Hungary: Popular destination or a forgotten land?

Chi 2 Degree of freedom p

3. Hungary: Popular destination or a forgotten land?

The tourism of Hungary is an interesting question. There are three kind of people: those who have never heard of it; those who have heard of it, but do not know too much and those, who have been there and are really amazed.

After interviewing people from different countries this result was more than surprising. Carrying out a research on a non-representative sample no generalizing can be made – however the people asked (both from within and outside Europe) the majority did not know more about Hungary than it is in Europe, Budapest is the capital and a few facts like we have pálinka and goulash. Only less than ten people out of more than eighty could name a few things or sites what Hungary is famous for – whereas for Finland and for Turkey everybody could name at least Santa Claus and ancient ruins as an important element.

After these findings I analyzed the marketing communicational tools of Hungary so, as I did for Turkey and Finland and I did not realize too much significant difference. All the three countries have an interactice, visually rich and informative website promoting their most important treasures. They communicate trips via tourism agencies in magazines and in short films as well – however the coverage is probably not so wide for Finland and Hungary as for Turkey. One remarkable thing about Hungarian advertising is that it is pretty centralized: Budapest is absolutely in the focus everywhere,

when Hungary is promoted. A little more rarely Lake Balaton is promoted, as the ‘Hungarian Sea’, but the rest of the country is not that much emphasized. Spas and the wild sheers with wranglers could be enhanced much more – also as the core competences of the country and core elements of our culture. They are not promoted as much as the core elements were in the case of Finland and Turkey; therefore they are not so widely known either. Things could be improved to a higher level, but this would require greater investments, and yet now, the campaign is pretty effective (Visit Hungary).

However, this was not the main problem I realized, while analyzing the findings of my research.

While in the case of Finland and Turkey people are enthusiastic advocates of their country, in the case of Hungary lip ads did not seem to work so well. When I asked foreign students, who came to Hungary to their exchange year about this matter, most of them said that generally Hungarians did not know why they came here. Many of them indicated that some Hungarians even said things like

‘there is nothing good here’ or that ‘they could choose a better place’. Foreign students told me that they seldom heard any positive things about Hungary, the attitude of the youth around them is that they would rather live abroad than here.

It is also a personal experience that people do not really think positively about Hungary, and they absolutely do not promote travelling to Hungary abroad. Of course this is not generally true for every single Hungarian, but since so many people have noticed this phenomenon, it cannot be overlooked.

Conclusions

Based on my analysis the marketing communication program of Hungary is basically a right one. It applies a great variety of media forms ranging from traditional to online media as well. Even though the coverage might not be so big, the campaign itself is not at all worse than that of the other countries examined; and the number of incoming tourists is even more promising than expected.

The point where there is a need for improvement is the attitude of the locals, Hungarians. If they were advocates of their own land, as it is perceivable in the case of other nations, the general picture could turn more positive either. However, this is a complex and difficult task. Since political and economic factors affect people’s attitude towards a country as well, it is a real challenge for the tourism industry to win Hungarian citizens for their case. Campaigns could be directed towards this aspect as well, with the same tools as in the case of foreigners – but instead of promoting tourism, we need to promote the country itself.

However, this deep-rooted problem might take years or even generations to be solved – a change of attitude is definitely a long-lasting process. Meanwhile the reputation of Hungary depends on how many true advocates the country has – and how much of the foreigners they can reach.

References

Aitken, Robert & Adriana Campelo (2011), „The four Rs of place branding”, Journal of Marketing Management, 27 9-10, pp.913-33

Caldwell, Niall & Joao R. Freire (2004), „The differences between branding a country, a region and a city: Applying the Brand Box Model”, Journal of Brand Management, 12 1, pp.50–61

Chernatony, Leslie de and Francesca Dall’Olmo Riley (1998), “Defining the ‘Brand’: Beyond the Literature with Experts’ Interpretations”, Journal of Marketing Management, 145, pp.417-43 Corkindale, David (2011), „Discovering how brands grow”, The Marketing Review, 11 4, pp.337-45 Ekinci, Yuksel and Sameer Hosany (2006), „Destination Personality: An Application of Brand

Personality to Tourism Destinations”, Journal of Travel Research, 45 2, pp.127-39 Gartner, William C. and Maja Konecnik Ruzzier (2011), „Tourism Destination Brand Equity

