Comments on: GoHawaii’s New Campaign Makes Me Frown, Not Smile

By: Hawaii Officially Dips Toes in the Waters of Social Media | Bare Feet Studios

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:43:19 +0000

[...] and have been trying to persuade various tourism entities to learn more about the social web, Here’s just one recent example. The interactive web is not easy to understand from the outside, just like most foreign cultures. [...]

By: Roxanne Darling

Roxanne Darling — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:43:18 +0000

I’ve gotten a report from Dan Leuck of http://www.techhui.com that comments are acting poorly on this post. We’re working on it!

Thanks for letting me know Dan.

By: Is GoHawaii.com's "Thousand Smiles" campaign giving more of a toothache? | TheLetterTwo.com

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:09:15 +0000

[...] what’s shocking is that not everyone is impressed by what’s going on with this campaign. You be the judge of whether this is a successful [...]

By: P Graydon

P Graydon — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:16:34 +0000

Bleurgh.. I didn’t meant to imply people were aiming at Twitter. Call it over-exposure or similar, I’m just getting a little frustrated with the number of news articles and the like that tout Twitter as THE way to advertise your product, as if it is the be all and end all and the only way to effectively communicate these days :) For all the potential it has it still is in a neophyte stage.

By: Roxanne Darling

Roxanne Darling — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:57:46 +0000

@P Graydon – thanks for your comments and useful distinction between a graphic designer and a web designer. That is a useful part of this discussion, based on the comments above. (And I agree with you – for a data point of one.)

For the record though, nowhere in my post do I suggest this campaign should have been solely or even “majorly” on the back of Twitter – I simply reference twitter as one of many markers of both influence measurement and social media tools.

SF is a trend-setting place. It’s people are trend-setters. I would bet good money there is one of the highest concentrations of Twitter users there (and bloggers and internet users) given that Twitter, Blogger, Google, Apple, (need I go on?) were all conceived and nurtured there. So far, none of those companies has picked up and moved to greener pastures. Instead, they are defining how we create and communicate, even if it takes a few years to make its way around the world.

By: P Graydon

P Graydon — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:31:42 +0000

It’s a tough one. I’d agree the site is awful. No SEO positive links, over use of frankly confusing flash. It’s stuff that looks “ooohhh prettttyyyyy” but smacks of the design being done by graphic artists rather than web designers. Unfortunately it seems a fair number of the small to middling sized advertising companies do not realise the difference between a fancy site and an effective one, and seem to continue to get graphic designers to do a web developers job. Reality is you need both. Graphics designers and artists have good ideas, lots of them, and they’re often great, but you need the web designer to temper those ideas and make them practical.
It’s like the difference between a designer and an engineer at a factory. The designers job is to dream big dreams, and the engineers job is to turn those dreams into something practical, making changes where necessary in the name of safety and function.

I would, however, point out a slight disagreement regarding Twitter. It is still only a growing tool, and I think at the moment people are putting too much of an emphasis on it’s value. There are way more people that don’t “get” twitter than those that do. Those of us who get it and use it (I’m @twirrim ) rightly love it, but people do tend to perceive it with rose tinted glasses. To me I think of Hawaii in terms of neenz, v brown, alohaarleen et al. Speak to the majority of the people here, though, and they won’t even have heard of most of them. I do feel sorry for those that haven’t and haven’t yet had the pleasure of spending time with them.

From the best guess I’ve seen Twitter has maybe 3 – 4 million users, all over the globe.
San Fran’s Bay Area has a population of 7.5m (according to wikipedia)
Even if we take the (highly inaccurate) position of twitter only being used in the US (population of 303,824,640) Twitter accounts for not even 1.5% of the population. We know its much lower than that as twitter is a worldwide thing not local. 1.5% of San Fran bay area population would equate to just 75000 people.
I’m not saying that population is negligable, but when you’re creating a marketing campaign you target the bigger groups rather than the small fringe groups. That said, advertising on Twitter isn’t exactly hard though :)

By: Elyse Tager

Elyse Tager — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:29:42 +0000

Great post Rox. I don’t think you need to worry about offending the HVCB. Along with the critique, you have given them much strategic direction and encouragement for moving in the right direction. Hopefully, they will be willing and interested in listening to at least some of it for future marketing activities.

Best,

Elyse

By: Roxanne Darling

Roxanne Darling — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:35:29 +0000

Wow people I really appreciate these comments. I am not yet so disheartened though – as apparently I come from a long line of optimists. :-)

Your comments have made me more than one lone voice in the wilderness and I am confident we will have a meeting of the minds sooner rather than later.

And yes, the more I think about how much money must have been spent on this campaign, including the IMO completely unnecessary junket to send a bunch of people from here to there and entertain only the old media elite instead of having an event on the ground for the people, the more angry, no creative (!) I get about how we can do better. Together.

By: Joe Cascio

Joe Cascio — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:32:31 +0000

I agree with Chris Heuer. When it comes to matters of social media, I have stopped trying to convince people who don’t get it. They’re the ones that are losing out. Eventually, they will come around when one of their slightly more adventurous friends reports some success. People have to feel that someone who is like them and shares their experience approves, then they’ll make the leap. For some reason, social media is as big an adoption challenge as the computer has been. People have nothing in their experience to compare it to.

By: Chris Heuer

Chris Heuer — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:08:18 +0000

you can lead a horse to water…

Rox – I understand your frustration, its similar to mine when I was trying to get my local tourism and economic development people to pay attention to the web down in Miami in the mid 90’s… Eventually, I just moved away, realizing I couldnt make them drink, or think for that matter, no matter how hard I tried.

Don’t beat yourself up over the old school’s misunderstanding of the changing market for travel online (market for everything as the case may be). They will not change until they are forced to… I wonder where they came up with all that money though… funny thing is, the total costs are about the same with the old school approach as it is with what we are suggesting. The difference is that less money is spent on media buying up front and more money is spent on people engaging – sounds a lot like the old relationship selling model really, doesnt it…. with less advertising dollars and more feet on the street.

Now, there is a real opportunity with the musicians and special menus at Gordon Biersch – best photo contest from each location and each band, best video clip created…. could also be partnering with ustream.tv or someone else to broadcast each show live…. QIK even! They could extend the reach of the event way beyond the bay area, but the same activities would also deepen the connection between the bay area and the islands.

While we support you, at the same time I have to wonder if you are ever really going to get through to the decision makers… despite having some great smart people on your side, it just doesn’t seem that they care enough… even this free advice you are giving them is likely to fall on hearing aids that are either turned down low or have dead batteries in them….

One day your people will see the possibility, until then, relax and keep doing the great work that you do…

Aloha,
Chris