Advertising is like toothpaste.

How often have you seen someone befuddled on the toothpaste aisle of the drugstore?

You've been there. We've all been there. Way too many choices, like so many things that are over-complicated. The array of marketing tools and providers available to a hotel or resort is no less confusing.

And these days with tight budgets, you can’t just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. You've got to go with what's going to get you the biggest bang for your buck. Fortunately, Bob Hoffman of The Ad Contrarian is here to offer clear, straightforward advice:

"Look for the agencies that make the best ads. All the rest is trivial."

It's hard to argue with that. No matter how great your property is, if nobody notices what you say about yourself, they're not going to get very excited about clicking over to your website or booking a room. And they probably won't care much about your discounted rate offer, either.

With the myriad of tools out there – nearly every one of them fronted by a really good salesperson – the main purpose of advertising gets lost in the metrics-and-analytics-and-keywords-and-so-on shuffle.

And that main purpose is to demand attention to your message, no matter what channel you're using.

We could easily go on and on about the value of creative advertising, but we'll leave you with another quote from Bob Hoffman:

"It doesn't matter how well you sing if no one hears you."

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