114 - Innovation starts with easy stuff and good people
Find the right people, start with the easy tasks. Tips to get started with AI and Automation. Brand-to-agent marketing. Color mandatory in brand identity?
Hello,
Catching up after a week at HITEC, I forget how much tends to backlog. I had some time to reflect on what did I really get out of the show. As I’ve said before, it wasn’t discovering new tech, but discovering new people. More on that below.
Best, Martin
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Amazon warns about job losses from AI
I don’t know how many jobs Amazon cut when they introduced robotic warehouses. But they do predict that there will be jobs lost due to AI. I guess they’re the first to admit it. I think most hotels can’t afford to cut jobs at hotel level. There’s not a lot that AI will do at hotel level to replace people. But I wonder how that will be above property level, where it is much more possible that some tasks will be replaced. Is leaner central teams, but larger property level teams a viable option for hotels?
AMAZON AI JOB CUTS
Digital ads within influencer videos
Rembrand digitally inserts videos and ads within creator videos such as podcasts etc. Influencers and travel brands work well. But the cost and inventory constraints of hotels make it an expensive channel. Influencers give tips for best place to go when people travel, but those are also high seasons for the hotels so the partnerships become limited. Maybe solutions like digitally inserted ads within their videos can take the cost down?
REMBRAND DIGITAL MEDIA
About me: I'm a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I'm also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry. Brand-to-Agent marketing
The emerging concept of B2A (brand-to-agent) marketing, is the domain of focusing on AI agents that assist consumers in purchasing decisions. I’m not yet convinced about this model. As some form of SEO it has value, but creating ads for AI agents seems incredibly “skeuomorphic”. Marketing via agents will more likely be done through APIs in my opinion. Because ads and marketing in general is something for humans.
B2A MARKETING REVOLUTION
Marketers should do this
The newsletter writer of “I want product market fit” wrote nine actionable tips for startup founders to attract their next ten customers, emphasizing direct sales engagement, understanding customer problems, and pricing. I think every marketer should do this - early - and sometimes redo it. We have a reputation of being fluffy artists that are out of touch with the gritty life of sales, let’s fix that. I can’t recommend this enough.
STARTUP CUSTOMER ACQUISITION
Color or No color for brand identity?
Recently Mandarin Oriental worked with Pantone to secure their brand color. It has been a traditional thing for big brands to secure their own color. Now there are debates that this is passé. I get the point and having flexibility on the brand colors is great. But there is a fundamental, first principle with a brand which is that you need to build stability. So however much you want to change your colors every month, does it still translate to stability for the viewer? The goal of a brand it to remain stable in the noise of competition.
MANDARIN ORIENTAL + ABANDONING COLOR
Electric Vehicles (and Hotels)
Interesting look at the EV market today by Bloomberg. Will the growth continue in the coming year, I’m not totally sure. Infrastructure is going to be come an issue. If you have a house, then it is easy. If you don’t it becomes problematic. But hotels can install a few cheap (slow) over-night charging stations and charge an extra $10 per night. They’d get that part of the market which cares. Attributes like these can generate revenue but they need to be sold well.
ELECTRIC VEHICLE OUTLOOK FUTURE
Podcast: I was invited on the Hospitality Daily Podcast and spoke about technology in hospitality, some thoughts on what wont change in hospitality, and why I co-founded 10minutes.news. Opinion
Innovating hotel tech: Find the Right People
Back from HITEC (and after drying off from running to the hotel under the hurricane in Indianapolis) I’ve been thinking less about the tech I saw and more about the people I met. Yes, AI was everywhere, literally everywhere, predictive analytics, plenty of stuff some good - but not only. But the biggest takeaway wasn’t a product. It was this: success doesn’t come from the tech, it comes from the people.
On day one, I got a demo of how to really turn the whole hotel tech stack into a mobile customer-first experience from Shiji⁺, I bumped into Richard from Mews and we had a long chat about how visionary Accor has been, but how much harder it is to actually scale vision, I had a chat with Josiah at Actabl on various marketing ideas, and discussed hotel to automate hotel chains with RobosizeME⁺.
I got invited to an AI round table with Ideas, and had a great spontaneous dinner with LodgIQ⁺, some friends from Cendyn and HospitalityNET (and superb wine that we didn’t get to drink).
But after the conversations started, it quickly became clear (again) that innovation isn’t about having the smartest system. It’s about having the right people behind it.
One conversation cemented this. We were discussing hotel automation, and I tossed out the usual idea: start with repetitive tasks and build from there. But my counterpart from a hotel chain had a better take: start with the easiest thing. Something small, non-critical, that won’t break too much when it goes sideways. Prove it works. Then build.
I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense. Because the goal isn’t just fixing problems, it’s building trust. With the process, with the tools, and with your team.
But then he added the key point, you need to find people who are curious, who like to test things, who don’t freeze and stop everything when the first result breaks something. And I realized that’s what I go to HITEC for, not the flashy demos, the people giving the demos, the hallway chats, the random introductions, the late-evening debates that remind me there amazing people in this industry who are excited to try something new.
You could implement an AI concierge today. You could plug a custom GPT for your hotel into your booking confirmations. The tech is ready. But it only works if someone is willing to own it, improve it, and bring others along.
So yes, HITEC is about technology. But for me, it’s a people thing. Because the right people: the curious, the collaborative, the optimistic, they are the ones who’ll make that tech actually deliver.
"we had a long chat about how visionary Accor has been" Je serai curieux de connaître la teneur de cette discussion, sachant qu'il n'est pas vraiment le plus grand fan de Sébastien Bazin !