KIM MCKAY | Founder/Director

Kim is our entrepreneurial leader and founder of Klick X. With a proven track record, honed over more than two decades and her strong commercial instincts and broad business perspective, Kim superpower is designing and driving campaigns that position brands exactly where they want to be.  Check out her new short-form Podcast series Straight Forward for current insights, trends and easy to digest business advice.

CARA GEORGE | Regional Tourism eXpert

Cara is passionate about the visitor journey and stakeholder engagement. Previous roles as CEO of Mudgee Region Tourism and Director of Guest experiences at Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia have prepared her for the challenge and opportunity to re-awaken awareness of destinations who are ready to boost their profile and in turn their visitor economy.

JESSE DESJARDINS | The Guest Experience Map eXpert

Jesse is the creator of the Guest Experience Map (GEM)®, Strategyzer® coach and a leading advisor on innovation to the global travel industry. Named as one of Skift’s most-influential people in travel, Jesse has accumulated several industry accolades and has collaborated with leading brands and innovators in the business, including Tourism Australia, Accor, Facebook, GoPro, DJI and Buzzfeed.

HEATHER MOLLINS | Communications eXpert

Heather has worked in communications for 17 years leading a range of integrated campaigns. With a specialism in tourism, Heather has led a range of campaigns including those for Tourism Australia, Destination NSW, Tourism NT, Tourism New Zealand, Carnival Cruise Lines, P&O, IHG, TFE Hotels, Qatar Airways, Stayz and Reflections Holiday Parks.

VICTORIA BOWNESS | Social + Digital eXpert

Victoria Bowness is an award winning social, digital and e-commerce strategist. With a career spanning over 12 years in Digital she works with a global roster of travel businesses including Air New Zealand, Contiki, Santa Monica Travel & Tourism, Travel Alberta Canada, Voyages Indigenous and Wellington Tourism.

WADE KINGSLEY | Creative eXpert

In 25+ years Wade has worked in the media and marketing industries, with national leadership responsibilities at media publishers and agencies including Nova Entertainment, Dentsu and Southern Cross Austereo. A true creative, his passion is using creativity to solve problems. In 2021, he was named Australian Ambassador for World Creativity & Innovation Day.

BEAU KASSAS | Communications Director

For the past decade, Beau has built his career in marketing and communications representing major international tourism brands including Tourism Hawaii, Marriott International, Six Senses Hotels and The Sydney Collective plus beautiful regional destinations like Mudgee and Orange.

KATE DIALLO | Travel PR Specialist

With more than seven years of experience in PR, media relations, stakeholder management and social media Kate has worked with a diverse range of brands and award-winning campaigns including Cathay Pacific, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Tourism Fiji, Sydney Olympic Park Authority, Philips, Band-Aid and Neutrogena.

REBECCA ASTIER | Travel Publicist

Rebecca has represented some of the world’s largest names in travel including Accor Hotels, Contiki Holidays, AAT Kings, Insight Vacations and Club Med to name a few. Her approach is creative, yet mature and considered in order to leverage her established media and industry relationships for maximum impact.

KYLEE PRYOR | Client Relationships Manager

Kylee’s career in consumer public relations spans over two decades, specialising in entertainment, lifestyle and not-for-profit. With extensive experience managing national campaigns across a variety of genres, Kylee’s natural innovative mindset, gives her the ability to develop and oversee creative, engaging campaigns, tailored to suit each client – including travel clients like TFE Hotels and Stayz. 

Got a project or campaign in mind? We’d love to chat with you. Get in touch.

The post Say hi to our eXpert travel team appeared first on Klick X.

If Covid-19 proved nothing else it’s that businesses – even big ones – don’t need employees to congregate in one building to make magic happen. We’re free to hire the best person for the job, regardless of location. Restricting your options to a potentially limited group who live within a local commute zone doesn’t really make good business sense. And vice versa for employees.

