Category: 市场营销 | marketing | 마케팅

I came across this when I got the monthly Marco Polo club mailer from Cathay Pacific and clicked through to their YouTube channel. I watched some of their new TV spots for their business class offering.

Maybe its just my European reserve but I find these ads a bit uncomfortable to watch: whilst I can see what they are trying to do. I think that the ad doesn’t put the adventure back into flying, instead it makes pratagonist (and by extension the business class customers customers that are supposed to identify with him) look juvenile, a bit creepy and smarmy in the privacy-related TV slot, bumbling and an all-round jackass.

The character irritated me in the 30-second spots, If I had to put up with him sitting next to me on a 12-hour flight, I would want to kill him (probably with his own pen thrust into the side of his neck a la Grosse Point Blank). It also had quite a 1980s ad production feel and would  probably fit in on a TV ad break alongside the now painfully awkward Nestle Gold Blend ads.

The humour is too half-hearted to work well, it is like a poorly done version of the Bond character that Rowan Atkinson did for Barclaycard.

I found that I much prefer the simple 3-minute video where the guy takes you through how everything works. It is much better, and I bet that Cathay Pacific spent a lot less on it.

Enough about what I think what do the numbers tell us? I have made this chart from the YouTube data for each video and glanced at the insights as well:

These numbers tend to suggest that in terms of the production costs, the social media video provided better value for money than advertising spots. The social media created spots had a greater level of engagement eliciting more comments and likes the the advertising spots. Looking at the analytics spots on each of the videos most of the traffic seems to be coming through their Facebook presence or through the other related videos on their YouTube channel.

What could Cathay Pacific do better?

• What become immediately apparent to me reading through some of the comments was that consumers were keen for more behind the scenes content and news from Cathay Pacific
• It also seemed to make an ideal pre-sales customer services channel which could be easily handled alongside the work that Cathay Pacific already does on Twitter
• Looking at the analytics there doesn’t seem to have been much of an effort to get this important redesign out to travel bloggers, design sites, luxury sites or lifestyle sites. Why not do blogger events in key markets as part of a proactive outreach campaign
• Think about Facebook and YouTube advertising: using punchier versions of the social spots rather than the slow build of the ad spots
• Build a direct response mechanism in
• Less bumbling Bond clones more of the real-life heroes that are part of your staff please
• Think about how you can target other decision-makers besides the passenger themselves

If you want any help with any of this, I can be reached via email or LinkedIn.

Sometimes serendipity or fate delivers the best social media ideas. KLM were responsible for the KLM Surprise campaign at the end of last year which had a site with an unmoderated Twitter stream.

However, through the accident of scheduling a new route to Miami and a decent bit of customer service, KLM managed to use Twitter for good this time around. They got Dutch dance music fans to sign up to a launch flight a week earlier to allow them to get to the Miami Ultra music festival and got a bucket load of goodwill and great publicity material out of it.

My colleague Emma Sinden blogged about the way that the PR industry is losing women who want to start families, which got me thinking about where the future of the PR industry is likely to come from.

The problem isn’t only about women leaving the industry, however I’d recommend that you read Emma’s post to get the full skinny on it.  There are a number of other demographic factors in play that may not get the same consideration, but are likely to affect the industry just as deeply.

PR has a diversity problem in terms of both social background and ethnicity that some like the Taylor Bennett Foundation are trying to address, but this is going to take years. But how can a PR industry address all aspects of society if it fails to understand them sufficiently? Whilst men represent over 70 per cent of the people listed in last year’s PR Week Power Book as the leadership in the industry, the PR industry is failing to attract men into the industry in the first place.

Despite the high percentage of male PR practitioners on social media, PR degree courses in the UK and US attract about 90 per cent women. Like diversity in social background and ethnicity how can these women have a sufficient understanding of likely male audiences? Contrary to what my female peers may think, I don’t think they can; just as in the same way I can’t understand the full ins-and-outs of life as mother. How do we attract more men into the industry?

Lastly there is a bleed in talent in the PR industry (at least in the UK agency world). Social is an important part of public relations, but you have a bleed of the most talented in the industry towards media planning, search marketing, word-of-mouth marketing and digital creative agencies. Whilst the PR industry does gain from the occasional influx of journalists, they won’t bring the necessary skill sets and expertise that the industry is losing to other sectors.

This one is probably going to be the most difficult one to deal with, having spoken with friends who’ve made the move; I’ve come to the conclusion that all but the biggest agencies in the PR industry is losing an arms race in terms of:

• Investment in tools
• Ability to learn from other marketing disciplines
• Larger client budgets
• Salary inflation driven by other disciplines looking to expand into PR-related areas

In one or two notable cases, this seemed to be exasperated by appalling people management skills and job market myopia exhibited by some agencies. And whilst, I’d agree this looks like it has all the indications of a temporary employment bubble (like technology PRs in the late 90s); I still think that attempts at emotional blackmail through guilt transference and employee humiliation aren’t likely to succeed as talent retention techniques. Instead, it just gives the management involved a tarnished reputation that may leave them unemployable in the future.

As one graduate recently said to me the juniors of today are the seniors of tomorrow.

All together, these factors are likely to come together as a perfect storm for PR agency bosses and HR staff. It’s time to think about creative solutions before this all hits home forcefully.