How Away Increased It’s Brand Value By Becoming A Media Company

June 23, 2021 In Blog

How Away Increased It’s Brand Value By Becoming A Media Company

Away, a Direct-To-Consumer brand that was founded in 2016 created more than just a luggage company.  They built a media empire.

One of their marketing tactics that helped them disrupt a 32 billion dollar industry was by creating a standalone blog called Here.

In Deep Dive Into Businesses Podcast Episode 33, I explained how this strategy helped Away position themselves as a travel company rather than just a luggage company.

 
 

What does their blog entail & how does it help their marketing strategy?

Here, centers around creating aspirational and engaging content that focuses on the wider travel experience (and a particular lifestyle) rather than a product. They create travel guides, product recommendations, personal travel stories that peak their audiences interest — which are travelers.

 

By creating a standalone publication, Away now has:

 

  1. Created A Strategy To Boost Their Brand Awareness By Providing Value To Their Customer Persona. Away provides information that would be helpful for their audience without having them to buy a product. Indirectly this helps Away build up a stronger following & helps with their SEO. For example, if someone is looking for things to do & see in Cartagena, Columbia then they can find that material in one of their articles. Most likely the person that’s reading that article is planning to travel to Cartagena at some point which means they may need some of Away’s products (E.g. their affordable & minimalistic luggage) before heading off
  2.  Increased The Value Of Their Business. If Away decided to sell their company tomorrow, their value would be much higher since they also own a publication. In February of 2021, we saw that HubSpot acquired media startup The Hustle (an online media company) since they had a strong audience that read their newsletters & had a significant amount of traffic. Their audience aligned with HubSpot which made it appealing for them to acquire.