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Launching an innovative, new B2C and B2B travel brand

Getting the Brand Off the Ground

Starmark helped new travel company “NextTrip” take off with branding efforts and digital campaigns for each of its products.

Monaker Group (now NextTrip Inc.) came to Starmark with the idea for a novel travel brand, needing assistance setting it in motion. The trick was finding a way to stimulate brand awareness not only for the parent company, but also for its sub-brands in the consumer, corporate travel and software categories.

The solution? To create the NextTrip monobrand. This means there is one consistent brand name and mark applied across all products: NextTrip Journeys, NextTrip Business and NextTrip Solutions. Using Starmark’s North Star Branding process, the team collaborated with the client to define their organization and brand. They built a clear, unified brand experience built upon a personality, identity and positioning platform of “Architects of the Extraordinary.” This platform would inform all naming, positioning and brand marks to come.

NextTrip Journeys Logo RGB
NextTrip Business Logo RGB
NextTrip Solutions Logo RGB
brand guidelines

The Starmark team created NextTrip brand guidelines, which incorporated a messaging strategy, a manifesto, sample ads and brand marks for each line of business. The team wrote and designed corporate website NextTrip.com, in addition to creating social channels and refreshing them with branded cover photos and organic posts.

Are We There Yet?

NextTrip Journeys

NextTrip Journeys curates personalized vacation experiences for destinations spanning the globe. Starmark concepted and developed a campaign for NextTrip Journeys titled, “Dreamed by you. Designed by us.” The campaign theme was chosen through a series of user tests. It strategically gave consumers a clear idea of the brand’s accommodating function and role, while playing up the dream phase of planning a vacation.

Display ads and paid social videos were executed with a focus on cruising. An emphasis was placed on the Caribbean since it was the most accessible for families after a year without cruising in 2020. All imagery showcased elevated, vibrant and intriguing cruising experiences.

The Starmark team created a Facebook Instant Experience Ad to give users a full picture of the personalized cruise offerings from NextTrip Journeys. All ads drove to a landing page that captured leads, encouraging them to speak to a travel specialist.

NextTrip Business

On the B2B side, NextTrip Business is an all-in-one online corporate travel and expense management solution with a large inventory of travel options and discounted rates. Starmark was tasked with creating social campaigns targeting HR and administrative professionals to get them to subscribe to the service for their companies.

Dynamic static ads and in-feed videos positioned the tool as “Your next great business travel solution” to introduce the product to the market. They each featured compelling benefits that informed users why they should subscribe. Starmark created a landing page for ads to drive to where users could request a demo.

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NextTrip Solutions

Other B2B initiatives include NextTrip Solutions, which features two software offerings: ConNextions and Velocity. These technologies make the jobs of alternative lodging property managers, wholesalers, distributors and other travel industry players easier and more efficient.

Starmark created a one-sheet for ConNextions by NextTrip Solutions that succinctly summarized the vacation rental and alternative lodging inventory for distributors, in addition to a detailed landing page.

For Velocity by NextTrip Solutions, the team developed a LinkedIn campaign to attract property managers to request a demo.

NextTrip Solutions Travel Software products

Next Stop: Results

The NextTrip brand successfully launched due to a collaborative effort from the Starmark and NextTrip teams.

  • NextTrip Business: Reduced cost per lead (CPL) by 70%
  • NextTrip Journeys: Increased lead volume by 45%, while maintaining a flat CPL.

Starmark rings in the 2021 holiday season at The Main

On December 1, 2021, we were thrilled to welcome clients and friends of Starmark to our new HQ at The Main Las Olas. After a year off, it was a joy to bring everyone back together for great food, camaraderie, a celebration of the accomplishments of the past year and a look at the future ahead.

If you didn’t get a chance to join us, here’s a recap.

VR + IRL party interaction

One of the highlights of this year’s party was an extension into VR. We hosted several remote friends of the agency in VR. Not only that, we also created a way for in-person party guests to interact and catch up with our VR party, even if they didn’t want to don a headset themselves.

This VR and real-life party crossover was made possible using Engage, a platform where Starmark is a certified development partner. And you can expect to hear lots more about additional VR applications throughout 2022.

