markets defined by your customer, your client, your prospects. Your market is probably not what you think it is.
2. Innovate by understanding the risks in the assumptions you are making about your sales forecasts. If you don’t think you’re making assumptions, you are wrong.
3. Innovate by establishing new measures and ROI requirements for every marketing tactic. Say “no” to ill defined tactics that don’t establish measures of performance or ROI.
4. Innovate with a new digital strategy leveraging the real power behind social media, not simply using it as another form of media.
5. Innovate with your messaging, move from the traditional persuasion-based one-way communication towards engagement, dialogue and authenticity.
6. Innovate with your team; Is a hierarchical marketing structure less effective than a decentralized, distributed model with a catalyst to drive ideas? Adding experience doesn’t mean adding more levels.

The times they are indeed difficult if you are in any way, shape or form connected to real estate with your brand. You can sit back and blame it on the economy or you can do something about it.

That something is simple, Innovate.

Are you an:

Agent of Change

or a

Guardian of Tradition?

(from The Spider and the Starfish by Ori Brafman)

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Teddy Roosevelt

One of the defining trends of the last decade was the resort real estate & hotel development. From all perspectives it made sense, a real estate product that would provide a faster return to the developer than the resort hotel combined with an operating luxury hotel with its long play and consistent cash flow. Theoretically, a sound idea. And with abundant mortgage deals and a growing affluent or pseudo-affluent segment, an easy sell.


Not so easy, anymore.


1. Luxury resort hotel marketing is based on the hotels market segmentation: leisure travelers, business travelers and group or convention business. A luxury hotel can create an optimal balance of these different segments in order to maximize revenues. The marketing is then a target-based strategy to match supply to demand in each segment for the hotel. Occupancy, ADR (average daily rate) and REVPAR (revenue per available room) are the standard industry performance metrics of any hotel.


2. Successful resort real estate marketing is based on niche targeting of specific lifestyle and other psychographic variables of individuals, couples and families. The goal is to match the lifestyle defined by the brand with the personal taste and preferences of each niche. [NOTE: There are for all practical purposes no speculative real estate investors in the US today.]


3. The resort real estate sales model continues to focus on traditional broker-led, opportunity sales approach, i.e. a sales prospect walks in the door. The problem is nobody is walking in the door while the inventory of luxury resort real estate property is so large that the noise overwhelms the few prospects that exist.


Diagnosis: Targeting hotel customers does not equal targeting real estate prospects. It is generally ineffective.


Symptom: Hotel business but no sales. In other words plenty of convention badges in the hotel but no prospects to buy the real estate.


Treatment: Employ hybrid “long tail” marketing strategies that target specific niche or clusters as hotel leisure guests. The targeted niches are selected based upon lifestyle match with the potential real estate product. Secondarily, real estate prospects are targeted with a lifestyle match and the resort hotel is used as part of the real estate sales pipeline. Thirdly, blow-up the traditional concept of the real estate sales model in favor of innovative new solutions.


A very good friend of mine and an expert in resort real estate sales likened it to the cardiac patient in need of emergency open heart surgery yet most hotel operators continue to feed the patient aspirin. His point is well made, these resort & real estate developments amassed hundreds of millions in debt financing based on assumptions of high hotel REVPAR and cash flow with steady real estate sales only to have neither.


Billions in high quality resort real estate remains unsold today with luxury resort developments swimming in debt they cannot possibly service with the auto parts dealers conventions alone.


The challenge is in getting the paradigms pushed aside, the corporate bureaucracy to accept intervention and the heart surgery to begin.

1. Analytics – Scour your analytics in minute detail. Understand the real strengths and weaknesses of your current site from the perspective of your Users (clients). Luxury marketing is niche marketing, applying broad generalizations about your discriminating clientele will fail.


2. Understand your users (audience) niche – What type of mobile device to they use, what will they use a year from now. What are they looking for in your site? How do you make it sticky and bring them back? Do you really know them? Do your personas reflect real knowledge about the audience and their online habits or simply base demographics.


3. Understand and aggressively employ great ideas in design – Pay attention to what is happening in web development and information architecture. Listen to the conversations and then apply the points to your project. Don’t rely simply on your own expertise but be humble enough to accept that you don’t have all the ideas, there are a lot of great thinkers out there talking about fascinating and relevant topics that can measurably improve your site, challenge conventional wisdom in your marketing team.