Dimensions: Renewal versus Repeat Market”, Journal of Travel Research, 50 5, pp.471–81 GoTurkey.com (2013) Official touristic website of Turkey

Hakala, Ulla and Arja Lemmetyinen (2011), „Co-creating a nation brand ‘bottom up’”, Tourism Review, 66 3, pp.14-24

Hall, C Michael (2008) Santa Claus, place branding and competition. Fennia International Journal of Geography http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/fennia/article/view/3712 (Retrieved: 31 January 2013) Konecnik, Maja, William C. Gartner (2007), „Customer-based Brand Equity for a Destination”, Annals

of Tourism Research, 34 2, pp.400–21

Kotler, Philip – Armstrong, Gary – (2010) Principles of Marketing. Pearson Education, (2010) 10^th edition

Kotler, Philip and David Gertner (2002) „Country as brand, product, and beyond: A place marketing and brand management perspective”, Journal of Brand Management, 9 4-5, pp.249-61

Marzano, Giuseppe, Noel Scott (2009), „Power in Destination Branding”, Annals of Tourism Research, 36 2, pp.247–67

Tilastokeskus Database (2010) Tourist Office of Rovaniemi

Tourism Board of the City of Rovaniemi (no date) Arctic Circle Cabin. Rovaniemi 1950-1975;

Rautakirja Oy

Visit Finland (2013) The Official Travel and Tourism Portal of Finland.

http://www.visitfinland.com/web/guest/finland-guide/home (Retrieved 18th February 2013) Visit Hungary (2013) Official Travel and Tourism Portal of Hungary http://visit-hungary.com/

(Retrieved 16 February 2013)

World Tourism Organization (2013) www.unwto.org (Retrieved 20 February 2013)

Abstract

In the 21^thcentury marketing communication is facing a challenge never before seen: it is the rapidly expanding growth of social media. Regular actions and methods will not work anymore. However the biggest question is not entirely solved yet: can we measure the ROI (Return on Investment) in social media, and if the answer is yes, how can we do that? To answer that question, we have to draw an entirely new basic for the whole marketing communication. Instead of the regular classification of media (e. g. ATL and BTL), there are a mix of media types that online marketers employ to facilitate the connection between brand information and consumers. Those media types are often characterized as Paid, Earned, Owned and Shared media. This kind of classification is a significant part of content marketing, which is strongly related to the uprising awareness of consumers.

Using the opportunities of social media has great advantages for small and middle sized companies in Hungary. To even consider evaluating the success of social media marketing SMART Methodology (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timed) should be applied at first. To measure the ROI and social media marketing strategy we have to consider eight different steps:

1. Establishing strategy and defining aims 2. Defining target audience

3. Carry out the message of the campaign (and tracking the content of conversation) 4. Carry out the campaign tactics of social marketing

5. Defining, tracking and evaluating internal indicators and success measurers 6. Managing and tracking social marketing campaigns

7. Calculating and tracking the costs, calculating ROI 8. Revising success or failure

My study examines the possibilities of using the ROI calculating method for small- and middle sized companies, as a proposal for a further research. With these kinds of calculating methods we can raise the return of investment, which finally leads us to a more reasonable and sustainable marketing budget allocation.

Introduction Social media

In the area of marketing a very current topic when considering the marketing activity and community marketing of SMEs (small- and middle sized enterprise’s) is to examine the calculation methods, applying possibilities and limitations of Return of Investment (ROI). .

Social media can be considered consumer-generated media (MANGOLD and FAULDS, 2009). This new approach among the different media types has been described as “a variety of new sources of online information that are created , initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each other about products, brands, services, personalities and issues” (BLACKSHAW and NAZARRO, 2004).

Because of technical development, social media uses a variety of word-of-mouth opportunities

Picture 1. Social Media Landscape 2012 Source: Own design based on fredcavazza.net

As we can see social media has a lot of aspects and provides many opportunities. Technological advancement now allows us to move freely, since we do not have to sit in front of the computer screens to be online. Interactions in the online environment lead to conversations and facilitated dialog. The key aspects of social media such as publishing, sharing, playing, networking, buying and localization have generated specialised online services and platforms. Average consumers spend a lot of time in online environments even if they just focus on one of its key aspects.