15 new clients, and several old friends rejoin the roster

Since our last party in 2019, Starmark has added 15 new clients to our list of partners. Amelia Island CVB, Barry Ball & Associates, Broward Health, Conscious Certified Hotels, General Assembly, Hasbro Resorts, Hilton, Greystone Creative Group, NextTrip, OPSWAT, 7 Signal, St.Pete Clearwater International Airport, Tafer Hotels & Resorts, Talent Forge and University of Florida.

We’re also welcoming back Broward College and Carnival Corporation to ring in the new year with some exciting new projects.

An award-winning team

As if there wasn’t already enough to celebrate, Starmark is also raising a glass to some major award wins and recognitions:

Great food, great company and a great evening of celebration

Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but they don’t taste very good. So while you’ll have to wait for next year’s event to enjoy some of the best passed bites in Fort Lauderdale, you can still check out all the other fun on our Facebook photo album of an amazing night at our new HQ.

Starmark Brings Home Multiple 2021 Smarties Awards

Starmark is thrilled to announce that our efforts to deliver strategy, growth and innovation for our clients have once again been recognized with Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) 2021 Smarties X and Smarties North America Awards. The Smarties X awards are not only the very first marketing award recognizing innovation across the globe, it’s also the world’s highest achievement in regards to honoring “the X factor” — innovation that results in significant business impact for brands, agencies, media companies and technology providers.

Silver Award | Starmark: Mobile App Category

Our purpose-built, custom Depositions.com app won a Smarties X Award in the Mobile App category. This platform allows attorneys and legal assistants to stream, clip and share videos and exhibits in the cloud. This innovative software project was born out of the necessity to provide lawyers and legal professionals with secure cloud access to their video depositions, transcripts and related files, allowing video streaming, collaboration and productivity to be right at their fingertips.

Together, we architected a cloud-based mobile app and website platform that can be leveraged by legal professionals nationwide to solve court reporting service pain points, such as easier clipping tools, heightened security and the ability to use the app sans WiFi. In addition, the Starmark development team included the ability to store related files and exhibits, such as documents and photographs, making sure transcripts synced with video. We’re excited to report that after Depositions.com was released, it garnered rave reviews from users across the country.

“This win recognizes our team’s innovative tech skills. It was a challenging and rewarding endeavor for both the client and Starmark.”

— Dale Baron, Executive Creative Director at Starmark

North America Silver | Starmark: XR Category

The Starmark Innovation Lab initiated a VR experiment aimed at improving our employees’ social connection after 2020’s move to remote work. The results? Remarkable. So remarkable that this VR effort earned Starmark a highly regarded Smarties North America Silver Award in the XR category.

Company-provided VR gear was given to every remote worker, uniting Starmarkers for our agency’s annual holiday party and company-wide meeting — all together, in one virtual environment. The immersive experience architected by Starmark’s Innovation Lab was so engaging and productive that it took home a Smarties Silver Award.

“We’re really excited that our effort to keep the team engaged was recognized by the Smarties. The experience truly took our virtual meetings to a completely new level.”

— Brett Circe, Chief Digital Officer at Starmark

North America Silver Award | Starmark: Lead-Gen Strategy Category

Our client Charter Schools USA, one of the largest and highest performing education management companies in the United States, tasked Starmark with creating a consistent, unified marketing approach for more than 40 participating schools. The goal was to drive awareness, gain leads and advance enrollments — all in the midst of a global pandemic.

Starmark was more than up for the challenge. By using a centralized digital strategy, including in-feed carousels, dynamic display ads and Instant Experience ads for new school launches, we were able to capture each schools’ unique brand essence with a long-term storyline and link to admissions. By the time the 2020-2021 school year came around, Starmark’s cohesive campaign had garnered significant leads and impressions, while boosting their enrollment numbers by 63%.

North America Silver Award | Starmark: Consumer Promotions Category

Starmark teamed up with client Sightline Payments to promote the company’s proprietary gaming technology product Play+, an FDIC-insured reloadable account used to fund your favorite resort or sports account or daily spending. We executed a re-engagement email campaign designed to inspire current customers to use Play+ to fund their NCAA Finals wagering.