We need to shift thinking when it comes to recruitment, and how a team works together. There is no doubt traditional businesses will struggle to adjust, but the truth is the 9 to 5 grind is dead. Flexibility is here to stay.

At Klick X we started this journey years ago creating a virtual workforce of global experts who collaborate and do the best work of their lives, while living their best lives.

Our advice? Build a team you trust to get work done in the hours that suit them, who honour your deadlines. Cultivate a culture of freedom and respect. Embrace digital systems to track and connect and prioritise culture with a remote workforce.

The post To office, or not to office… it’s not really the question appeared first on Klick X.

While the rest of the world might not have turned the Covid-corner just yet, Australia and some of our neighbours in the Pacific are in a strong position to start re-imagining what tourism and our travel businesses might look like in a post-pandemic era.

But be prepared – this era represents the greatest shift in consumer behaviour from travellers we’ve seen for a long time. What does that mean for you, and your business exactly? For those willing to adapt and change, it potentially might mean lots of new opportunities.

We’ve put together 5 new, or simply fast-tracked, consumer insights to consider while working on your next business or marketing strategy.

1. Living la vida local

The pandemic has highlighted and accelerated people’s connection with their hometowns, and their support for local operators and communities that feed into their identities. Uncertainty around border closures has seen consumers confined to their home turf in greater numbers (and for longer lengths of time). In January the ABC reported that country ‘carnivals’ and agricultural shows were back in vogue across Australia as COVID-19 lockdown reignited people’s love of fun and nostalgia in regional centres. Of course, even when international travel commences, consumers have likely had their eyes opened to the benefits of embracing their local lifestyle and environment more. So that relationship with your local store, travel brand or destination is still going to be important.

2. Willingness to share data

Paying more attention to data – both what you are sharing and what you are recording as a tourism operator – is a trend that will only grow in the coming year.  Checking in and out of venues and hotels, and divulging your details more freely, has become the new norm for travellers. And now with new technology making the recording process that much simpler, we’re unlikely to revert back to pre-pandemic privacy any time soon. At peak pandemic times both businesses and their customers shifted gears to focus on community and help with the crisis. The QR code has turned COVID-19 check-ins into a golden opportunity for businesses. Of course, with great power (and data) comes great responsibility. It is now more important than ever to make sure your operations and customers are tied together to great data the right way, and it’s essential to review the ways you engage and communicate with your consumer.

3. The future is #WFA

The work/ life balance and the movement to work not just from home, but from anywhere, is a powerful one.  An improvement in technology will continue to influence the way we interact with the people and the space around us, and after months of working from home and meeting virtually, this trend has accelerated to the point of no return. #WFA is here to stay, whether employers like it or not. But what exactly does this mean from a consumer perspective? Daytime could easily become the new primetime as work and playtime media habits continue to merge. When, where and how we talk to our travel customers will become as important as what we’re trying to say. The ‘work from anywhere’ movement will be a key driver in harnessing personalisation over multi-channel tourism marketing in the coming year. According to a recent survey by KPMG, many of us have newfound freedoms in how we work as a result of COVID-19, making working from anywhere holiday destinations acceptable as well – creating an entirely new category of #WFA holiday. These changes in consumer behaviour may provide welcome opportunities for tourism operators to capture a greater share of the Australian traveller’s wallet.

4. Changing role of social media

Social media has long been the villain of society, blamed for everything from endemic loneliness and bullying to surreptitious self-doubt. Enter social distancing. Living life in lockdown certainly reimagined the way people use and embrace social media platforms; many say for the better. From zooming with your grandparents, following fresh hashtags fads like #thekindnesspandemic or jumping on apps like House Party for a virtual Sunday session with friends. Social media had a friendly makeover that’s here to stay for the foreseeable future, proving the positive potential of online connection.

