Brands and travel publishing - by Stephen Mesquita
Stephen Mesquita, travel publishing consultant
A strong brand encourages us as consumers to develop loyalty. This loyalty can become so strong that we buy without question because we know that the brand will deliver what we want. With the growth of the internet, where we are often buying products and services almost unseen, a strong brand is a ‘must’.
It has been argued that brands do not really exist in publishing in the same way that they exist elsewhere on the high street and in the virtual shopping mall. The brand in trade publishing has tended to be the author or even one of their characters: Michael Palin is better known than Orion; Harry Potter than Bloomsbury; and The Da Vinci Code than Corgi.
But in reference publishing, brand can be vital to success. Take travel guide publishing. Historically, this has been a fragmented sector where local brands flourish without being successfully exported. Within the last few years, two publishers have succeeded in creating global brands – and success and profits have followed.
In the UK market, 66 per cent of the market is in the hands of three publishers: Lonely Planet (purchased by BBC Worldwide in 2007), Penguin (DK Eyewitness and Rough Guides) and the AA.* Two of these brands are mainly local: the Rough Guides brand is strong in the UK, but has not been a major international success. The AA is a very strong brand in the UK – but its roadside assistance business means that, in publishing terms, it works better for maps than guides.
It is the same in many major markets. In the USA, Fodor and Frommer are strong local brands that do not really work outside North America. In France, there are Routard and Michelin. Michelin guides are published worldwide but generally have a small market share outside France. In Germany, Baedeker and Polyglott have not travelled in translation. Yet Lonely Planet and DK Eyewitness guides have established global brands and global sales. Lonely Planet has evolved from the backpacker’s guide to the world’s most successful mainstream travel brand. And DK has delivered a visual approach to travel guides which has enabled their look to become their brand.
Both these brands pass the global ‘airport bookshop’ test – you would pick up and buy one of these guides in an airport bookshop when your fl ight has been called and you do not have the time to browse. Wherever you are in the world, these two brands are available.
Can these brands resist the challenge of the global online information providers such as Google and Yahoo? To succeed in the arena of electronic information, publishing brands will need to find new ways to deliver their product to a new audience. They will also need to keep the standard of their information
at the highest level.
* 2006 figures from Nielsen BookScan, Travel Publishing Year Book (2007)
Clark and Phillips, Inside Book Publishing, 2008, pages 176-7