By creating animated gifs, bold graphics and game-driven promotions in our emails, we were able to achieve our client’s main strategic objectives: increase both customer wagering and overall wagering during the NCAA basketball tournament. A massive surge in customer deposits and increased funding proved the campaign to be a smashing success.

“We set the bar high and exceeded expectations. We are really proud of our 2021 wins.”

— Dale Baron, Executive Creative Director at Starmark

About the SMARTIES and SMARTIES X Awards

The SMARTIES and SMARTIES X Award are the highest achievement across North America and the globe honoring and awarding outstanding innovation resulting in significant business impact for brands, agencies, media companies and technology providers. A highly competitive and coveted award, SMARTIES only award to three entries (gold, silver and bronze) in each category. Winners are among the best in the modern marketing community.

Welcome to the new Starmark HQ at The Main

We’re celebrating Starmark’s 25th year in Fort Lauderdale with a move even closer to the heart of the city we call home. And to that note, we’re proud to announce that Starmark HQ is officially open in The Main Las Olas.

Starmark HQ
The Main Las Olas
201 E Las. Olas Blvd.
Suite 1040
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

The new Starmark headquarters is on the 10th floor of the newest Class A office tower in Fort Lauderdale.

Branding The Main Las Olas

Back in 2018, Starmark collaborated with Stiles to develop the brand experience, vision, name and brand mark for The Main. In the years since, our work has won multiple national and international design awards, and we’re thrilled to now call this incredible building home.

“Call it Kismet. Looking back, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to think being so close to this project in its early phases planted a seed in our minds. Because the vision for The Main really captured the excitement and imagination of our team. And the timing was perfect to relocate as Starmark is reinventing where and how we work.”

Call it Kismet. Looking back, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to think being so close to this project in its early phases planted a seed in our minds.

-Jacqui Hartnett, Starmark President

The next phase of Starmark’s Agile evolution

More than six years ago, Starmark made the wholesale transition to Agile Methodology agency-wide. Still today, this is relatively uncommon among agencies, but the improvements to our work, our sense of ownership in our projects, our relationships with clients and our ability to adapt are something we’ll never stop talking about to our industry peers. And that’s probably why the Wall Street Journal interviewed us to see what all the buzz is about.

There’s no such thing as hybrid at Starmark

Being an Agile Agency helped us in immeasurable ways when we made the transition to all remote work in March of 2020. Because, unlike other agencies, our teams were already equipped and experienced at collaborating and coordinating their own two-week sprints, making commitments and owning the work. No project managers refereeing or handing out to-dos. The teams own the work, start to finish.

And now that our new HQ is open, we’re bucking the trend of arbitrarily assigned days in the office and at home. Instead, we’re expanding on our Agile Methodology with a philosophy we call Orbits. It’s a simple idea that feels revolutionary when compared to what the rest of the industry is doing.

Because our teams already plan each sprint, with Orbits we’re simply coordinating how and where to work, based on the work we share and our shared goals for each client. It’s a simple premise that only works because of how we already work differently. You can hear Starmark President, Jacqui Hartnett talk about what we’re up to on the American Advertising Federation’s District 4cast podcast. Or check out our page on Orbits for a slightly deeper dive.

Come see Starmark at The Main

We’d love the chance to show the extended Starmark family our new digs. Get in touch with us to swing by for a tour – or just to spend part of your day in one of the most inspiring new spaces in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Starmark Ranked #1 Creative Agency in North America by Mobile Marketing Association

Starmark proudly announces having earned the top spot as #1 Creative Agency on the 2021-22 Mobile Marketing Association SMARTIES North America Business Impact Index.

Starmark Ranked the Top Agency in North America

The MMA SMARTIES Business Impact Index is the first and only global mobile marketing index that identifies, ranks and awards top agencies, advertisers, brands and technology enablers that drive significant business impact through mobile-first campaigns. Brett Circe, Starmark’s Chief Digital Officer, stated:

“We were floored and so honored to be featured as #1 on MMA’s Business Impact Index. It’s a joy and a real validation of our years of dedication to mobile marketing to be here among names like Dentsu, Grey, McCann and Publicis.”

Top Creative Agencies North America 2020

Starmark’s Innovation Lab & Mobile Marketing

The Starmark Innovation Lab keeps Starmark on the edge of marketing technology, revolutionizing and expanding our clients’ possibilities. In 2010, Starmark made a strong push into mobile, including web, payments and apps for our clients.