5. Where consumers look to for news

When Facebook made the monumental move to block Australians from viewing or sharing news in February 2021, it prompted the question – where are consumers really getting their news and views from? Certainly, more people rely on channels like Facebook and Twitter, however an increasing number are also questioning the credibility of news found on social media channels. Hello Reddit. In January, the Bank of America reported that young investors and consumers are increasingly looking for news and information from other sources, like Reddit, as opposed to traditional outlets and established social platforms. While they noted that traditional news outlets did see a usage boost from the January surge in certain stocks, the boost was far bigger for Reddit, which tells you something about how younger consumers will consume content about your business and travel brand in the years ahead.

The post Five consumer travel trends that didn’t exist 12 months ago appeared first on Klick X.

From a consumer perspective the ‘when’ is potentially the most powerful piece of your marketing and content puzzle.

Sure, we’re all passionate about our own brand and like to invest in the idea that our offering truly means something to our audience.

The harsh reality of course is that like many other things in life, effective brand awareness and recall might simply come down to a game of timing. Being seen and heard in the right place. At the exact same moment your customer is in a responsive headspace to react – and indeed act – on the idea you’re presenting them with.

There is a reason fast food adverts run while you’re busy trying to throw dinner together and just can’t be bothered after working all day. Or why engagement ring commercials keep popping up while you’re guilty indulging in an episode of The Bachelor.

Perhaps a better example is the latest meme or simple gif you’re obsessed with right now. Timing. The when. Being able to tap into public sentiment or the greater consciousness when it’s actually relevant, (be it about a current political gaff or pop-culture moment in time). The goal is to spark a connection that not only motivates your customer to act in the ‘now’, but potentially help build powerful new neural pathways in the brain to assist with future brand recall. Powerful stuff!

At the end of the day, timing is not about luck or magic – it’s actually science. Much-lauded marketing science professor, Byron Sharp, often talks about the twinned concepts of mental availability and category entry points.

He believes that a brand’s mental availability refers to the probability that a buyer will notice, recognise or think of a brand in various moods, situations or even locations. Based on this theory, our response to a piece of brand content or messaging is highly dependent on the quality and quantity of memory structures related to the brand.

So as business owners and marketers, we might want to know ‘what do people think of our brand?’ But perhaps a more pertinent question to ask is, “On what occasion or moment in their lives could our brand come to life for consumers?” It’s the moments or ‘category entry points’ that truly matter, and the more of them your brand links too, and the more ‘mental availability’ you have increases your chances to sell or get your message across.

In the post-pandemic future ‘reading the room’ and knowing when the right time to drop something into market to best leverage the memory structures we’ve worked hard to build for our brands will count more than ever.

The post Winning at the ‘when’ appeared first on Klick X.

If you’re a cup half empty kind of person, you might be finding it hard to move past how frustratingly slow our vaccine rollout is and the role this is playing in keeping Australia closed off from the rest of the world. Hey, I hear you – it certainly isn’t a moot point. However at this juncture, as someone passionate about the tourism scene, I acknowledge just how full our cup is thanks to the support of so many amazing Aussie’s who have embraced travelling – and spending – across the nation.

They say necessity is the mother of invention and this truth, combined with restless Aussies, has inspired travel marketers to truly ‘love the one you’re with’ this year. If nothing else, the past 18 months has given us new appreciation and fresh insights into what was in many ways an untapped resource – the domestic traveller.

As Australian’s took up the unprecedented opportunity to commit to domestic travel like never before, we’ve had the chance to deep dive into the psyche of our backyard wanderers to better understand what keeps driving them to local holiday distraction.

So, what have we learned about ourselves as travellers, and perhaps more importantly, how we’ve changed?

Aussies are more open than ever to supporting Indigenous business. A true win. It would seem that we’re particularly interested in regional locations, especially those not traditionally known for tourism as we have the time and headspace to delve a little deeper.

