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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Lodging Tax Advisory Committee - 08/29/2016Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Agenda Mission: Promote the City as a destination to increase tourism and business development Unless otherwise noted, the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee meets every other Month on the 4rd Monday at 4:00 p.m. in Centennial North & South Conference Room, 400 West Gowe Street, Kent WA 98032. For information on the above item(s), or upcoming meetings contact Julie Pulliam (253) 856-5702. Committee Members: Bill Boyce, Chair, Tim Higgins, John Casey, Barbara Smith, David Kwok, Andrew Hutchison, Josh Bang, Andrea Keikkala, Bryan Powell City Staff: Ben Wolters, Julie Pulliam AGENDA August 29, 2016 4:00 p.m. CENTENNIAL NORTH & SOUTH CONFERENCE ROOM (ACROSS FROM ELEVATORS) Item Description Action Speaker(s) Time Page 1. Welcome & Introductions NO Bill Boyce 2. Approval of Minutes of June 20, 2016 YES Bill Boyce 2 min 1 Approval of Minutes of July 26, 2016 Motion: Move to approval the minutes of the meetings of June 20 and July 26, 2016 3. ASK - HAWKtoberfest Car Show YES Barbara Smith 10 min Motion: Move to approval an Ask from Kent Downtown Partnership in the amount of $5,000 in sponsorship of the HAWKtoberfest Car Show to be held on 4. Marketing RFP’s Decision YES Bill Boyce 45 min Motion: The Lodging Tax Advisory Committee moves to approve the committee’s choice of___________________as the marketing agency chosen from the RFP process to market tourism in Kent. 5. ShoWare Shootout, July 16-17, 2016 Recap NO Ben Wolters 5 min 6. Next Meeting Date: October 24, 2016, 4:00 pm Special Meeting Lodging Tax Advisory Committee June 20, 2016 Start Time 4:00 pm Centennial Center Conference Room South Committee Members Present: Chair Bill Boyce, John Casey, Barbara Smith, David Kwok, Andrew Hutchison, Josh Bang, Andrea Keikkala, Bryan Powell Others present: Ben Wolters, Julie Pulliam Chair Boyce called the meeting to order at 4:00 pm. Introductions were made. Chair Boyce asked for any additions to the agenda. Seeing none, he called for approval of the Minutes. 1. Approval of Minutes A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of April 25, 2016. Chair Boyce called for the vote. Motion PASSED unanimously. 2. Marketing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) Chair Boyce announced that the Committee would be evaluating four RFPs. Dialogue will be held to discuss the process, where we are at and how we are going to move forward. Andrew Corona stated that at the last meeting, we determined it was worth taking a look at other options for the RFP, if not just to see what we are getting from a value perspective and then take an inventory of what we are receiving for that value. Of the responses we received from sending out the RFPs; these were the four main ones that comprehensively addressed all the needs in the RFP. We saw a lot of different resumes or indications from certain groups that they wanted to respond, but submitted nothing more than a few cover letters and a few resumes with the exception of these four. The other responses did not meet the minimum criteria. Dana Neuts and Kathryn Schmidt I want to make this as interactive as possible and if there are any areas where they did or didn't address some of the needs of the RFP , chime in. There will be time to go over this and share your in depth thoughts. Corona stated that there is room to consider the will of the committee. It is the hope of staff that we identify two or three and bring those respondents in for in-person interviews at a later date; hopefully July if everyone's schedule will allow. Corona stated that getting in to the initial thoughts and response from Dana Neuts and Kathryn Schmidt. This is the first area where they really focused. Has the agency demonstrated an ability to handle the needs of the RFP? Corona stated that he felt her submission individually addressed all of the needs of the RFP, with a particular confidence in the website and social media where they went into depth. They had good strategies for building on the existing Genesis efforts, particularly with their familiarity and input that they've had on the creation part of that. They identified areas where we haven't currently been active and made recommendations. Corona stated that we have a Pinterest and Google Plus. Dan Neuts recommended enhancing our efforts on Pinterest and deactivating our Google Plus account because it doesn't seem like that is a social media medium that is going to stay alive. They recommended a Newsletter where they felt we could improve our efforts. Corona stated that he felt they appropriately addressed all the aspects and scope of work and provided what seemed to be a realistic timeline for implementation. 