In 2011, Starmark committed to the MMA Code of Ethics, which applies to everything we do. We have the utmost respect for the MMA and the SMARTIES because they uphold high standards for ethics and performance on the devices that — by their very nature — we each hold close and personal to ourselves. Starmark President, Jacqui Hartnett says:

“When we were featured as #5 in 2017, that was a huge achievement. But it’s been more than 12 years now that we’ve been committed to delivering incredible experiences for mobile, and it feels great to be recognized for that work. I very much look forward to welcoming our friends and clients to the offices of MMA’s #1 Creative Agency in North America at our new HQ in The Main.”

Today, the Lab continues our push into the new technology and experience spaces, with this year’s MMA Smarties entries featuring content in VR, AR, mobile apps and mobile games. The Lab is continuously recognized with a variety of awards, including earning two patents. Among these awards are four SMARTIES from the MMA, Adrian Awards, Visit Florida Henrys, Marcoms, ADDYs and others.

Inspiring Visitors to Meet Together & Feel a World Away

As business operations and travel slowly re-emerged in 2021, meeting planners began reshuffling, replanning and rebooking canceled 2020 events. It was the right time for the Amelia Island CVB (AICVB) to communicate its wide-open, welcoming spaces and ideal event settings, while driving brand awareness and RFP submissions.

Wide-Open Inspiration

As the Starmark team toured the destination and met hoteliers and other stakeholders, it was clear what made this place so special and why meeting planners would want to take advantage of everything the island had to offer. Let’s just say we left the island feeling “inspired.”

The team created a mobile campaign using the theme line, “Island Inspired Meetings”. Based upon key target audience concerns, we focused on open areas and flexible spaces for smaller and larger groups – emphasizing island uniqueness, charm and superior service. Clever headlines, island settings and common meeting vernacular all showcased a place where groups could safely and conveniently convene, yet still feel a world away.

Mobilizing Amelia Island’s Unique Charms

In-feed videos, story ads and an Instant Experience ad all brought Amelia Island’s charms right to meeting planners’ mobile devices. Starmark targeted social platform audiences by industry-related job titles and those expressing interest in meeting & convention planning.

The Instant Experience ad launched a fully-immersive, digital brochure-style mobile experience, engaging audiences with rich storytelling and fast-loading elements.

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Static Banner Ads
AIC EmailSeries Mobile
Email Series

All campaign assets drove to AmeliaIsland.com/meetings, which housed a new video developed and produced by Starmark. Shorter versions of the video were also created to support social media.

AICMeetingsPrint web
Printed Collateral

A themed brochure was created as an informational guide for planners to peruse all the benefits of a meeting on Amelia Island. Glossy photos that showcased scenic event locations, unique venues and downtime activities led the storytelling, taking planners through a picture-perfect event scenario.

On the Island, Off the Charts

  • Video views on LinkedIn garnered an 88% view rate, 4x higher than LinkedIn’s benchmarks
  • Average Facebook view time was :15 seconds
  • Users spent an average of 22 seconds engaging with the Instant Experience ad, which also had an average view rate of 70%
  • Overall social numbers achieved on Facebook and LinkedIn:
    • Clicks: 13,276
    • Impressions: 614,167
    • CTR: 2.69%, 3x higher than industry average
  • Nearly 150 new RFPs received
  • Brochure: 40,000+ distribution and pass-along value as a resource planning guide

Adding Even More Success to the Agenda

With numbers that succeeded expectations, meeting planners were indeed “Island Inspired” to book. So were awards show judges. The Amelia Island Meetings Campaign brought home several industry accolades, including top honors at the Visit Florida Governor’s Conference.

Innovative Marketing for Amelia Island Shines at the VISIT FLORIDA Flagler Awards

The Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau and Starmark made an impressive showing at the Flagler Awards ceremony during the 50th annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Created by VISIT FLORIDA and named after pioneering developer and industrialist Henry Flagler, the Flagler Awards honor stellar tourism marketing that helps position Florida as a top travel destination.

