‘Creating remarkable experiences and content that inspires’ is at the core of everything Black Tomato does – but how has a worldwide pandemic – that has disproportionately affected travel – impacted upon the business? In today’s ‘New Rules’ we meet the brand’s Global Head of Marketing and PR Jos Davies, who talks us through the last few months at Black Tomato, and gives us her three top tips for marketing during the ‘new normal.’

How has your approach to marketing evolved following the Covid-19 outbreak? Or has it remained the same, and if so why?

We have always been a nimble marketing team and responded as quickly as we can to topical things to ensure our comms remains relevant for to our audience. This is something that has become incredibly important since the outbreak – ensuring that we are sensitive to not just the obvious, which in our world is where people can travel to, but also to understand how they’re feeling. By the nature of selling travel right now we’ve also had to be incredibly patient, whilst remaining front of mind, so we have certainly been delivering comms that is less sales driven and more about building trust and an understanding of what we do. Leaning on the emotional side of the comms we deliver has been particularly important to show that empathy and build trust.

Less is more has been particularly important too – reviewing what you do well, being honest with yourselves about that and taking time to deliver that well.”

Innovation is something that we have also really encouraged and embraced more than we ever have before. Whilst it’s always been a cornerstone of our marcomms, we have really encouraged small and big innovations – either making improvements to what we’ve always done or being brave and trying something new.

What, in your opinion, are the ‘new luxury marketing rules’ for the ‘new normal’?

1. Don’t be scared to innovate and change – audiences are responding well to this as we are all adapting our way of doing things in every aspect of our lives. So in turn our way of responding to marketing and how we’re engaging with brands, and willing to spend our time, is changing so adapt to that and be quick about it.

2. Be upfront and honest in your tone and be human and approachable with how you communicate. Listen to your audience in whatever way you can – on a micro scale by directly asking them if you can; or on a more regular basis review what the data is telling you and respond to that in a human way. Audience first approach is nothing new, but it’s more important than ever now.

3. Collaborate – this time has really showed us that collaboration is what will drive the innovation our industry needs right now and through collaboration we’ve really found some positive enthusiasm which is what the team thrives off which in turn produces good work.

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If you are responsible for the marketing and communications function of a Walpole member brand and would like to share your thoughts, please contact Jenni Rayner.