September 24, 2013
NEW YORK - A Four Seasons executive at the Luxury Interactive 2013 conference said that an effective optimized digital presence calls for a cross-brand team to develop ideas and analytical technologies that divulge insights about online consumer behavior.
The executive discussed Four Seasons' pursuit of optimizing its presence on all platforms by building a team that brings together insights from revenue, analytics, distribution, interactions and other areas. By promoting a dialogue between different branches of operation, the brand is able to quickly implement changes that enhance the consumer’s digital experience.
“You have to shift from the dot-com vacuum to begin to think about the consumer journey as they go through the process of a vacation or booking a stay as a business traveler,” said Chris Cocca, head of global ecommerce for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Toronto.
“Brand experience isn’t just a Web site anymore, it’s a sum of all these platforms,” he said. “If you just focus on the Web site, you may never get people to the web site.”
Spreading control
Mr. Cocca discussed that the control a brand has always exercised on its Web site can now be achieved on other platforms. Brands are now capable of swiftly locating problems and implementing change on mobile.
As these changes are enacted, brands must ensure that the experience across platforms remains consistent.
Four Seasons' Mr. Cocca at Luxury Interactive 2013
More importantly, control over content is shifting from the brand to consumers who now demand to stay connected across all channels.
Since Four Seasons houses properties operated by different parties, it can be challenging to execute brand-wide strategies. Consequently, the hotel chain strives to weave a digital presence that prevents decentralized decisions from diluting the brand’s image.
Misguided measurements
Mr. Cocca explained that Four Seasons tries to measure digital performance in ways other than direct revenue increases. Not only does measuring revenue take a long time, but it can be affected by variables that call into question the accuracy of correlation.
Instead, measurements should be geared to assess consumer fulfillment. Even if sales are not directly affected, the user experience can be enhanced.
Mr. Cocca emphasized Big Data’s ability to bring together disparate systems to drive insights and results.
Programs such as Clic-tale allow Four Seasons to track consumer journeys on its Web site to determine the efficacy of certain items such as the main homepage image.
Four Seasons Macau
The Survey Monkey online survey service also allows the brand to quickly find out what consumer are looking for when engaging digitally and how well these goals are met.
The Four Seasons is able to more effectively adapt across platforms by leveraging programs to provide insights into consumer thinking.
Global presence
As with any digital strategy, unifying a brand's image on a global scale poses a significant challenge.
Furthermore, tracking the ever-changing digital landscape requires weekly and sometimes daily adjustments.
A Forrester Research executive at the Luxury Retail Summit: Holiday Focus 2013 Sept. 18 said that although luxury brands may be sluggish to innovate in mobile, marketers that test the medium often see consumers using mobile channels two to three times more than expected.
The “Forrester Research: How Digital will Disrupt Luxury Marketing and Retail” session presented the opportunities and challenges that digital presents to luxury marketers in establishing a customer relationship. However, brands can also not treat digital mediums separately if they want to succeed (see story).
Other luxury hotel brands are also striving for a digital presence that allows for a consistent consumer experience.
Starwood Preferred Guest, the loyalty program from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, introduced iPad and iOS7 applications meant to further synchronize the brand’s properties, unite guests and make traveling a more fluid experience.
Starwood’s digital design team took advantage of the iPad’s capacity for high-resolution images to create an editorial-like experience on the app. Although a cohesive digital approach is necessary for brands to effectively reach all consumers, ensuring that brand loyalists are presented with friendly digital options should take precedence (see story).
A theme of the first day at Luxury Interactive was to fail quickly on digital platforms so that changes can be quickly administered.
"If you can’t measure the strategy, you’re probably doing it in a very specific way, and that shuts down a lot of innovation and improvements to the user experience," Mr. Cocca said.
Final take
Joe McCarthy, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York
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