This phenomenon attracted most of the companies in Hungary - and of course, worldwide. In 2012 M&M Global reported that the total advertising budget of the world was 99 billion USD, which means a 16, 2 per cent increase compared to the previous year’s data. Online advertising spending was 19, 5 per cent of this. In Figure 1 we can see the amount of money spent on online advertising in Hungary in the last decade.

0,9 1,2 1,6 2,4 4,3 6,9

10,5 15,3

22,25 23,3 27,2

31,14 35,65

0,6 1,0 1,3 1,8 2,8 4,1 5,9 8,1 11,0

14,4 15,9 18,8

22,0

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

billion HUF

Figure 1. Digital advertisement spending and its share (%) from advertising budget of Hungary Source: IAB estimation

The online platform is the only one which could raise its income during the world economic crisis.

The rapid growth of online spending shows us that the online environment, including mobile applications, has become one of the most promising platforms for SMEs and community marketing activities.

Return on Investment (ROI)

As POWELL et al. (2012) wrote, the business oriented application of social media is accelerating and expanding continuously. When social media is used for marketing purposes, companies demand results which can be presented in net value. Thus, the ROI should be examined in a proper frame because of its importance. After the verification of ROI of marketing activity in social media environment, the marketing experts are going to be able to make better estimates for social media;

this estimate could be defended in management meetings and after a while, the budget could be increased. With the aid of ROI marketing could become the key element of a company’s success and, thus, social media could change the process of shaping the relations between companies and consumers.

Beyond the SME practices POWELL et al. (2012) also noted that social media is highly applicable to promote socially beneficial behaviours such healthy lifestyle or proper nourishment. Regarding approaches like these, campaigns in social media could yield three different kinds of results:

1. those which are born in the physical world regarding to buying and consuming;

2. those which are created in virtual reality and offer positive, convincing conversations about the brands among and between individuals;

3. those which are connected to opinion leaders, and therefore can transmit positive messages about brands.

In order to reach these results the following marketing investments could be applied:

 one-time campaigns with precise results;

 continuous campaigns with unpredictable ends;

 additional campaigns to support traditional media campaigns.

ROI as a financial concept could help managers to decide more easily about research allocation and the level of investments into different activities, considering the changing scale of risk and refunds. It provides opportunity for managers to decide if they should invest or not, and it could estimate the expected refund. The investment has two different aims in the perspective of marketing:

 to strengthen the brand and increase the income and market share through better strategic and tactical decisions;

 to communicate the effectiveness of a certain marketing order in a language which is understandable for both managers and other employees.

The equation of ROI can be seen in Figure 2.

Marketing ROI= anymore. ODDEN (2011) wrote about a new approach in media definitions, which could be referred

Paid Media - Often thought of as “traditional” online advertising through display ads, pay per click search ads and sponsorships. It has the ability to be implemented pretty much on-demand,to have some degree of control and also that it scales. The growing popularity of social advertising adds another option for marketers to gain presence in channels where consumers and buyers are spending their time. The appearance of brand messages and content within paid media can work together with social sharing and organic search.

Owned Media – Media, content and assets that the brand controls, like websites, blogs, newsletters and brand social media accounts. Brands are increasingly behaving like publishers with editorial staff managing content creation steams. Brand content to serve both broad and niche audiences is not immediately scalable, but can provide long term growth benefits without corresponding growth in costs.

Earned Media – The result of public & media relations efforts to gain coverage in publications on and offline. Or essentially, brand presence within media without having to advertise. This definition also extends to brands that behave online in such a way that “customers empowered to publish” create content on the brand’s behalf inspiring buzz and word of mouth.

Shared Media – Brand social web participation and interaction with consumers on content on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that results in content is “shared media” since it’s a result of a shared interaction. Because of the nature of social sharing and engagement on social media sites, Shared Media can propagate across an individual’s network to others, and so on and so on.

According to ZECKMAN (2012) at toprankblog.com, social media users can be classified into five different types, such as the ‘Lurker’, the ‘Newbie’, the ‘Predictable User’ and the ‘Chronic Over Sharer’. Approaches like this show that new classes of consumers were born, and all companies should pay attention to their habits and demands.