Henry Award — “Meet Amelia Island” Meetings Campaign

Our efforts to woo meeting planners with the lure of outdoor venues, wide open spaces and exceptional hospitality earned the top honor in the category of Resource/Promotional Material – Trade. The “Meet Amelia Island” campaign presented meeting planners with strategic and tactical elements that spanned several mediums, including a social campaign that consisted of in-feed videos, story ads, an AR portal ad and an Instant Experience ad that captured the essence and charm of Amelia Island. Other elements include animated banner ads, an email campaign and a new 3-minute campaign video.

Social Story Ad

Silver Award — “Amelia Island Escape” Podcast Ad

To leverage an emerging media platform with on-demand flexibility, we ran ads on the New York Times family of podcasts as part of our “Find Your Perfect Moment” campaign for Amelia Island. This is a storytelling medium, so we scripted a :30 ad that painted a mental picture of the island’s breathtaking coastline, sand dunes and island charm that are “perfect for your much-needed escape.” The sensory words captured the sentiment of the campaign as well as the judges’ attention, earning Silver in the Radio Advertising category.

Bronze Award — Branded Hand Sanitizer Stations

Amelia Island, Florida, is always a welcoming place — even during a pandemic. As an extension of the destination’s hospitality, we created branded hand sanitizer stations with the message “Clean Hands. Open Arms.” Strategically placed in public areas, these innovative outdoor displays combined conscientious hygiene and effective branding, earning Bronze in the Out-of-Home category.

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Outstanding Tourism Marketing for a Premier Travel Destination

“I’m very proud to see the team’s work recognized among the best in Florida, and the way they and our industry partners continue to find ways to help sustain this community’s most vital industry,” said Gil Langley, president and CEO of the Amelia Island CVB. Likewise, Starmark is always excited to see our efforts move the needle for our clients, while moving the industry forward creatively.

Creating a Dynamic Brand Presence for a New Community Movement

An Enticing Brand for an Inspiring Mission

The Work-Based Learning Experience Consortium — a coalition of Broward County leaders representing business, education and public service sectors — came to Starmark with an inspiring mission: connecting young adults with area employers for real-world work experiences.

To bolster their cause, the team needed a compelling brand presence for both the coalition and its first program. What made this challenge even more exciting was that the brands needed to work with two very different key audiences: young adults in their late teens/early 20s and a B2B audience of business leaders/potential employers.

The Solution

This was a truly ground-up branding project. Using Starmark’s North Star Branding process, the team defined their organization during a collaborative half-day session. The result was a clear, simple brand experience built upon a personality, identity and positioning platform of a Life-Changing Matchmaker. This platform would inform all naming, positioning and brand marks to come.

Ideation. Vetting. Testing.

Over a hundred names were developed for consideration, fully exploring all creative avenues. The team then narrowed down to the most successful and tested them with our key audiences. In-depth insights as to which performed best – and why – were analyzed, then shared with coalition members. Once the naming structure was in place, Starmark developed dozens of brand mark directions, first testing them in black and white, before adding color. Colors were chosen based upon testing insights and the core attributes defined during the North Star branding exercise.

The Winners

COALITION BRAND: Talent Forge

The coalition’s formal name needed to support the Life-Changing Matchmaker brand platform and its key capabilities. Talent Forge was the winning choice that audiences felt best conveyed this, reflecting the coalition’s action-oriented approach, influence and expertise.

The logo features a twisting combination of two letters. This metal-wrought imagery is designed to reinforce the central metaphor of the brand and the combination of the interests of two groups — students and business leaders. The addition of the tagline expands upon the consortium’s name: articulating their aspirational mission to deliver a win-win value proposition to both audiences.

PROGRAM BRAND: LiftOff

The program name needed to be short, clear, easy to speak and read, ownable, memorable and inspiring to both audiences. Audiences felt LiftOff best captured the program’s uplifting promise. It’s inherently optimistic and energetic, speaking to the potential we help to launch. The “powered by” establishes it as a program offered by Talent Forge. The logo draws inspiration from the coalition logo’s metal-wrought metaphor, transformed into a rocket.

Launching With Momentum

Although the LiftOff and Talent Forge brands have just launched, they’ve already helped recruit new program employers and partners, not to mention generating significant excitement among current coalition members.

