Need a sure bet way to go hyper-local and stand out from the crowd? Tell a story that literally nobody else could tell – by creating a soundscape track of your hotel. Luke Clark listened in on Martin Reiher’s presentation on “Sound Of Travel” at WiT Singapore 2018.
Or maybe just talk to somebody who can do it for you, such as Martin Reiher, Managing Director, Asia Pacific for Meesta Production. A native of Berlin, Reiher looks at travel differently. Or more accurately, he listens differently.
For him and the team at Meesta, a typical brief is to achieve cut-through in a crowded marketplace. What better way than to avoid some of travel’s clichéd descriptive terms – in fact avoid words completely, than to paint a sound picture.
“Stories are essential to today’s communications,” he explains. “Storytelling can help grow a business, a marketing strategy – or turn a hotel into a personal experience. Your story is valuable.” And like a thumbprint, nobody’s is exactly the same. “What’s different is your point of view, your unique perspective,” he notes.
Reiher initially spent his time, archiving sounds and video clips, and battling creative blockage. “I’m an over-thinker – every idea I came up with in the process I hated,” he explains. Then he decided not to try any more. “One day I just decided to switch off, try to forget about it.” He went for a walk: noticing that his footsteps synchronised with his heartbeat. “My mind was matching everything to the beat I was creating.”
The idea morphed eventually into a three-minute video project called Sound Travels for the Alma hotel in Barcelona. Tasked by WiT with creating an experiential story around travel to be demonstrated at the conference, Reiher worked to communicate the hotel’s aesthetics and value in a non-commercial way – the result was a short film through the eyes and ears of a musician. Sounds within the hotel (a fall into the duvet, a gin and tonic, the ding of the elevator) were captured and layered into one unique musical track.
Reiher says the point of the quirky project was to capture a feel and experience that’s both emotive and memorable. “If you’re selling paper towels, it would be hard to get your customer emotionally involved. Travel is easy. You have a beautiful hotel. The smell in every room is perfect. All of that makes a personality – and every aspect as an expression of that personality differentiates you from your competition.” By creating a sound jingle around the “hotel as a soundtrack” Alma had a unique conversation-starter for a new audience.
His message to travel marketers? Go through the looking glass and take risks in order to stand out. “Millennials don’t want to be informed: we want to be inspired,” he noted. While hotel soundscapes won’t be for everyone, signature stories should be, he insists. “For attracting new audiences, compelling stories are definitely the way to go”.