We’re getting serious about sustainable travel. The pandemic has failed to dissuade travellers from their quest to find eco-friendly holidays at home. According to a new poll from Virtuoso (a global network of agencies that specialise in luxury travel) 82 per cent of respondents reported that the pandemic made them want to travel more sustainably in the future.

Holidaying at home is still highly seasonal. While some things have changed, some things remain the same. Underpinned by a strong school holidays demand, family trips remain short and less frequent with a focus on lower-cost options or value options.

Homes away from home are calling our name. Let’s face it. Holiday home sites like Stayz have never been more popular as people seek out more space away from the city and suburbs and look for more unique and meaningful off-the-beaten-track experiences. Farm stays, heritage homes and beach villas have more appeal than ever before.

Bringing sexy back to the CBD is harder than we thought. Much to the chagrin of hoteliers, retailers and restauranteurs in our biggest city centres, domestic travellers continue to choose nature holiday over high-density urban jungle destinations.

Naughty by nature. Australian’s have always had a love affair with the great outdoors, but now that demand is super charged as tourists find nature travel more meaningful places to relax and recharge over urban spaces. Think camel treks on Kangaroo Island, Kimberley cruising, beach time at Byron Bay, camping at Cradle Mountain and kayaking in Cairns.

The post Digging Deep for Domestic Wanderlust appeared first on Klick X.

Did you use this crazy year to grow, strengthen and serve?

What have your learnt? About yourself and the people around you?

Most of us have been scared at some point. What did you do with that fear?

Are you hoping things will return to normal? They won’t. Are you stuck in overthinking? That is not helping.

There have been some big waves rolling in this year, moving sand and reshaping the shoreline.

Markets have shifted, some activities become obsolete and others have gone from rare to commonplace. 

If you’re still in business, this is an excellent time to lean in and become more relevant to your community.

As Machiavelli famously said, ‘Never waste a good crisis.’

Why? Because a crisis is an excellent time to shake things up. Do some important things between now and March 2021 because that’s when we’ll know if we’re coming out of this or not.

There’s no point coming up with a strategic plan. Set fire to your five year plan. 

Now is all about scenario planning. 

I mean, who wrote a strategy for a pandemic in their 2020 planning?

Answer: No one. 

Plan for business being good but also business being not so good. That way, you’ll be prepared for whatever happens. 

Better days are coming so take a breath, embrace uncertainty and use this time wisely because opportunities like this are oxygen for some and lead boots for others.

You decide if you sink or swim.

The post Better Days are Coming appeared first on Klick X.

The word ‘liminal’ comes from the Latin word limens, meaning ‘threshold’.

Right now, you may feel as though you are are standing in liminal space, in a place of in between.

In between knowing what to do. 

In between knowing what’s next. 

In between jobs, careers, relationships and homes. 

This year we’ve all been through a massive personal, professional and energetic transformation. Our foundations have been shaken and we’re deeply unsettled.

The most important thing any of us can do is recognise that we’re here, and make a choice to move forward.

For me, I have found peace through rituals that connect me to something deeper inside; practices that have helped me access the part of myself that has no fire, no desire for more and no ego.

Accessing this stillness has helped me feel safe during this period of upheaval and uncertainty.

I have also returned to the study of Human Design and the Gene Keys which has given me the necessary clarity to find stillness and make decisions for what’s next with a sense of ease.

The Klick X team has been working and living by these four concepts to try and keep our heads straight:

• Enterprising – Use this time to pivot, create new ideas and find the opportunities in the challenge.

• Grounding – No travel (obvs) so get grounded in spiritual practice, whatever that is for each of us.

• Virtual – This is the new normal. We are helping our partners think about how their product, event, place or service could benefit from being virtual.

• No Rules – It’s time to break the rules. The only way we are going to get through something like this is to respond in ways that aren’t the norm.

What are you doing to embrace the liminal space? What rituals have you employed to ground yourself and dispel anxiety?

The post Liminal Space appeared first on Klick X.

