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BLAB RECAP is a recap of what we think are some of the best interviews posted on BLABinteractive.com so far
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What does it taste like online? Daphne Caruana Galizia shares with BLAB why the whole Taste Project, which started off as a magazine in 2004, has now evolved online!
KG: Taste turned 4 last June. How has the project changed since 2004? DCG: Taste magazine has changed a great deal, growing from 64 stapled pages to 144 burst-bound pages at its largest. We’ve changed the paper from matt to a high quality semi-gloss, and now have the cover laminated. We’ve got more cooks, more features, and lots of interesting information, but we’ve kept to the same policy of keeping an advertisingto-editorial ratio of around 60% editorial and 40% advertising. In the vast majority of magazines published in Malta, it’s the other way round. We’ve also kept to a policy of keeping overheads to an absolute minimum, which frees up revenue to invest in editorial content. After all, readers don’t care how many staff you have; they’re only interested in what lies between the pages. KG: Taste is a magazine for those who love food and drink...Who loves food and drink (who are the readers of Taste)? DCG: Taste readers, we were amazed to discover, come from all walks of life, all ages, both genders and several different nationalities. We’ve even had enquiries from people who’ve seen a copy while on holiday here and want to know whether we run a subscription service. We don’t. It’s not feasible as the postage is too expensive and the administration is cumbersome. That’s not our main area of business. KG: 4 months ago Taste also evolved online? Why and what was the feedback? DCG: People don’t throw Taste away. They keep it, use it as a reference because of the recipes and features, and try to source back copies – which, incidentally, have run out at our end. We were receiving repeated enquiries about an index, but then said – hang on, an index is the oldfashioned complicated way of doing things. It makes much more sense to have an on-line archive, and it’s easier for people to use, too. They
just key in the recipe they’re looking for and it comes up. Once we were going to all that trouble, we thought we might as well add on features like facilities which allow people to ask questions about food and food products, and a ‘blog’ which would allow us to communicate news like publication dates and so on. Further features will be added. The feedback has been very good. Lots of people now keep a laptop in the kitchen, so you can read your recipe straight off the screen while preparing it. KG: Taste as the printed magazine and taste.com.mt? What's the relationship between the 2? How do they complement each other? How has this changed the lifetime of your magazine's content and its consumption? DCG: The two are very different. The concept is different. Many people thought that www.taste.com.mt would be an on-line version of the magazine, like the on-line versions of newspapers, but of cours,e it’s not. The internet is not a substitute for the print media. It’s a different medium altogether and not necessarily a complementary one. It has to be approached with a different mind – not in terms of putting your magazine on-line, which would be the equivalent of developing a company website by putting its corporate brochure on line. No, people don’t throw the magazine away because they have access to the site. If anything, the site has built more demand for the magazine. The magazine and the site were conceived differently and are used differently. Also, people like to keep magazines that are beautifully illustrated, and thanks to our wonderful photographers and designers, Taste and its sister magazines Flair and Town look very good indeed.
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In-flight brainstorming leads to the ChooseMalta.com brand Jonathan Shaw explains how the ChooseMalta.com brand was conceived sky high on a 4hr. flight to LA and proves in-flight brainstorming is perfect for travel brands!
In brief, what did kick-start ChooseMalta.com and how did it develop to become a global initiative – ChooseToTravel.com? I was working and living in New York when I realised that the way forward for any business is the internet and also that Malta lacked a realtime, Malta specific travel portal. I recall flying to LA for a meeting and spending 4 hours writing potential domain names. ChooseMalta.com was eventually available and I registered it. That same night, I woke up at around 3am and decided to register other available countries. We now have over 60 country domain name with the Choose branding. Having no IT background, teaming up with one of my partners Chris Knights proved to be instrumental to our development plan. How important is the users' experience on your online websites, and hence how important are analytics and statistics that measure that? The user’s experience is crucial. I don’t come from an IT background so I always automatically think like a customer would do. Chris Knights then has the difficult task of creating an output which is workable for a customer yet solid and functional from an IT point of view. Analytics and stats are important yet they are only a tool in the whole business. How one can interpret these results to generate a competitive advantage for the business is another issue and it’s not always easy. What is the feedback you get from hotels and other advertisers on ChooseMalta.com / ChooseToTravel? We sell hotel accommodation online and real-time and different hotels have different performances. In just 3 years we have become Malta’s leading travel website and we are still experiencing huge growth.
We also just launched ChooseItaly.com, we have a Sales Representative in Milan and we are currently signing up hotels in Italy, it’s not easy but feedback is positive. Any plans to grow further and who shall I speak to if I have a related innovative idea to put forward? The plan is to launch all of our choose destinations and have substantial online traffic and bookings. The model has worked for some of other destinations and it’s now a matter of time & resources until we launch and manage all of our domain portfolio. What in your opinion makes you different from other travel websites? In my opinion we have 3 main criteria that make us different from the big travel sites: The Choose branding is rather catchy; We focus on one destination (per site) and provide concise travel info; Our system is easy and very transparent to use, no hidden fees, etc. Nonetheless, the internet offers a huge platform to reach a huge market with no boundaries. Our aim is to have quality traffic and a consistent clientele that use our services for the various travel sites. We plan to focus on delivering a good product and service and we are confident that the numbers will add up in due course!