Talking it up

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Emaar Hospitality Group senior manager marketing communications Sharon Marett.

How important is a) PR and b) advertising, to your company's marketing strategy?

Marett: Both PR and marketing are vital to our communication strategy and are optimised most when timed and strategically planned correctly together.

When we launched The Address brand last year, PR played an enormous role initially with press conferences and invitations to the media locally and internationally being sent to create a buzz and excitement in the market.

The marketing side then fell neatly into place with representation at trade shows and a powerful, fully integrated multi-media advertising campaign to show off the new hotel identity.

This international presence gained by PR, advertising and sales succeeded in generating brand awareness, understanding and bookings throughout our key markets.

The Address Hotels + Resorts opened its first property The Address Downtown Burj Dubai on October 1, 2008 and achieved an operational occupancy of 55% within four weeks of opening.

In December 2008, after just three months of opening, the hotel was placed number one in occupancy among its competitive set in Dubai.

PR has been instrumental in helping us develop an excellent third party view of our products and businesses, which says more than an ad as the claims made have far more credibility. For this reason we have partnered with three PR agencies - one in Dubai covering the GCC and Middle East, one in London covering the UK and Ireland, and one in Munich covering the rest of Europe.

Turnbull: PR has always been a key part of our marketing mix; SpaFinder is new and newsy in EMEA and we are on a global growth strategy, so we maximise the PR benefits of being a market leader and innovator.

Conversely, above the line traditional advertising has been less important to us; it remains expensive compared to internet advertising and it is very difficult to directly analyse ROI.

O'Boyle: Our marketing strategy is PR driven due to the specifics of our target audiences and messages. We have a lot of explaining to do, this is why we prefer a dialogue and a more personalised approach.

Boettger: In general, both PR and advertising are equally important for SMD's overall marketing strategy as they complement each other and should not be dealt with in isolation.

Within the tourism division, however, due to the B2B approach that we take, we place greater emphasis on PR and only advertise in selected consumer magazines like hotel and in-flight publications with a wide distribution and catchment area.

What types of e-marketing do you use? How effective is it?

Turnbull: SpaFinder is committed to e-marketing, particularly in our direct marketing activities, where we have dedicated contact programmes with our extensive consumer and business customer databases.

We enhance this with blogs and news, offers and information, which keeps our target markets - partners, prospects and consumers - interested and loyal to the SpaFinder service.

Marett: The Address Hotels + Resorts maintains an extensive online presence on the web through priority placement on primary GDS channels. A paid per click (PPC) campaign with Google, Yahoo and MSN and an online advertising campaign for rooms and specific events to promote F&B was also undertaken recently, which helped promote the brand even more extensively. Dynamic packages and promotions were also promoted through website and web booking engines.

The Address also implements a ‘Search View' to monitor online visibility against competition and has invested in Search Engine Optimisation.

Moving forward, The Address is strengthening its web presence by partnering with social media websites, blogs and consumer generated media i.e. Facebook, You Tube, Trip Advisor etc.

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