4. Visual comes last – If you get the strategy and architecture right, your site will perform very well. Visual design is important but it does not precede the absolute of getting the foundation right. A great building does not begin with a rendering, it begins with engineering and planning. Web Development is no different.


5. It’s all connected – The web is giant cobweb of information about your brand. Your job as a strategist is to find those connections and make logical sense of them. Your website should be at the center of this “cobweb” and your branding the silk that links it all together. Your site must seemlessly provide and connect to all of the content and related content chunks that exist in your brand’s universe.


The result: The site for the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay that we launched last week in collaboration with our digital partners at {e} house studios.


Click here to visit The Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay

Ok, there are more than 8 but I couldn’t help but share these, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the level of understanding of digital strategy is generally weak or the industry has become so mired in tradition that bad practices are being mistaken for best.  Here’s my list:

1. Website’s are for e commerce. Wrong, websites are for clients (guests). If a booking engine is the only thing on your site that engages them, then the answer is yes. If, however, your clients want and need more out of your digital platform that dates, rates and space, then this is a seriously flawed assumption. The fundamental question is one of strategy not e commerce tactics. And that question begins very simply, What are your clients looking for online? Do you know or are you assuming?


2. Style over content. I didn’t originate it but truly, CONTENT IS KING, repeat CONTENT IS KING. Every top performing site in every single industry has content directly relevant to their client base. If your web experts are showing  you visual designs before addressing strategy, substance or content…start over. Or if you think you’ll have a better website if you have more FLASH or another visual design…start over. The point is that a strategy about your content is fundamental to increasing the performance of your site.


3. Don’t use a Copy Machine. Don’t copy other hotel’s websites and don’t hire web development companies that give you the same site they gave somebody else, unless of course your hotel owner, asset manager or board has asked you to finish in second place. If you are considering web developers or agencies, look at their portfolio, if their portfolio sites all have similar IA (Information Architecture) run away.


4. Go Big. Mad Men is a fictitious television show. In the digital sphere, innovation and great marketing can come from a one person shop, a small firm or a mega agency. Big does not guarantee success. Recently I worked with a client that used the “biggest name in Hospitality Websites”. Sounds good but too bad that firm didn’t know squat about strategy. This is not about buying power, the ability to run focus groups or massive staff. It’s about finding a partner that can understand your clients and what they need in an online experience and creating a strategy that is unique to you…and measurably effective in adding value to your hotel.


5. Non-expert experts. The IT Department is not synonymous with web development or digital strategy. True professionals that they are, they are no more qualified for web strategy than the rooms executive is in designing a Food &Beverage POS system. All geeks are not alike. Beware of advertising agencies masquerading as web development companies, those are not the same. Marketing Services has increasingly become a niche industry, don’t be afraid to mix and match. The bottom line is to drive the value to your hotel.


6. Misunderstanding web metrics or worse, ignoring them. Do you read and actively analyze your metrics to understand what your clients are doing, consuming and most importantly, ignoring on your digital platforms? Do you know the percentage of your visitors that watch your virtual tour? all of it? And if they bounce or exit from that page? Is your web development company digging deep into these metrics or are they touting the growth in visits? Have you asked about your PageRank and how this strategy will raise it?


7. SEM solves everything. Yes indeed, if you sell SEM (Search Marketing). But if you are a hotel marketing chief then you need to be as concerned about quality as quantity. Do you know if more visit traffic has a strong positive correlation to increased engagement, bookings or loyalty? Think of SEM (Marketing) as a tactic but SEO (Optimization) as a strategic outcome. There is a very big and important difference to the value you add to your hotel’s revenue strategy.


8. Digital Marketing = Website. Wrong. Digital marketing is a cobweb of interconnected pieces, in fact I’ve diagrammed this cobweb on the FORMO website. The silk that connects the pieces is your brand positioning. From Facebook to Websites, SEM, SEO, micro-sites, Twitter feeds, advertising splash pages, and YouTube videos ~ these are components of an underlying digital strategy. This strategy should form the basis of  your marketing plan. If it’s not, which in the hospitality industry is very likely, then you need help. Seek expert help before your competitors find it.


I hope this is helpful, my list is not all encompassing and I’m absolutely certain that my peers in the digital sphere can add another copy block, but the point is that a Digital Marketing Strategy is perhaps the single most important factor for any hotel.


If you are the equity fund owner, the General Manager, The Marketing Director or even a bellman, it is the factor that will ultimately add the most value to your hotel. If you don’t believe me, then ask your General Manager how much business they got through Expedia back in the day.



Robert@formosite.com