Social Media and Marketing

By EFT Correspondent, recently in MunichLast year, search engines in the US strengthened their Web 2.0 applications, in some cases via inorganic growth.

Published: 21 Oct 2008

By EFT Correspondent, recently in Munich

Last year, search engines in the US strengthened their Web 2.0 applications, in some cases via inorganic growth.

For long, it has been acknowledged that where the US goes, Europe is likely to follow.

Commenting on how Europe is gearing up for web 2.0 developments and what similarities can one expect in Europe vis-a-vis the US market, Jan Oetjen, Former MD, lastminute.com Germany said, "Developments in the US have been the role model for European strategies for quite a long time, but not everything has been successful in all markets, resulting in a much different landscape in some markets than we see in the US. With regard to acquiring and integrating typical web 2.0 businesses, we haven't seen too many successful examples yet and for most businesses, a commercial relationship has generated more value than the merger of equity."

In an interview with EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta, Oetjen spoke about building a pan-European online travel brand, working on a localised marketing strategy in Europe and much more. Excerpts:

EyeforTravel.com: Considering your experience in the online travel domain, what according to you has been the most challenging aspect of building a pan-European online travel brand?

Jan Oetjen: First of all, you have the general challenges with finding a brand name that really works in all European markets in terms of spelling, pronunciation, meaning and differentiation, then getting all necessary domains of course.

Additional challenge and opportunity at the same time has been the new acquisition channels that have been evolving and have massively gained in relevance over the past few years. Challenging, for example, can be to get your brand keywords protected in search engines to avoid that competitors piggy-back on your brand and that new competitors have much lower entry barriers.

EyeforTravel.com: Recently, an airline marketing head told me: There are so many online marketing trends that we find the trick is to not get caught up in the enthusiasm of the web fads. How do you assess the situation as far as effectiveness of online marketing is concerned?

Jan Oetjen: I would say the trick is to be the first to identify the ones that work. I think no online commerce site can maintain its position without being up to date with and leveraging online customer acquisition trends. But you always have to challenge each trend and reflect if it's the right path for your brand, your product and most of all your costumers – if you simply follow each trend but the customers don't necessarily need it in connection with your product, then success will not follow.

EyeforTravel.com: Can you share an example citing your approach when it comes communicating with your consumer on many different relevant levels – including in their own language, at their convenience and in an unpredictable way?

Jan Oetjen: lastminute.com is always developing and testing news ways to engage the customer in many different ways. One of the best successes have been our hotel reviews that we limit only to travellers who booked the particular hotel in order to avoid 'review-fraud' that is becoming a big challenge for portals.

EyeforTravel.com: How according to you one should approach a de-centralised, localised marketing strategy? What do you think is critical in getting optimal results from the same?

Jan Oetjen: I believe that a mix of thinking and planning global and acting local is a good mix to leverage synergies especially on the technology and interface front and at the same time manage the diversity of the European markets, that are still very significant even between the mature markets. lastminute.com is a global brand but has local teams in each market knowing customers and trends exactly thus we can perfectly adjust to their needs.

EyeforTravel.com: Do you think social networking has inherently changed travelers' expectations or attitudes at this point?

Jan Oetjen: Within the booking process, social networks and UCG today play their largest role when it comes to the decision around the accommodation, those tools also offered new opportunities to communicate among travellers and people with similar interest. As blogs, social networks and UGC increased the power of travellers massively, I don't think consumers ever had transparecy to such an extend before. For example, these days it's not that easy for hotels anymore to get away with bad service as sooner or later someone will post this onto a review site or a blog. Users can compare prices within minutes, they can get travel information from local people. That said: social networking has changed travellers expectations - they are now in the position to find out every detail about the hotel or destination they plan to travel to in advance – if the information has no been manipulated.