Is your brand capable of being a destination?
While on a recent vacation, my wife and I rented bicycles for a few hours. We decided to make the ride from our resort up the beach a bit to the Ritz-Carlton.
Granted the Ritz-Carlton beachfront bar would not be a destination for everyone but for me it is. Perhaps this is because when taking Sally Hogshead’s {F}Score evaluation I determined Power and Prestige to be my fascination triggers.
For my wife (a Pieces) it was more the draw of the sand, surf and palm trees. They do say in real-estate it’s all about location, location and location. Ritz-Carlton clearly picked a great place to locate a beach resort carrying their iconic brand.
Some brands, say McDonalds or Wal-Mart, are destinations for different reasons than the Ritz-Carlton. They are, however, still destination brands that will be sought out by consumers.
Business-to-business(B2B) brands can play in this arena as well. Remember businesses don’t sell to businesses. People who work for businesses sell to people who work for other businesses. Fascinate the minds of the buyers at target companies and you can become a destination brand in the B2B space.
What brands do you consider destination brands? Do you know what it is about them that fascinates you?
what if the destination is the brand in a bigger way – like Vancouver / Whistler post Olympics? Who didn’t want to come here after watching NBC? Even though I live here, it looked AMAZING. So now as a destination brand we continue to figure out how to maximize this opportunity to invite the world – come here as a visitor, with your meeting, with your large scale sporting event… it will exceed your expectations!
I wanted to come there long before the Olympics 🙂 Someday….