Today for our CH BrandReview I am going to look at the website of Hotel Des Bergues in Geneva. When I just arrived in Geneva and I passed by Des Bergues, it appealed to me instantly. It has a remarkable location and I think I have seen it appear in movies ones and a while.

For this reason I had high expectations of their website but I became a bit disappointed when I took a visit.

When I searched for Les Bergues in Google, Des Bergues came out properly on the top position. However Des Bergues doesn’t have its own hoteldesbergues.ch, it has only a few pages on the fourseasons.com website. The photography is good but the framework is very basic. I see some similarity with this website only this is not concerning a luxury (hotel) Brand like Four Seasons is.

However I did contact Four Seasons about this and they do not agree with me on this. As a result they did put up an online survey. So when you visit their website you can agree or disagree with me.

What I really do miss though is storytelling. I want to know more about Des Bergues. It is supposed to be the first hotel of Geneve. And it has been a landmark on the Rhône since 1834..

There must be a lot more to tell. For example is the Quai des Bergues named after the Hotel or is it the other way around.

To be continued.

Screenshot Hotel Des Bergues Geneve

(inspired by brandchannel.com)

For Digital Branding, your visual presentation is extremely important and with the growing influence of interactivity and video the use of Flash is almost inevitable. However the problem with Flash is that it has a problem with search engines.

But there is some improvement now. Adobe is working with Google and Yahoo! to enable one of the largest fundamental improvements in web search results by making the Flash file format (SWF) a first-class citizen in searchable web content.

This will increase the accuracy of web search results by enabling top search engines to understand what’s inside of RIAs and other rich web content created with Adobe Flash technology and add that relevance back to the HTML page.

Read the full article

Just back from my holidays. Wondering that most tourist information is still offline.

With the interactive marketing getting more location based cities, countries, regions etc. should consider the huge possibilities of mobile marketing, google.maps, video etc.

I, as a tourist, would like to get info on my mobile while entering a city. Especially on holidays we are in need of information for example about the weather.

I went to Nice in the South of France, lovely place. I Like this webcam so much. Got a free slogan for them (I am using it already) Have a Nice day!

I am on holiday. During my holiday I will be disconnected.

However I did plan my holiday online. See you in a few weeks.

Seems like the luxury Brand debate is coming to an end. Luxury Brands often do have a problem with the transparency and accessibility of the web. Because they do have a reputation to protect. And they need to stay exclusive.

However this does not mean luxury Brands can ignore the the fast evolving changes in digital branding. Research shows that the luxury consumer is ready for 2.0 and they do have very high expectations.

Not meeting this expectations will definitely harm your brand. For a luxury brand, just ‘keeping up’ is not enough. You have to be outstanding.

Beth Uyenco, Research Director for Microsoft Advertising comes with the following Luxury Brand Engagement Model:

• ‘Awareness’ To stay in line with the offline communications, and to deepen the brand experience with interaction, your web presence needs to be of top quality.
• ‘Admiration’ Luxury Brands need to exceed expectations and do also have to communicate on an emotional level.
• ‘Exploration’ Similar to the in-store communications. Luxury customers will want a personalizes way of exploring the Brand and its products.
• ‘Consideration’ After the exploration phase, it is important to create engagement. In this stage it is very important to know who your future customer is, to deliver an exceptional service and to invite the customer to join the Brand.
• ‘Purchase’ Integration of offline and online will give the possibility to enrich the purchase experience. It is about helping to buy more efficient and/or making the purchase a remarkable moment.
• ‘Ownership’ There are many digital ways to keep and strengthen the relations with your exclusive customers.

(Thanks to Microsoft Advertising and frankwatching.com )

I do believe performance based marketing has a bright future. For anyone involved in advertising it is very attractive to pay per sale, per lead etc. in stead of just buying reach without any further guaranties.

Publishers have the opportunity to place ads while sharing the revenue. Customers get to see more relevant ads because ads that don’t pay will disappear.

Affiliate networks will however face a hard time to stay relevant. As tracking software will become free and available for everyone. Affiliate networks will have to compete with affiliate managers within the advertising companies to find and built relations with relevant publishers.

Why would you still pay the affiliate network if you can do it yourself.

Google is already offering Pay per Action advertising in beta and I guess it is just a matter of time before Google starts offering this tracking solution for non-Google ads as well (similar to Analytics campaign tracker). By then anyone can start his/her own affiliate program for free.

If the tracking software is for free. Affiliate networks will need to show their relevance by delivering better tracking and/or better publishers then we can find ourselves. In this situation they can’t afford to charge monthly fee’s. They will probably have to work performance based themselves.

People are spending more and more time on the Internet, right? But the front runners, the heavy users are more and more facing the problem of information overload. They are disconnecting in stead of connecting.

The next trend is going Off line.

We will see more and more (lab)topless meetings, topless holidays etc. And people are trying to find ways to use their free time more effectively (lifehacking). Gmail labs comes with a new feature the TakeABreak option which effectively removes you from all Gmail functions for 15 mins.

For Brands this trend is one to consider. Besides the fact that being relevant will be the only prevention against customers disconnection with your Brand. Brands have to start thinking about how to offer disconnecting experiences, lifehacking widgets and more TakeAbreak tools, products and the like. Customers will love you for it.

It is about a delivering sounds, sights, smells… for a well deserved holiday . It is not about selling it there. It is about people taking it home in their systems. That’s what I call a good Brand association.

Youtube is getting more functions. It gives us, users, more and more control and insights. Now there is this new feature in beta, Annotations.

• Explanation here
• Video instruction here

So you can now ad text in after uploading. I don’t see the whole point yet. Why not ad in text while making the video? But I think this is just the beginning of opening up video content to, for example, customers. And I guess this is just one step in the direction of easy self made interactive video’s. Just watching video’s is coming to an end.

I see now… That some interactivity is already possible right now since you can put in links to other youtube pages. Check out this demo.

(thanks to Dutchcowboys.nl)

It is possible to protect your Brand name in Google Adwords.

A nice example you find if you try to make a text-ad with the term  “Euro 2008″ in it. You get the following message (see picture):

Trademarked Term.

Due to trademark reasons we do not allow advertisers to use “Euro 2008″ in their Google Adwords ads.

If this is a wise decision for all brands, I don’t think so. It has an effect on your distribution which you should consider. However it can give you some Brand control.

Last Thursday, 29 may, there was the second e-Business Convention in Geneve. It was a small conference and the aim was not to be inspiring, I guess, but more to inform new prospects and clients.

I was surprised there was a photographer instead of some flashy podcast and or back-channel experience. Must valuable of the convention was, in my opinion, the list of companies serving Geneva and it region in the online marketing field. So here is a list of companies based in our region.

1. www.b3b.ch
2. www.b-i.com
3. www.businessdecision.ch
4. www.cobweb.ch
5. www.cross-systems.ch
6. www.dotbase.com
7. www.emailvision.ch
8. www.everial.ch
9. www.ic-agency.com
10. www.mediapost.ch
11. www.opi.ch
12. www.optaros.com
13. www.rsd.com
14. www.smallbiz.ch
15. www.zoovista.ch