It is hardly surprising several of agencies have sprung up over the last few months offering professional podcasting services to the travel world.
Loudish led the way with Virgin Atlantic’s professionally produced city tours.
And here’s another one which popped into my inbox at the end of last year.
Given that many people predict 2006 will be the year of the the video podcast, I guess we will now see also see a barrage of agencies offering to produce broadcast-quality film clips of hotels, trips and destinations to download from your site.
But will there be any sort of market for their services?
I was discussing this tonight with my wife who is a television reporter and former radio journalist. Her instinct, unsurprisingly, is that travel companies should offer a proper professional product.
She has a point. Viewers are accustomed to well-produced and visually rich television shows (remember ABC just increased its offering of I-pod-friendly video downloads) and will be unimpressed by shaky camera work and poor captioning.
My alternative view is that, over the last two years, blogs and other social media have shown that passion and authenticity count for more than production values and that companies can produce their own podcasts and video clips without shelling out big bucks to expensive broadcast agencies.
What do you think? Will big marketing budgets get switched from tv ads to downloadable media? Or will travel companies – and their customers – be content with low budget DIY productions?
Technorati Tags: podcasts, video, blogs, blogging, travel, travelpr, virgin
{ 6 comments }
How about getting customers to make their own video diaries while on holiday, and then the travel company making the necessary edits and turning it into an iPod and video blogging ready format?
Bob and Ellsie’s trip to the Algarve.
Peter and Jane sample Marbella.
Etc etc.
As long as you state that they’re all regular people and possibly leave in some of their dislikes about the place. Customer evangelism is far better than any corporate video surely?
**side note** There’s something seriously wrong with your comment box. I had to write this in Word then copy and paste.
Stephen
How about getting customers to make their own video diaries while on holiday, and then the travel company making the necessary edits and turning it into an iPod and video blogging ready format?
Bob and Ellsie’s trip to the Algarve.
Peter and Jane sample Marbella.
Etc etc.
As long as you state that they’re all regular people and possibly leave in some of their dislikes about the place. Customer evangelism is far better than any corporate video surely?
**side note** There’s something seriously wrong with your comment box. I had to write this in Word then copy and paste.
Stephen
Thanks for the comment Stephen and sorry about my comments box. Looks like I’m not such a great TypePad hacker after all
I could imagine your video idea working well for smaller travel companies with specialist products – perhaps less so when one of the mega cheap deal sun holiday companies gets a couple of hundred videos from Jane and her friends in the Algarve.
I certainly agree with your thoughts about customer-created versus corporate. In fact I have a project coming up which will encourage a travel client’s customers to blog about their trips while on the road.
After that, we may venture into podcasting and videos. It’s going to be fun.
Thanks again.
UP
Thanks for the comment Stephen and sorry about my comments box. Looks like I’m not such a great TypePad hacker after all
I could imagine your video idea working well for smaller travel companies with specialist products – perhaps less so when one of the mega cheap deal sun holiday companies gets a couple of hundred videos from Jane and her friends in the Algarve.
I certainly agree with your thoughts about customer-created versus corporate. In fact I have a project coming up which will encourage a travel client’s customers to blog about their trips while on the road.
After that, we may venture into podcasting and videos. It’s going to be fun.
Thanks again.
UP
Comment box is working great!
Your project sounds interesting. It would be great to read how you get on with it.
Piaras over at pkellypr.com has plans to start a blog aimed at tourists visiting Dublin. He hasn’t been too specific about it so not sure if he’s going to do something along the same lines.
Cheers
S:-)
Comment box is working great!
Your project sounds interesting. It would be great to read how you get on with it.
Piaras over at pkellypr.com has plans to start a blog aimed at tourists visiting Dublin. He hasn’t been too specific about it so not sure if he’s going to do something along the same lines.
Cheers
S:-)
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