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Travel executives mixed with online marketing executives from other
industries to talk about selling luxury online at the Luxury
Interactive Marketing conference in New York last week. Insights from
Big Brands in Luxury Goods. Among the highlights:
E-Hospitality
* Roberta Rinker-Ludloff, vice president-brand performance for
Conrad Hotels: “Our focus is online. With just 18 hotels and three in
the U.S. we try to reach a global audience in a targeted way. Ours is
an experiential site while Hilton’s, our parent company, is a
transactional site. In fact, we have broken away from our sister Hilton
sites."
* Christine DeMaio, publisher of Epicurious.com and Concierge.com (both
Conde Nast Publishing sites): “We recently opened the gate so that
advertisers can integrate their listings into our content; the response
has been tremendous.”
What Sites Drive Consumers to Your Sites?
* When asked what sites drive people to their branded sites, speakers
agreed that Google was always number 1. However, several said that
bloggers – even lesser known ones, were potentially excellent sources
of leads. Chris Parr, consumer marketing manager for Sub-Zero, said
that “Smaller blogs have been very rewarding; sometimes it just takes a
small ad buy.”
Heather Kaminetsky, director of internet marketing for Barneys, agreed:
“Blogs send us tons of traffic -- even without advertising on them.”
Untapped Opportunities In Online Communities and Social Networking
* Milton Pedraza, CEO of The Luxury Institute, conducted an interactive
session with attendees. Results showed that online marketing for the
luxury sphere is not that advanced in some areas – including
participation in online communities and social networks. Pedraza said
there are huge opportunities in those areas, as well as in online
reviews.
* Paul Hurley, CEO of Ideeli, a “social shopping” site, said,
“There is a shift in marketing toward conversations. Consumers now have
a voice, and they are skeptical and require authenticity.”
* Dee Solomon, senior vice president for CondeNet, said, “Your best
customers are not necessarily the ones who buy the most online, but the
ones who actively communicate information about products and offers to
their networks.
* Tim Kendall, product manager for Facebook: “The next step will be
communities mobilized outside the individual customer. For instance, on
Netflix you can now see what you watched in the last 30 days; What if
they showed you what your friends watched in the last 30 days? That
could apply to many products and services.”
Branding and Commerce
In a panel on how brands can make the most of online commerce:
* Greg Shove, CEO of Halogen Guides, said, “Most luxury sites don’t
sell well enough. If I go to Ralphlauren.com, I don’t want to have to
say what country I’m in; they should know that. You don’t have to
reinvent this stuff – just find the best and copy it.” Shove did say,
“Except for the travel business, luxury has not embraced blogs and
social networking.” He also said that marketers “should treat bloggers
as they would journalists; they should be given the benefit of the
doubt.”
* Henry Harteveldt, senior analyst with Forrester Research: “Most
luxury sites would fail our tests for effectiveness because they are
not selling. Take a first class air ticket to London. That costs
anywhere from $12,000 to $18,000 , definitely a luxury purchase – but
nobody is selling that. Sites will have to deal with best practices in
navigation and trust. Should sites be hiding their privacy policy?”
Are you serving your customers online as well as offline?” asked
Harteveldt, adding, “Do you let people pay in the way they want online?”
A Bit of a Bright Spot for Luxury Travel Marketers
Ron Kurtz, who heads up the American Affluence Research Center, said,
“People with substantial net worth are less likely to change their year-to-year patterns when it comes to spending on luxury.”
Harvey Chipkin
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