This year’s theme is about putting your values into action. Making a difference to yourself and the world.

Values are our guiding compass, you could say, they make us who we are. My values show me the way and help me make decisions.

When is the last time you looked at your values and that of your business? We’ve always been taught that company values can never change. I don’t agree. They should change and evolve, as you do.

If you own or work in a company and the values sound like they could belong to anyone, it’s time to review. Values have to be personally meaningful.

At Klick X our values are: Light, Freedom, Entrepreneurship.

Light: We lead the way. We work to a higher vibration and focus on collaboration (not competition).

Freedom: We believe in a flexible approach to work and life. Freedom awaits. No exhaustion, no depletion. If it’s not working, let it go. Shift your mindset: ‘From force to flow’.

Entrepreneurship: We’re committed, driven and commercially minded.

Values. Big, important stuff.

What are your values? And how will you put them into action this year?

The post Let’s talk about Values appeared first on Klick X.

Robert Cialdini wrote the world’s most famous books on influence – The Psychology of Persuasion – back in 1984 but are those concepts still relevant? What does influence look like in 2020?

While there are some immutable truths around the ways human interact and what motivates us, the one major thing that has changed since the ‘80s is this: the Internet.

No one had ever heard of a digital influencer in 1984, let alone conceived what a virtually connected world would be like.

That’s why we had to come up with some fresh thinking around what influence is and how it operates in 2020. For us, influence was and still is the most important ingredient for success. However, how you come to have meaningful influence has evolved over the last decade.

That’s how we landed on our 3i formula for Influence.

Influence = impact + Interaction + innovation.

Klick X Founder Kim McKay explains, “It was after studying influential brands for over 10 years I saw a common thread across all of these brands. They all do three things incredibly well and, from that, developed the 3i’s.

If you want influence in 2020 (and you should), you need impact, meaning to be seen and heard by the right people, at the right time, with the right message. You need to nail interaction, meaning you must have a relationship with your customer that is more than a transaction. Finally, you need to innovate and by that, you must bring new and relevant products and services into the world.

“When we our as Klick Communications over 10 years ago, we only focused on impact (being seen and heard). I realised that if we really going to do what we said we did (boost a brand’s influence), we couldn’t only offer 30 per cent of the equation. As we evolved to Klick X, it was the perfect time to launch additional areas of expertise.

“Influence is no longer about having the most column inches, it’s about changing the way people think and behave. If your brand is influential, people will buy more things from them, more often and you won’t need all the traditional pre-purchase expenses to convince people to do so,” says Kim.

Who has influence in 2020? Kim says, “Any brand you don’t need to question your decisions with. Brands like Apple and Telstra, as well as political parties. It’s the brands and people you rarely question your purchase decisions with.”

So what about the deluge of digital influencers who have made a living out of opaque paid promotion?

Kim says that while ‘influence’ has had something of an image problem in recent years, brands haven’t forgotten to the true meaning and power of influence.

The Klick X proprietary 3i’s in a nutshell
Impact: Be seen and heard by the right people, at the right time, with the right message.
Interaction : Have a relationship with your customer, that is more than a transaction. That relationship is intimate and personalised.
Innovation: Create new and relevant products and services into the world.

The post The Power of Influence appeared first on Klick X.

I grew up in Queensland, yep, same state as Pauline Hanson and her fish and chip shop.

But my folks were having none of it.

They drove me around the neighbourhoods of Brisbane that each had a ‘boundary road’ and explained that those were once boundaries for Indigenous Australians. I was told how much of our system was in our favour and how that was not right, just or fair.

I grew up with an awareness of the systemic problems facing Indigenous Australians.

But as I ventured away from Queensland and into my career, I chose to ignore what I had known since I was young. I saw racism and did nothing. I got comfortable and convinced myself that I couldn’t change anything now.

I was wrong and I am ashamed.