1 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of June 20, 2016 Page: 2 . Has the agency demonstrated the plan or the ability to create heads and beds and support the branding efforts? This incorporates two different areas where we would like to focus. Corona stated that he thought that Dana Neuts’ response addressed branding concerns mainly on the website and identified a lot of areas specific to the website where we have room for improvement. They talked about multiple audiences and conveyed an understanding that there was a balance with efforts that we would like to see. Knowledge of Kent, how well did the agency demonstrate the knowledge of Kent and local tourism and the economy? I thought that this was exemplary. They are locals. They have a true grasp of the community. Dana has been writing for the I Love Kent blog for a number of years now. I think all of the work she has poured into that translates well to the efforts we are looking for in this RFP. Of all of the groups, they have the best knowledge of Kent. How well does the agency understand the different markets of the LTAC that we want to target? They brought up multiple audiences for marketing targets. I would have liked to see them more specifically identified. Geographically, it would have been nice if they had addressed some markets in the Seattle Metro City versus in South King County; maybe other areas in the State of Washington; external ones that don't have a perception of Kent. One of the areas where we thought was room for improvement was addressing some of the negatives, maybe misconceptions or distorted perceptions of the community and I think it is strategic that we address those to certain specific audiences and leave those off the table for others. We wouldn't want to highlight someone with no idea what Kent is with some of the negative perceptions of the area. I would like to have seen a little bit more. They did say that they brought up the multiple audiences and that they allude to business versus the leisure visitors. That would be two separate markets for hotel stays – leisure vs business travelers. They did a fairly good job of doing that. Is the Agency Local? Yes, both Dana and Kathryn have lived in Kent for quite some time. Marketing Strategy, How well did the Agency respond to all the needs outlined in the Scope of Work? There weren't any error of omissions in this response. I thought there was a pretty comprehensive strategy; identified particularly in the Web and social media. I feel the Web is where there is the most room for improvement. I think they spent the most time addressing specifically where they would target their efforts and did a good job on strategy specific to the website. How well does the methodology ensure consistent quality of work? They noted that they need to continue their current efforts to ensure a consistent message and not have to start from square one. They included accountability measures such as monthly status updates. They talked about some of the success metrics; clicks on the website or increased followers to Facebook or Twitter. I think they had determined some methodology for determining that this is consistent. 2 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of June 20, 2016 Page: 3 How did they demonstrate success measures? They were outlined by deliverables and by timeline. They focused efforts on agencies and had aggressive goals for implementation. They wanted to keep up the efforts that Genesis has provided initially without any lags. How creative was the agency? I think that they have good ideas for marketing strategies. They specifically identified areas for involvement partnership opportunities. Washington Tourism Alliance was specifically mentioned. They did a good job of outlining how they have the potential to be creative but also meld that with reality. This is a newly created organization. It was hard to find anything on the agency. They have strong individual experience and history in Kent. Dana specifically has efforts supporting Genesis. This will be the team’s first endeavor. This is a smaller project team but I think with that comes more dedication to the Visit Kent Project. I continue to have experience directly with Visit Kent and provided a lot of the content. I think that is a great starting point for their knowledge. In response to an inquiry Corona responded that he had found additional background related to tourism on the part of this team? That it was located in their scope of work at the end; particularly Dana has worked with Kent, Kirkland, City of Blaine, KDP, a lot of different groups that are local such as Maggie’s on Meeker. Qualifications of Agencies as a Team Staff? Good resumes, lots of experience, albeit individually, but I think it was pretty comprehensive. Regarding budget and value – most of these groups adhered to the $150,000, the top range budget for annual tourism marketing services. They were right in line with that in quoting $147,000. Of the four responses, I believe that Dana Neuts and Kathryn Schmidt’s submission had the most comprehensive and realistic strategy that we had for implementing and improving marketing efforts of the LTAC. They had the best knowledge of the City of Kent and of the principals of the Kent residents. I think the familiarity with the Board and the city put them ahead in the familiarity