Company Overview
In marketing, digital disruption is considered as the emergence of new strategies, technology, or platforms that revolutionise the way business marketer research to the target audiences to promote their brands, products, or services. Thus, the following report aims to provide a brief evaluation of the effectiveness and contribution of digital transformation and disruption in the marketing approach. Two companies such as Airbnb and HomeToGo are going to be considered throughout the analysis to identify the way digital disruption has changed and transformed their marketing practice and strategies. Along with this, with the help of suitable theoretical approach comparison of digital marketing strategies for the selected two companies will be made critically. Based on the information obtained from the aforementioned two companies, future digital strategies for marketing approaches will also be mentioned.
HomeToGo is considered as a marketplace with a wide range of options for vacation rentals, listing attractive discounts from various trusted partners including TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and Vrbo. Starting from beach houses, vacation homes, houseboats, farm stays, and others, the company is found to combine dates, amenities, destinations, and prices to find appropriate accommodation for specific trips across the world (HomeToGo, 2022). Since 2014, the company has been found to operate local websites and applications across 24 different countries including South America, Europe, Australia, and others. Along with this, it is identified that HomeToGo operates different other brands such as AMIVAC, Tripping.com, Agriturismo.it, Casamundo, EscapadaRural, CaseVacanza.it and Wimdu to provide attractive services to its target customers across the globe. The company has received “Gründerszene Growth Award 2017/2018” by obtaining recognition as one of the fastest-growing digital organisations with a CAGR rate of 2,201% in relation to the past three years (HomeToGo, 2022).
Unlike HomeToGo, Airbnb is found to be a similar American-based company that operates an attractive online lodging marketplace, specifically for tourism activities and home stays for the vacation rentals. Since 2007, the company has been found to welcome the arrival of about 1 billion guests in different countries across the globe. The company is found to offer attractive and unique stays that enhance its chance to strengthen its brand recognition across the globe (Airbnb, 2022). In 2017, the company was founded to acquire Luxury Retreats for a value of $200 million and acquisition with HotelTonight in 2019 for a value of $400 million respectively. Along with this, in 2021 the company generated a revenue value of $5.9 billion by increasing booking numbers by 55% as compared to the year 2020 (Curry, 2022).
The proliferation of technology and its rapid adoption across the dynamic business environment has transformed marketing practices dramatically over the past few years. Technology and different technology-based marketing tools help to liberalise the way companies and businesses advertise as well as market their brands, services, and products. Previously, marketers are found to utilise traditional marketing approaches including, television advertisements, newspapers, billboards, print advertisements, and others. However, with the application of traditional marketing practices, marketers fail to determine the changing customer’s needs, their expectations, and interest accurately. The growing usage of the internet and different social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others, opens up opportunities for marketers to attract and gain customers’ insight accurately in real-time. Business practices and digital technologies are found to transform the competitive landscape radically. Gillpatrick (2019) in this regard highlights Change in consumer demands and growing business competition generates urgency for business entities to adopt a strategic approach to maintain their competitiveness and growth.
Digital Disruption in Marketing Strategies for Airbnb and HomeToGo
In the context of selected two companies such as HomeToGo and Airbnb, it is identified that digital transformation has changed the way companies operate and promote their brands across the globe. In the case of Airbnb, it is identified that the company has been trying to make its existing offers and services visually appealing in order to gain the attention of its target audiences. For example, the company has invested in Google Search by building partnerships with Google. This helps them to maximise their existing listings to 80,000 from 10,000 (Parikh, 2020). Along with this, it also allows them to incorporate a “banner ad campaign” that highlights images of the real rooms and apartments that positively influence them to gain attention from international audiences. Along with this, the company also utilises different digital marketing approaches including email marketing, social media marketing, blog post, and others to promote its brands and establish its global presence efficiently. In the context of the following figure, it is identified that Airbnb has established its presence on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote their brands and analyse the demands of their target customers accurately (Unmetric, 2022).