Materials and Methods

To examine the community marketing and the marketing activity of SMEs, deep interviews are going to provide the basics. During the research the eight steps of measuring ROI and marketing strategies are going to be examined:

1. strategy planning and defining aims 2. defining target groups

3. carry out the central message of the campaign and monitoring the content of conversations 4. execution of marketing campaign tactics

5. defining, monitoring and evaluating key performance indicators; selection of analytical methods

6. observing and managing executions of marketing strategies 7. monitoring the actual costs, calculating ROI

8. revision of success or failure, iteration

In this article I presented an exploratory research. To carry out the full research, both qualitative and quantitative methods are going to take place:

1. deep interviews with SME managers;

2. Two different surveys: the first one is for managers of SMEs and the second one is for the consumers about their social media habits.

Discussion

The research is now at the first stage, which is an exploratory research: the primary objective of this exploratory research is to provide insights into the understanding of connections between social media and ROI. The next stage is to visit a group of SME managers to carry out deep interviews in order to discover their thoughts and practices in connection with online advertisement investments

and social media usage. Based on the results, two surveys are going to be carried out, focusing on both producer (SME managers) and consumer sides.

The expected results are the followings:

 a better understanding of the mechanisms of social media;

 an applicable practice regarding how to plan social media investments;

 provide know-how regarding how to calculate ROI;

 with the aid of ROI calculation marketing managers are going to be able to shape better estimates;

 these well-considered estimates could redefine the connections between SMEs and their consumers;

 community marketing activities could be more effective through using social media properly.

References

Mangold, W. G., Faulds, D. J.: Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons (2009) 52, 357-365

Blackshaw, P., Nazarro, M: Consumer-generated media (CGM) 101: Word-of-mouth in the age of the Web-fortified consumer. Intelliseek white paper, (2004). Retrieved from

http://www.brandchannel.com/images/papers/222_cgm.pdf 15 January, 2013 Picture 1: Own design, the original was retrieved from

http://www.fredcavazza.net/2012/02/22/social-media-landscape-2012/02 March 2013 Zeckman, A.: 5 social media user types and tips for marketers to connect with each one. Retrieved

from http://www.toprankblog.com/2012/11/5-social-media-user-types/ 02 March 2013 Odden, L: Paid, Earned, Owned & Shared media – What’s Your Online Marketing Media Mix?

Retrieved from http://www.toprankblog.com/2011/07/online-marketing-media-mix/ 10 November 2012

Powell, G. R., Groves, S. W., Dimos, J.: ROI a közösségimédiában. HVG KiadóZrt, Budapest, 2012. ISBN 978-963-304-097-3

Digitális “net” reklámköltésiadatok. adex IAB Hungary 2012, retrieved from

http://mediainfo.hu/file/download.php?id=697&redirect=/admin/essays/files.php? 01 March 2012

http://www.mediainfo.hu/tanulmanyok/essay.php?id=3122

Abstract

The aim of this study was to find new qualitative methods for marketing research purposes. Our interest turned towards studies that adapted psychotherapeutic techniques to the field of marketing research. The reason of finding them applicable is that the schema behind them is similar, both marketing and psychotherapy aim to indicate behavioural changes for certain purposes. In order to indicate changes the differences between the present behaviour and the desired behaviour need to be clarified. There are certain factors that hinder and others that encourage the changes. Six step reframing is a very effective NLP technique to discover these factors and put them into a dynamic interaction where the participant works out possible solutions for the occurring oppositions without any direct suggestions from the moderator. Originally it is applied in individual therapy, the importance of setting it up in a group is to multiply the sources and variety of information gathered per unit of time. During the drama the participants and the observers are also tuned to the subject and tell their opinion in the sharing process. In this study we applied this method to study the health behaviour of university students. As a result of the play and the group discussion the main factors that shape health behaviour could be examined. The participants stated that lack of time, lack of money, laziness, lack of persistence, bad mood, duties in school and at work and irregular schedule are the main hindering objectives. As for the solutions they found support of family and friends useful, organizational skills and better time utilization is also very important, more willpower and persistence is also needed, motivation and good state of mind would be helpful, relaxing acitivities like yoga

In document Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Economic Sciences (Pldal 40-73)