area. I think while they do have good visual experience, this undertaking would be new and the response of the proposal is visually appealing. I like the layout, easy to read with comprehensive information. It was professional and from a staff perspective, I would encourage bringing them back in for consideration. I believe the work that went into this proposal warrants bringing them in. Committee member Barbara Smith stated that she noticed the amount of research that was obviously done just with the content. I felt that they researched the questions, whether I liked what they said or not, so that there was real effort and thought that was put into it. Andrew stated that the real question will be are they capable, do they have the right team to pull this off. I believe their hearts are in Kent and their familiarity goes beyond anyone else. Boyce concurred stating he looked at this and felt it was solid but the thing that was missing was the ability to do the job. They are fresh enough that they don't have that depth of experience and it is a big jump from being managers to being the CEO. It is definitely worth bringing them in, fleshing it out that way. 3 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of June 20, 2016 Page: 4 Smith stated that she was impressed with the fact that through their work with Genesis, they never put them down and maintained a very professional attitude through the whole thing. I thought they were smart using a lot of Kent photos. David Kwok stated that he would support moving this forward. Overall, I felt that everyone had a lot of good suggestions to offer Kent. My concern was with Dana and the printed material. Printed material is pretty obsolete. In our industry we don't do printed material as it is outdated. My concern was the $35,000 for that effort. Genesis Marketing Has the agency demonstrated an ability to handle the needs of the RFP? I thought their response in connection with the previous work with the city and the committee demonstrated that they are capable of meeting the needs. They have handled our needs previously with a limited budget. They showed their presentation that highlighted their creativity and Kent's diversity. Boyce stated that in the interest of time, it was likely not necessary to go into detail with Genesis as the Committee was familiar with them but asked the members if they had any concerns. Corona stated that Seattle Southside has been responsive and flexible. JayRay Has the agency demonstrated an ability to handle the needs of the RFP? Corona stated that JayRay is a group out of Tacoma. They seemed really capable. They have extensive sensation marketing experience. Some of the aspects of the RFP were not articulated as clearly as the Dana Neuts one; but their experience advised that they have comprehensive capabilities. Their client list is very impressive. I have no worry that they can handle the needs that we have here. Has the agency demonstrated the plan or the ability to do heads and beds and support the branding efforts? They did not specifically address heads and beds but did address branding and their experience. They have 10 for 10 on recommendations that indicate their capabilities. Out of all the groups I thought they were the most professional, the most capable and they are relatively local. Their experience is in Fife, Tacoma, Burien and other groups in Kent; was as good or better than most of the other organizations that we brought in. They did not specifically address different markets, but their experience would lead one to believe that they are really capable. They have a strong research, fact finding aspect to their response, and their sample work did a good job in targeting. Are they local? They are from the Tacoma area. Marketing Strategy, How well did the Agency respond to all the needs outlined in the Scope of Work? They hit up all the strategy in the scope of work; a little less detail than I had hoped to see. It was never enough to make me question their ability to respond to the needs in our scope of work. How well does the methodology ensure consistent quality of work? 4 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of June 20, 2016 Page: 5 I think there strength was their willingness to do the deep dive analysis and discover some of the assets to find out their familiarity. They are within close proximity to Kent. How did they demonstrate success measures? Like other groups they talked about their success measures. They monitor, reply, track progress, provide status reports, end of year results, and evaluations. They didn't identify specific goals at this point. They addressed the need for accountability measures and I believe that will be a floating target that they will be working with us on. How creative was the agency? The response was brief, the portfolio was diverse. Efforts were in graphic design, public relations, ads, digital media, and social media. They have video capabilities internally and do good videos. They did a master planned community in Puyallup that was impressive and won awards. They have extensive history in the area