We’ve been building these brands with you bit by bit, and seeing it all come together now is really powerful. You can see all the thought that went into every step. This process is incredible. — Lisa Martinez, Talent Forge Marketing Consultant

Digital ad numbers skyrocket with demand

As vaccines roll out, there are sectors of the economy roaring back to life, and digital advertisers are going to extremes to capitalize on pent-up demand.

Before the advent of digital advertising, agencies used to startle advertisers with the news that their customers were exposed to 1,600 ads a day. With the explosion of digital ad spending individuals are now estimated to see over 6,000 ads a day.

While curiosity, excitement and demand bounce back, business marketers need to increase their ad spend in smart ways — especially those that held back or didn’t have dollars to advertise during the pandemic.

So, how can a business marketer best spend their limited dollars during this critical time? The answer lies in examining your customers’ journey in the sales funnel from awareness to consideration through a final decision.

Don’t overlook awareness for bottom-stage-only campaigns

According to the respected Granum model for lead acquisition, it takes 10 warm leads to get three hot leads to get one sale. Those 10 warm leads come from awareness, the three hot leads happen during consideration to get a single sale. That’s why it’s crucial to put your brand in front of potential buyers early in their journey with awareness advertising.

In recent years, many advertisers skewed their campaigns toward bottom-of-funnel tactics, lured by the high performance shown by last-click data. But when looking at multi-touch attribution, it’s clear that balanced awareness-to-acquisition campaigns lead to bottom-funnel campaign conversion.

Focusing only on bottom-funnel content will generally not lead to growth and, while some awareness campaigns may be expensive, some low-investment awareness content efforts can lead to increased reach.

Awareness campaigns help put your brand in front of an audience you can retarget with mid-funnel and lower-funnel content. By avoiding the bottom-funnel trap, your campaign can identify those prospects sooner.

Frequently used tactics at each sales funnel stage

Here are some tactics that companies find effective throughout the funnel:

  • The upper-funnel awareness stage is designed to reach broader audiences through social platforms, videos, print/broadcast ads, upper-funnel SEM and introductory email blasts. At this point, a customer may be aware of a problem, issue or dissatisfaction, so your communications should meet them where they are. Acknowledge their experience and offer a solution.
  • The consideration stage or middle of the funnel often includes product or solution-oriented website content, blogs, organic social, display retargeting, lower-funnel SEM and followup email, perhaps involving a sales representative. Content can focus on things such as solution testimonials, fact sheets, short videos and initial offers. Your goal is to help a prospect decide between several options.
  • The closing or decision stage needs to reinforce prospects’ propensity to move forward using tactics like branded SEM, nurturing email and even a sales call with assuring content about product costs and ongoing support.

Look outward for industry trends and expertise

While the most important data will come from your customers, you should monitor important industry experts, including associations and industry-specific vendors. Industry publishers have generated a wealth of data that can keep you alert to trends, competitive activity and possible threats.

And, critically, as the digital marketplace continues to get more complicated, the psychology of human decision-making is as old as humans themselves. Be helpful, be intuitive and be attuned to the needs of each customer persona at each stage of their journey. It’s definitely a competitive advantage.

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal.

Apple podcast subscription entry signals growing audio popularity

Podcast popularity has more than doubled during the pandemic, with over 2 million active podcasts now available online. Along with dozens of podcast production studios, Apple, which has often been an early entrant into high-growth markets, wants a bigger piece of the pie.

Push Button Creative Audio in Orlando has seen a major increase in podcast business in the last year. Partner Yeosh Bendayan says the major reasons people like to listen to podcasts are to relax, learn about a specific topic, stay up to date on current events and be inspired. While over 100 million people listen to podcasts, he adds that the largest listener demographic is under 40, while the fastest-growing demographic is 45 and older. And audiences are loyal, listening to an average of seven podcasts a week.

All of the above bode well for the podcast marketplace. Both small businesses and large brands recognize that podcasts are a way to reach highly engaged audiences interested in content on specific topics. And while some worry that Apple’s introduction of a premium subscription service is a market takeover, the company’s expansion in the space will most likely help the overall podcast market.

A cost-effective way to increase interest and results

Over the years, audio advertising, specifically on radio, has proven to increase responses to other media advertising for the same product or service. The value of this integration continues today. Bendayan says he tells clients who are thinking about starting a podcast that they should approach it as they would a public relations program: It adds overall value to company marketing programs.