Figure 1: Social media presence of Airbnb
(Source: Unmetric, 2022)
In contrast, HomeToGo is found to be associated with a talented and motivated marketing team that helps companies to promote their brands and services information to the target audiences efficiently across the globe (HomeToGo, 2022). It is identified that maximum traffic that the company received is from its search engine by 72.69% followed by direct 13.96% and social media by 0.675 respectively. Along with this, HomeToGo is also found to establish its presence on different social media platforms to reach and interact with the target customers directly without involving any third parties. Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn are found to be the major social media platforms for HomeToGo Company as it helps the company to maximise customer engagements systematically. Traffic generated from Facebook is found to be 44.59% followed by LinkedIn 29.03% and YouTube 12.51% respectively (Similarweb, 2022).
Figure 2: Social media presence of HomeToGo
(Source: Similarweb, 2022)
It is identified that with the emergence of technology and growing usage of the internet people are found to show their preferences to collect information about their preferred brands, products, and services before investment. In the context of travel booking, people are found to show their preferences to select trustworthy brands that can help them to select their suitable destination to visit including appropriate accommodation services (Miklosik and Evans, 2020). In this regard, social media or digital marketing provides enormous opportunities to the marketers or companies like HomeToGo and Airbnb to provide detailed information about their services and facilities based on which customers can make decisions. Thus, it can be mentioned that digital disruptions have transformed the marketing and promotional activities of the mentioned two companies in a modernised way.
Marketing refers to the systematic approaches that most of the business entities have undertaken to promote their services and products in front of the target audience in an accurate and systematic manner. In most of the cases, it is identified that due to the adoption of inadequate or inappropriate marketing approaches, companies or businesses fail to gain attention from their target audiences (Saura et al. 2019).
Comparison of Digital Marketing Strategies
This leads to the minimisation of their chance to maximise productivity and business growth. Emergence of technology and digital disruptions provides opportunities for marketers to improve their marketing approach and establish their strong brand recognition across the target market (Özo?lu and Topal, 2020). Both of the mentioned selected companies are found to operate and offer services to the global market and thus, attractive marketing approaches are required to gain the attention of a wide range of global customers.
Both HomeToGo and Airbnb is found to utilise digital marketing along with social media marketing in different ways to maximise visitors to their respective website and increase overall business sales. In the case of Airbnb’s marketing approach, digital disruptions are found to take place in the areas of the marketing mix and the way companies engage as well as interact with their customers. The key reason behind this statement is that Makrides et al. (2020) highlights customer loyalty and brand recognition is found to be highly dependent upon the way brands interact and communicate with their customers.
In this context, it is identified that Airbnb is found to show its concern and investment in digital marketing by performing content marketing, influencer marketing, referral program, and others. For example, with the help of influencer marketing, Airbnb has been able to present its uniqueness along with the lifestyle aspects of its brand. In 2015, the company first launched its influencer marketing with Mariah Carey, where she posted information regarding the property of Airbnb on Instagram. Gradually they accelerate their influencer marketing with different other popular celebrities enhancing their chance to gain followers and audiences effectively (Knol, 2018).
The approach performed by Airbnb can be interlinked with the theoretical concept of “Kotler’s Theory of Marketing”. The key reason behind this statement is that the mentioned theory concept illustrates marketing activities of an organisation helps to determine the interest, needs, and demands of the target markets that positively accelerate business growth (Kelleci and Y?ld?z, 2021). Interlinking this concept to the Airbnb marketing practices, it can be stated that perceiving the growing presence of social media marketing, the company found it beneficial to build strong relationships with their target audiences. This, in turn, helps them to obtain the needs and perspectives of the customers toward Airbnb’s offerings in accordance to which they can improvise their existing services.
Figure 3: Kotler’s Theory of marketing
(Source: Kelleci and Y?ld?z, 2021)
In contrast, digital disruption for HomeToGo is found to be emphasised in consumer behaviour, marketing research, and competitions. The key reason behind this statement is that HomeToGo is found to be a Search Engine for vacation rentals across the world whereas, Airbnb offers customers to book their preferred destinations to stay and meet their leisure needs. Being a start-up HomeToGo is found to largely emphasise the Search Engine data to determine the customer needs and offer them information about the brands. It is seen that in terms of marketing activities, customers of HomeToGo are found to come from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) channels. Based on the traffic generated in the search engine, the company makes business decisions (Nguyen, 2019). However, in comparison with Airbnb, it can be mentioned that focusing only on the SEM and SEO channel may not be effective for HomeToGo companies to compete with their brands accurately. This is because; Kim and Choi (2019) mentioned that start-up companies are required to establish their strong brand recognition by promoting their services and product accurately in front of the target customers. Though HomeToGo has established its presence on social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others, however, they fail to take advantage of social media marketing, which might hinder its chance to determine the consumer’s behaviour accurately (HomeToGo, 2022).