with impressive results. They are experienced and their budget was in line with everyone else. I thought they were the most experienced and competent of the four groups. They are an award winning, full service agency. They are the largest staff. They have been around the longest. They have a lot of resources and they have professional video production experience. They are local, and have strong familiarity with Kent. I would recommend bringing them in for an interview. Smith felt their presentation was easy to read and something a little different. Viva and Impulse Creative Smith stated why bother. They are from Texas and we don't want to start over. Their submittal was submitted late. The layout was boring, no photos, no flare, and no energy. It feels like they didn't take the time to put any effort into their presentation. One of the Committee Members stated if we only needed digital, web creation, I felt they were the best group, but that they lack a lot of local knowledge and it seems given their lack of experience in the area, I think we can pass this off on content creativity. It might fall on some of the heads of folks here and for this reason I think we can pass on this one with Kwok and Boyce concurring. There was consensus to move three of the groups forward for interview. Corona stated that next steps would be to identify potential dates for bringing them in f or interview by the committee. Wolters stated that the selection and recommendation needs to carry the weight across the community. With questions and answers, it would require approximately 1 hour for each presentation. Boyce requested scheduling a block of four hours for interviews in July. Wolters stated that Andrew will provide the committee with some suggested questions and scoring sheets. It has been suggested that scoring will be completed after the interview process. Good of the order – Nothing Assignments for next meeting – Nothing Next Special Meeting Date – July 2016 date to be scheduled for Interviews. Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned by Chair Bill Boyce, at 5:00 pm. 5 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of June 20, 2016 Page: 6 ________________________ Submitted by Pamela Mottram On behalf of Julie Pulliam, Lodging Tax Secretary 6 SPECIAL MEETING LODGING TAX ADVISORY COMMITTEE JULY 26, 2016 START TIME 1:30 PM CENTENNIAL CENTER CONFERENCE ROOMS NORTH & SOUTH Committee Members Present: Chair Bill Boyce, Tim Higgins, Joshua Bang, John Casey, Barbara Smith, David Kwok, Andrew Hutchison, Andrea Keikkala, Bryan Powell City Staff present: Ben Wolters, Pamela Mottram, Andrew Corona, Michelle Wilmot, Toni Azzola, Patti Belle Special Guests present: Dione Dittmar, Colin Campbell, Jason Thomsen, Cynthia Boyd, Ryan Hart Chair Boyce called the meeting to order at 1:30 pm and opened the floor for presentations. 1. Dana Neuts and Kathryn Schmidt Presentation Dana Neuts stated that she is based in Kent, is a writer, editor and marketing professional and publisher of “iLoveKent.net”. She introduced Kathryn Schmidt, an award winning branding and graphic design director and owner of Schmeedes Creative, a local web development, graphic design and marketing firm who has resided in Kent most of her life. Neuts stated that Kent has brought in new businesses and attractions over the last few years, noting that Kent is culturally rich, and the 18th most diverse city in the United States and has much to offer visitors and residents; including hotels and shops, restaurants, attractions, arts and entertainment, outdoor recreation and more. It is a great environment for work and play and ideal for business travelers as Kent is centrally located between Seattle and Tacoma and is easy accessible. Kent is a hidden treasure that deserves to have its story told effectively that until now hasn't been done well. We are here to change that, to tell you a little bit about the experience of Kent, because much of the time we miss what it is that brings people to Kent. Neuts presented a video production produced by a videographer they intend to utilize for Kent's commercial production that would introduce a new viewpoint, would generate excitement, and stimulate the desire for people to come, stay and experience. Neuts stated that her team wants to promote small business, entertainment, Thunderbirds and other ShoWare venues. The commercial production would engage key players in the community to tell their stories and engage outsiders to tell why they would want to be a part of this community; will exemplify that sense of belonging, provide versatility, can focus on certain entities; talk about local businesses, and what the area offers. Kathryn Schmidt stated that overall engagement creates a sense of longing and urgency. She stated that she wants to encourage the locals to invest in their community, and then they will tell people to come, visit, stay and experience all Kent has to offer. Kent is walkable with mass transit available as well. Schmidt spoke about how Brand recognition is her niche and creating consistency with the brand is important and is being missed