As organizations rethink their marketing and media mix after the pandemic and look for cost-effective ways to increase results, a podcast could be the right approach. And as Apple has indicated, podcasts are an opportunity to take advantage of forecasted high growth. When you compare 2 million active podcasts to over 37 million YouTube channels and over 600 million active blogs, it’s clear the podcast boom has just begun.

Another promising reason to consider podcasts: Google is examining the possibility of searching podcast content by translating audio to searchable copy.

“While this is still speculative, if you wait until it actually happens, you’ll be way behind,” Bendayan says.

Getting a successful podcast off the ground

Because of low barriers to entry, the rise in the number of podcasts has not been matched by a rise in quality.

“You may know what you want to say. You may know what you want to sell,” Bendayan says. “But to promote, produce and distribute your podcast, you need to hire a professional to assure your success.”

The relationship of quality to success was something I learned early in my advertising career. During my first job as an advertising copywriter, I remember visiting with Paul Harvey in his office in Chicago, talking to him about advertising a line of sports products on his radio show, “Paul Harvey News,” with its special “The Rest of the Story” segments. Even then, his show reached 24 million listeners. The nature of our conversation wasn’t to sell me on choosing to advertise my client’s product line on his show; it was for me to sell him on accepting my copy and the product line my firm wanted to advertise into his show. He wanted to personally meet and vet the young writer, and learn more about the product and company. Thankfully, the product line and I passed his charming, but intense, scrutiny.

A Paul Harvey podcast would no doubt have a great following today. Because that audience trusted not only the truthfulness and quality of his news program, but also the truthfulness about the quality of the products he advertised on it. Radio programs and podcasts that live up to quality and truthfulness foster trust and loyalty with their audiences – definitely a competitive advantage.

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal.

Tourism Marketing Efforts for Amelia Island Earn Three Adrian Awards

Starmark was honored to see ourselves and our client Amelia Island recognized at the 2021 HSMAI Adrian Awards, presented by Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International. In its 64th year, the Adrian Awards spotlights excellence in hospitality advertising, digital marketing and public relations. The focus of this year’s awards was “Best Practices, Innovation and Community” — three pillars that were well-represented in our work this year.

Silver Award | Starmark: Digital Single Item Category

Already recognized for excellence by MarCom this year, the Augmented Reality portal the agency created for Amelia Island has earned a Silver Adrian award. This immersive experience was the perfect way to transport our audience to the destination and pique their interest in a stay. With a tap of the screen, mobile device users could open the portal from Instagram or Facebook and virtually “step through it” onto the beach as horseback riders galloped by, demonstrating one of the signature activities of Amelia Island. Accompanying post copy prompted them to learn more about the destination, linking to the campaign’s landing page.

Bronze Award | Starmark: Integrated Marketing

In the midst of a pandemic, Amelia Island needed to stay relevant and top-of-mind among prospects and loyalists. First on the agenda was creating the campaign: “Moments.” People were sheltering in place and missing that human connection. We knew we needed to highlight the quality time spent together on vacation by addressing our goal of building on the positive attributes of a small, low-density island with an abundance of outdoor recreation.

family print ad

Running across owned, paid and earned media, the “Moments” campaign came vibrantly to life in billboards strategically placed to reach our drive markets, in full-page print ads in drive market pubs, and in digital banner ads to extend our reach even further. On social media, carousel ads, story ads and an Instant Experience ad were created for longer storytelling, with both couples and families in mind. In-feed creative on our social accounts was developed with :06 videos. A web chatbot campaign was created to generate personalized 1-1 conversations and position Amelia Island as a trusted source for travel planning while answering travel and safety FAQ.

Bronze Award | Amelia Island CVB: Crisis Communications

In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic created a seismic shift in the role of the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau (AICVB) from destination marketing efforts to a clearinghouse of information and operational support for hospitality businesses. This included a clear communication plan with and between consumers, businesses and local leaders; donations of financial support to those whose employment was impacted by the crisis, especially displaced tourism employees; and a coordinated distribution of hand sanitizer, masks and other PPE to workers and visitors in support of the emergency management center.

