BUSINESS TO BUSINESS

An entire industry has sprung up to cater for business travellers, providing everything they need (and plenty that they don’t). But why are they subject to such special attention? What do business travellers have that their office-bound colleagues don’t?

THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE FLYING FOR BUSINESS today than ever before, and as the world’s professionals have taken to the skies, the world’s biggest organisations have followed hot on their heels. Sensing a prime opportunity to sell to an affluent and clearly defined demographic, everyone from luxury goods manufacturers to international hotel chains and financial services companies are finding opportunities to reach the business traveller.

But why do these suited nomads excite such interest? The popular image of the business traveller is that of the busy professional male, but aside from the fact that he is likely to have more disposable cash than, say, a student backpacker, what is it that marks him out as worthy of such special attention? According to Mark Tungate, author of Branded Male: Marketing to Men, part of the answer lies in the fact that in an airport a man begins to behave slightly strangely.

“For retailers the problem is that men aren’t keen shoppers,” he says. “The average man doesn’t consider shopping as a leisure activity. They tend to shop with an object in mind; they don’t really browse. It sounds like a cliché but it’s not – this targeted shopping behaviour is backed up by solid research.

“When you have a businessman in an airport, though, he does have time for a bit of browsing. It’s perhaps the only time in these busy guys’ lives when they get to spend time looking around the shops. So they suddenly become an attractive proposition for retailers because they’re said to spend more time shopping in the airport environment than they would do on the high street.”

Female business travellers tend to be just as time poor as their male counterparts, though it could be argued that they make more time for shopping at other times. Regardless of gender, however, international business travellers also have a unique set of needs and desires that are surprisingly easy to fulfil, and which have created their own distinct niche.

Take the busy executive who goes on holiday with his wife, for example, and invests significant time reading guidebooks and websites to find the most authentic, idiosyncratic, back street places to stay, eat and shop while they are away. The unique experience is all-important, whether he’s seeking out trattorias on a Tuscan hillside or tracking big game in a South African safari park, yet on his business travels our executive’s objectives are likely to be the absolute opposite. His priorities will be a comfortable hotel room, preferably in a chain he has stayed in before and which offers some kind of membership scheme. The hotel will look and feel much the same as scores of others he has stayed in, but when travelling on business such vanilla familiarity becomes a boon.

And according to Tungate it’s a phenomenon that is spreading beyond the hotel’s revolving doors. “There’s a homogenised trendy bar industry springing up around the world,” he notes. “If you go to a certain kind of cool bar in Brussels and then a similar kind of offering in London and Amsterdam it’s always much the same – vaguely Starck-influenced with electronic lounge music – and I wonder whether that’s an unconscious effort on the part of the catering industry to provide for these frequent flying international types who like to feel as if they’re at home anywhere.”

Back when Travelodge was a network of basic hotels by the side of American freeways its motto declared that “The best surprise is no surprise”, and in the global reach of services targeted at travelling business people that philosophy is replicated around the world.

The final pillar of the business traveller’s appeal is their sexy, jet-setting image. Businesspeople are key to the marketing of everything from BlackBerrys to private jets, but how does the advertiser’s image measure up to business reality? In the advertiser’s eye, today’s business executive is not just a cog in the corporate machine, they’re affluent individuals and drivers of luxury cars, users of the latest technology and wearers of bespoke suits.

“Sometimes I think business travellers aren’t quite as wealthy as the ads targeting them make out,” muses Tungate. “They’re not always sports car-driving, luxury brand-consuming guys. They can be fairly averagely paid workers who need to travel for their work. Having said that, I think most advertisers will tell you that even if businesspeople aren’t being paid vast sums of money, they’re still an aspirational crowd. They do appreciate quality and they do appreciate things that signify the good life, so even if they’re not in the market for high-end luxury goods, they will certainly be interested in premium goods.”

MARK TUNGATE IS THE AUTHOR OF BRANDED MALE: MARKETING TO MEN. SEE P.54 FOR MORE INFORMATION.

BRAND LEADERS

MARKETING

MARK TUNGATE REFLECTS ON THE BRANDS THAT TARGET BUSINESS TRAVELLERS, AND ASKS WHAT PUTS THEM ABOVE THE COMPETITION.

HSBC

“HSBC is deliberately presenting itself as a global brand, and not only that, but one that connects people around the world. Initially it did that by demonstrating that it understood local cultures, but now it compares personal likes and dislikes. It’s a very warm and human strategy for what is essentially quite a cold financial organisation. It has seen to it that it owns the airport space – from trolleys to posters to practically any other space you can think of, it wants the business traveller!”

SIXT

“Being a car hire brand it has to be in airports, but the problem is that so too do all the other car hire brands, so it’s up against the likes of Avis and Hertz, which are bigger than SIXT in lots of markets. Its positioning tends to be ‘we can provide premium cars at lower prices’, and it does it in a witty sort of way, which in car hire advertising is pretty hard to come by! The adverts are intended to speak directly to the businessperson, saying why not hire the latest sporty Audi, loosen your tie and for 15 minutes at least you can enjoy the drive. It’s about bringing a bit of glamour into your business day without crippling you financially.”

THE ECONOMIST

“It has been doing this for years now, but The Economist creates a club feel. All the posters are a recognisable white out of red and the copy is very witty, to the point where you sometimes have to think about it before you get the joke. But you inevitably do get it and that makes you feel clever. That cleverness reflects the experience of reading The Economist; it creates an exclusive club in which the only cost of entry is the magazine itself, so you either get it or you don’t. And that’s what the advertising is doing – you either get it or you don’t.”

OMEGA

“Omega’s ads are nothing to shout about – they look much like any other watch adverts – but the company is good at using celebrities in an opportunistic way. Back in the ‘60s at the time of the moon landings it had Buzz Aldrin wearing an Omega watch, while today the ultimate male celebrity is James Bond, so it has signed him up too. Bond was always associated with Rolex, but in 1995 Omega signed a product placement deal with the Bond movies, and Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig have both worn Omegas. It’s not a particularly original strategy, but it’s one that’s very difficult to get right and Omega tends to do just that.”

WORDS BY STEVEN WATSON