So what do you do when you realise you’re on the wrong track? You change direction.

As the leader of Klick X, I have come up with the following recommendations to create an inclusive workplace for my global team members.

You’re welcome to use to these ideas, share them and tell me what else I could be doing – this is a work-in-progress.

1. Establish an inclusive aesthetic

My team and I are working to diversify Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) representation across all of our channels and we are challenging our clients to do the same.

Moving forward our imagery will not only feature Black people as models, but we will have BIPOC working behind the scenes too.

Our goal is to contribute to an industry where the new precedent is inclusive employment. We are going to achieve this by ensuring our team of Klick Xperts and freelancers is more diverse.

2. Recruit and nurture Black talent

We are going to create career opportunities for BIPOC so we are actively contributing to a more progressive, inclusive industry.

Ultimately, we want Black representation amongst our leadership team. To get there and increase the pool of talent in this space, we are building partnerships with schools, colleges and universities to offer work experience opportunities.

We are also removing the need for a degree as part of our recruitment specifications and as part of our recruitment process we will be working to understand personal perspectives on race and racism for all prospective team members to gain a deeper understanding of their morality.

A zero-tolerance policy to racism is now one of our HR policies.

3. Inclusive influencer marketing

When preparing recommendations for clients on prospective influencer partners, we will now ensure that at least 25 per cent of proposed talent are BIPOC, prioritising Black and Indigenous people.

We are also introducing new guidelines to review influencers and ensure they are not involved in any controversies surrounding race.

4. Make racism an everyday conversation

We have introduced an internal Slack channel aimed to discuss BIPOC topics to drive continued momentum and awareness.

Through this dedicated channel, we share news about inspirational Black figureheads, the Black Lives Matter movement and how businesses are contributing to race relations. The aim of this initiative is to stay connected and encourage everyone to think critically about how racism intercepts with their everyday life.

5. Learn more, do better

Ongoing learning is a compulsory part of Klick X’s growth and we will engage BIPOC to educate us on various topics including cultural appropriation, being actively anti-racist and Indigenous social justice.

These sessions will be open to clients too.

An annual book budget will be introduced for books written by BIPOC or that tackle themes around racism. This will be extended to children’s book for employees who are parents.

Our books and films for FY21 are:

• Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe (also a Children’s edition)
• How to be an anti-racist, Ibram X Kendi
• White Fragility, Robin Diangelo
• Why I am no longer talking to white people about race, Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Australian Dream, Adam Goodes
• It Runs in My Blood

6. Client collaboration

All client proposals will include information on inclusivity with the aim of providing insight that amplifies the voices of groups that are often left out of the narratives when it comes to customer representation.

We will ensure we align our values with prospective businesses, and ask them how they represent BIPOC and Black Lives Matter within their own business.

7. Drive anti-racism in our community

In 2020/21 we will contribute to grants to Indigenous people to pursue a career in the creative and communications industry.

These people will be mentored by the Klick X leadership team and the funds will be used for education and equipment.

Our aim is to create an ongoing graduate program for Indigenous creatives and give them a learning platform and job opportunities at Klick X.

8. Practical contributions to dismantling systematic racism

We have also introduced ‘Proactive Change” day where we collectively decide how we want to help our Black and Indigenous Australian communities.

9. The 24 rule

Those who have non-European and Indigenous backgrounds make up an estimated 24 per cent of the Australian population therefore Klick X will introduce the 24 rule.

The 24 rule is about promoting inclusivity, accountability and support of Black, Indigenous and broader POC in Australia.

We will ensure that our work – from social media imagery to the causes we support – represent that percentage of BIPOC Australians at least.

10. Vote

When it comes to election day, I will be voting for the party that best aligns with the values and strategies outlined above. It’s time to make Black Lives Matter not just in our heads and hearts, but in our homes, our businesses and across all tiers of government.

The post Ten ways I make Black Lives Matter at Klick X appeared first on Klick X.