Welcome to Issue No. 035 of Sojourn. An independent publication delivering strategic interpretation for leaders shaping the future of travel and hospitality.
A brand I’d been hearing about for months kept showing up in my feed, my inbox, my targeted ads. By the time I finally clicked, I noticed something strange: I knew the name perfectly. I couldn’t tell you a single thing it actually stood for. The visibility had outpaced the identity. Once I saw that, I couldn’t stop seeing it everywhere.
Interpretation: Hospitality has gotten very good at buying attention. Performance marketing budgets have grown. Targeting is sharper. Retargeting & repurposing are everywhere. Brands now appear in front of the right people more times than they ever could in the pre-digital era. And still, something is slipping. The brands buying the most attention are not always the ones being remembered. In many cases, they’re the ones being forgotten the loudest.
A brand that has to keep reminding people it exists hasn’t built recognition. It has built a ‘subscription to visibility’.
