Is Your Marketing As Unique As Your Product? When Apple launched the critically acclaimed ‘Think Different’ campaign, or ‘The Crazy Ones’, as it is often called, it was saluting the trouble-makers, the rebels, the round pegs in square holes, the dreamers who see things differently. The folks who are not fond of rules and have no respect for the status quo. The positioning line itself, Think Different, was very deliberately, cleverly grammatically incorrect, and had no respect for rules.

The Think Different campaign positioned Apple as life-changing, without mentioning even once what the product was or could do. It was marketing as unique as the brand, and still is representative of the inimitable Apple brand essence to this day. When you’re onto a good thing, stick to it, but let it evolve.

Apple has a very clearly defined voice and point of view that is unique.

Do you? What’s in your marketing arsenal?

It takes very good brand management to hire a marketing team genuinely capable of creating an authentic point of view for a brand, most especially within travel and tourism, where the majority of marketing is all too similar and familiar.

The power of being different is being vastly underestimated across our industry, with brands squandering marketing budgets on insipid, uninspiring messaging without an authentic voice or original positioning.

Setting your brand apart and creating a strong, defined point of view doesn’t require a large budget, you can get original, strategically intelligent branding for the same cost as me-too, mundane marketing.

Unfortunately, a quick glance at a wide cross-section of travel marketing reveals many brands are opting for insipid. Ironically, dull, unmemorable marketing ends up being more costly, it requires a hefty media schedule with a large volume of insertions to get a message across. Highly creative, yet strategically sound marketing gets noticed, very quickly. With so much seen-before, me-too marketing efforts, anything remotely different will set a brand apart from the pack. However, it’s easy to be different and difficult to be better. Being different and better takes courage, talent and a firm belief your brand deserves marketing that is a unique as the product.

It is long overdue for travel brands to start authentically engaging the dreamers, nomads, road warriors, conference attendees and cubicle dwellers with two weeks PTO, because of travel matters. It is time for brand managers to recognize their marketing matters and to demand more from their advertising agencies, consultants, and marketing teams.

So before spending another dime of your marketing budget, take a long hard look at your last campaign, website, and positioning. Is your marketing as unique as your product? If not, change it. Don’t accept the status quo so rampant in our industry. Think different. Be better.

To quote the late Steve Jobs, here’s to the folks who think they are crazy enough to change the world because they often do.

The Travel Marketing Network is a team of diverse marketing specialists and a division of the eTN Corporation.

We have zero respect for any status quo.