The AICVB provided social separation kits to comply with regulations. They also developed collateral pieces reinforcing safety protocols, speaking to both B2C & B2B, and launched a summer recovery marketing campaign using existing assets and highly targeted marketing efforts to keep small businesses afloat.

Prioritizing Results Plus Creative Excellence

In addition to our marketing campaign, we’re proud of the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau for all they accomplished in supporting their community.

As a result of our cohesive efforts, visitation on Amelia Island has been almost as high as normal, an especially significant achievement in a pandemic year. We credit this success to keeping our messages relevant, consistent and appealing and look forward to creating more stellar work for this and all of our clients.

Surviving the looming data cookie crunch

While companies fight through pandemic turmoil and consumers spend more time with their devices, technology platforms are focusing on future privacy policies and profit impact. And, so should any digital advertiser.

Earlier this year on Data Privacy Day, Jan. 28, Apple announced device users of iOS 14 could turn off permissions allowing apps to track your data across other apps or websites. Then on March 3, Google confirmed previous speculation that 3rd party cookies as we know them would be gone in 2022. The lawsuits have already begun.

There are many unanswered questions and Google, nor anyone else, can say that everything’s going to be okay with the proposed changes impacting users, advertisers, publishers, platforms, other browsers, ad tech suppliers, agencies and more. Yet, this is not a big surprise. For over a year, Google has promoted its “Privacy Sandbox” initiative for the industry. The reality is, however, a harbinger of huge change in digital marketing practices, processes, reporting and the technical tools. As my grandfather would have said: “That’s why they call it work.” And, so, all advertisers must go back in time and concentrate on the basics of personal data collection and permissions of use in our plethora of marketing channels.

Examine your current data ecosystem

By reemphasizing its position and timing, Google has, in a way, done all digital marketers the favor of raising a red flag so they can get to work to prepare for the cookie-less world. Enterprise companies that have a strong infrastructure of first-party customer data, data collected directly from their customers online or from CRMs, will likely be in a better position to revise plans and move forward than many mid-size and smaller organizations that have depended more on 3rd party cookies from data suppliers than on their own data. But hopefully, many will be able to memorialize historic customer behavioral data reports they have collected from the platforms over the years that can give them a baseline for the future. However both large and small organizations will want to re-emphasize gathering and storing their first-party customer data.

There is time to prepare. As users update to the latest iOS, they are asked to re-confirm tracking for every app they have. While this creates transparency it also is likely that most people will simply opt out, time will tell. And Google cookies won’t expire until next year. Advertisers must use this time to document and study their customer behaviors more intimately as they relate to their offerings. And, more importantly, determine how to strengthen relationships with their customers and prospects.

Update your digital creative, increase contextual targeting

In addition to the data, with users spending more and more time on their devices, it is important to continually update your digital creative. Social creative experts agree that attracting users with entertaining and inspirational ads and videos works best. In fact, since the pandemic, Gen Z and Millennials are spending more than half of their online time watching videos mostly on mobile devices. This then also becomes an opportunity to get your contextual marketing right and focus more on producing, testing and distributing content that will interest and excite your customer base.

Seek help from social platforms, agencies, media and data specialists

There is no reason to “go it alone.” Facebook is one of the most aggressive platforms to get in front of future needs of advertisers. Facebook has announced new tracking changes in lieu of iOS 14. Advertisers are now required to register website domains through the Facebook Business Manager and assign “Aggregated Events,” which are customer interactions with your website.

Facebook Business Manager is free and provides a place to manage all of your Facebook assets. You’ll want to be sure you are using Business Manager in order to make the new adjustments for iOS 14.

There’s no doubt that other platforms will make adjustments as well. With all of the coming changes this is one time that you may want to call upon professionals to guide you, especially in preparing a plan for your company to not be disrupted by what the future may hold as privacy issues grow in importance and must be dealt with by all participants in the digital advertising industry.

Apple and Google raised a privacy flag the industry can no longer ignore. Pay attention, plan ahead to establish and strengthen transparent first-party relationships with your customers and prospects. My grandfather would often repeat: “Any problem is only an opportunity in disguise.” Make this opportunity a competitive advantage.

This article appeared in the digital-only edition of South Florida Business Journal on April 9, 2021.