Results Are In! Compare Your Destination’s Branding to Others Across The Nation

We invited destination marketing organizations coast to coast to take our Branding Management Survey this Summer. The survey is designed to explore your organization's strength in creating, communicating, living, measuring, managing and extending your destination brand.

The following are the results to date from CVB respondents across the nation with budgets ranging from less than $250,000 to more than $5 million.  Staff sizes from 2 to more than 75 people and about 25% did not have a convention center.  If you are interested in receiving your destination's personalized results, please take our 2 minute questionnaire and we will send you a confidential paginated report to review.
Destination BrandsOverall CVB Survey Results (As of August 31, 2011)

Brand Age
17% are 0-2 years old
37% are 3-5 years old
29% are 6-10 years old
17% are over 10 years old

Active in the following branding practices:
•    63.2% align organization structure and culture with brand values.
•    68.4% state everyone in their organization knows what their brand stands for and can say it.
•    63.2% proactively drive their branding strategies.
•    68.4% view their brand as far more than just their visual ID.
•    63.2% agree branding is championed throughout their organization, from the CEO down.
•    68.4% include branding promotion efforts with local residents.
•    63.2% investigate what is important to visitors via surveys and polling.
•    26.3% measure the effectiveness of their brand in how it looks and feels to visitors.
•    42.1% understand the attitudes of our visitors and their changing views and needs.
•    57.9% include all ways they interact with tourism in the communication plan.
•    10.5% include an induction program on the education of their brand and the role it plays.
•    21.1% align their brand objectives with all internal and external departments.
•    47.4% involve all key stakeholders in their brand creation process.
•    52.6% include their partners and third party suppliers in their brand.
•    10.5% quantify the value of their brand in their business financial systems.

Include the following in planning and branding communication efforts:
•    Airlines / 87%
•    Local Events / 68.4%
•    Community Charities / 10.5%
•    Billboards / 47.4%
•    Community Partners / 84.2%
•    Local Hotels / 89.5%
•    Local Museums and Attractions / 84.2%
•    State Tourism / 57.9%
•    County Tourism / 52.6%
•    Chamber of Commerce / 73.7%
•    City Government /68.4%
•    Social Media /94.7%
•    Print Advertising Campaigns / 78.9%
•    Mobile Apps / 31.6%
•    National Advertising / 57.9%
•    Regional Advertising /89.5%
•    Local Advertising /52.6%
•    QR Coding /47.4%
•    Direct Mail Campaigns / 47.4%
•    Email Campaigns / 78.9%

Take our 2 minute questionnaire and explore your organization's strength in creating,
communicating, living, measuring, managing and extending your destination brand.
Results will be presented to you in paginated report.
Responses will remain anonymous and confidentiality is assured.

Please select the best survey that describes you:
CVB Brand Survey
Community Brand Survey
Museum Brand Survey
Hotel Brand Survey

Are you thinking about updating your brand?  Typically, we see no single reason for a destination to re-brand itself.  In our experience different places decide to embark on a new branding process for different reasons.  Perhaps it's increased competition from surrounding areas, a conflicting or negative image, name change, or maybe it's part of a larger strategic plan...  Whatever the reason for ignition, you always start a re-branding process with what we call the "intelligence gathering and assessment phase" more commonly known as the "brand assessment".  A new brand should not be an arbitrary process, this is a brand mark that you and your organization should be able to live with for 10 years.  It must be timeless, objective and achieve strategic goals.

What can the Brand Assessment tell us about our brand that we don’t already know?
Tells you about visitor awareness, attitudes, and preferences towards a brand.  In addition, the brand fails to achieve success because it isn’t understood or supported by the organization itself, it's partners and community.  The Brand Assessment:
1.  Uncovers underlying business or marketing issues that may be undermining the success of the brand.
2.  Shows the alignment of perceptions and attitudes of management, employees, and promotion channels.
3.  Identifies perceptual gaps among important internal and external audiences on key dimensions of the brand.
4.  Recommends specific areas in which business and marketing communication practices need to be improved in order for the brand to reach its potential.

Your brand is the promise, the big idea, and the expectations that reside in people's mind about your destination or organization.  People fall in love with brands, trust them, and believe in their superiority.  So start smart with marketing intelligence.

If you are considering a re-brand in your near future, email me to schedule a brief chat.

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