Figure 4: Maslow’s Hierarchy needs
(Source: Ghatak and Singh, 2019)
In this regard, the practices performed by HomeToGo contradicted the aspects of “Self-actualisation as highlighted in the theory concept of Maslow’s Hierarchical needs”. The key reason behind this statement is that it is important for marketers to analyse why people or target audiences are interacting or engaging with the brands. Before launching any products and services, it is important to analyse the brands like HomeToGo whether their offerings will accomplish the needs of the target audiences (Ghatak and Singh, 2019). This can only be done with a strong social media marketing approach like Airbnb. HomeToGo is found to incorporate online video campaigning to increase customer engagement (Videobeat, 2022). However, minimal focus on social media marketing might hinder the chance for the company to reach and target maximum global audiences like Airbnb.
The emergence of technology has improved the way business entities operate their functional and operational activities previously. Marketing is considered as one of the integral parts of any business entity to establish a strong brand image by promoting services or products in front of the target audiences. In the context of the hospitality industry, appropriate and attractive marketing is found to be important as it helps businesses to maximise revenue and booking. From the perspective of Samatovich (2021), it is seen that marketing can be considered as one of the effective ways through which businesses, specifically those operating across the hospitality industry convey their Unique Selling Point (USP) and reach out to the target audiences to maximise their brand value.
After comparing both of the aforementioned companies that are HomeToGo and Airbnb, it is identified that both of the companies have been focusing on their marketing practices to establish strong brand recognition within the target market. Each of the companies is found to adopt and implement different marketing approaches to reach their target audiences and promote their services and offerings. It is seen that the marketing approach obtained by Airbnb is found to be effective in terms of generating customer loyalty and business growth as compared to HomeToGo.
The key reason behind this statement is that being a recognised and well-known brand, Airbnb is found to execute and transform its marketing practices strategically that drive business success. For example, from the earlier discussion, digital disruptions in marketing practices have been observed for Airbnb in the area of the marketing mix, and their initiatives towards engaging customers with the brands (Airbnb, 2022). In this regard, it is identified that the company has adopted digital as well as social media platforms such as email marketing, content marketing, blog post, Facebook, Instagram, and others to promote their brands. This positively influences them to gain customers’ attention and establish long-run brand loyalty in the global market.
In contrast, being recognised as the fastest-growing digital company, HomeToGo is found to be only dependent upon SEO and SEM channels to interact and analyse the customer’s demands. Depending on only specific channels may hinder their chance to reach the maximum number of customers in the future. The lesson obtained from both of the companies reflects that to develop future strategies for marketing, social media channels are effective for proportioning services accurately in comparison with SEO or SME channels (HomeToGo, 2022). Social media channels can help to perform effective promotional activities and at the same time provide valuable angst about customer data in accordance with which strategic business decisions could be made.
Conclusion
In relation to the overall discussion, it can be mentioned that digital transformation has modernised the way marketing practices are being performed previously. Emergence of modernised technologies has changed and modernised the traditional marketing approach and enhanced the chance for the businesses to increase their brand recognition within a wide range of target customers efficiently. The discussion shows that both Airbnb and HomeToGo have accelerated their business growth by offering customer-centric services. Digital disruptions are found to change the marketing activities for both of the aforementioned companies. However, it is seen that the marketing approach adopted by Airbnb is found to be different from that of HomeToGo. From the theoretical interpretation, it is identified that HomeToGo fails to reach the maximum number of customers as compared to Airbnb due to their dependency on single marketing channels. Along with this, it has been identified that special media marketing is found to be the most appropriate strategic approach for marketing to strengthen brand recognition and growth.
References
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