right now. Kent had an opportunity to create a logo two years ago through an agency that created some simple branding standards. Those standards are not being adhered to right now. My job is to create consistency there, so that what has been created is encased in everything that is put out. It is important to encourage growth within that branding. Schmidt stated that she believes the brand should evolve as the times evolve, encouraging growth by introducing secondary coloring. For example, how many of you know that every color in your logo is representative of a certain part of Kent and that is something being missed and needs to be addressed, so that we start to train people that this is Kent, this is our brand. When you see this kind of coloring, this means environment, or this means play, this means entertainment. Engaging all ages and occupations as part of that is vitally important. My job as a designer is to give you not just a one year plan, but a five to ten year plan. How is this going to bring the vision of the city and the development through in branding and encourage that from a visual aspect? 7 Schmidt spoke about refining the city's online website for ease in use ensuring that the brand is pulled through. She stated that a print presence is important as people need something to take home with them; whether it is a magnet, a postcard or handout. She distributed a mockup of an idea for a print presence. This is a subtle way towards training people who see your product whether through social media, or advertising. All these things pull it together and create cohesiveness. She drew attention to the fact that branding is pulled through the print piece, the executive summary and the power point. Neuts stated that we want to continue to use social media, but believe this tool is being underutilized by Genesis Marketing. They set up half a dozen social media accounts for visit Kent of which some are not in use. We believe we should pair it down to the three most popular media accounts: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We would shift our strategy. As each channel has a different audience, we would gear content towards those specific audiences, rather than placing the same content on every channel. We would have more frequent posts. There are now three posts per week on all the channels with the same content. We would change those frequencies based on industry standard. We would have captivating visuals. Statistics show that 94% of social media posts are read more often with visuals. It is important that our visuals be high quality and engaging. We believe more organic outreach is needed and one-on-one engagement. While we are seeing a few likes with the current visitKent brand, there isn't any discussion between users. As a publisher of ilovekent.gov one- on-one relationships are valuable and useful. If we get friends and family excited about Kent they will share that with people on social media. With our new strategy we recommend becoming more nimble to take advantage of hot topics and trends like Pokemon Go. That is a great visual opportunity for the City to capitalize on. We would look at the advertising budget. We know there is money spent on social media and google ad words. We would evaluate the initial goals and the results before we would decide how to spend that. If necessary, we would shift strategy and re-allocate funds accordingly. We would launch an email newsletter, to promote specific businesses, attractions and events, a great way for Visit Kent to stay on top with prospective travelers, and to extend our brand. I believe a newsletter is a new marketing channel for us. We recommend joining the Washington Tourism Alliance (WTA) at a cost of $500 per year. The WTA gives access to a knowledge base, networking, advertising, and marketing opportunities that Kent doesn't have. The WTA puts out a state visitor's guide with a yearly circulation of 375,000 per and a readership up to a million. We are looking ahead to how we can build on VisitKent successfully. One of the things we want to do is create our own visitors guide or a magazine specific to Kent that would be used primarily by the hotels, placed in hotel rooms so guests know what Kent has to offer, and highlighting specific hotels in different issues. We would like to add a mobile app in addition to having a responsive website, hoping to accomplish that feature in a year or two. We would provide press releases to increase visibility to outside markets so that we have a defined market for our tourism audience then look at expanding our market. Kent needs to have a physical presence. Travelers come to Kent for Cornucopia days, the farmers market, business expos and other events. That's a great effort to get in front of those people. We talked about having a booth at Cornucopia days and running the new video on a loop on a lap top so people could see it or providing shorter snippets that people could stop and check out. Neuts stating that their team's biggest strength is that they are both local. Neuts stated that Kathryn has lived in the community her entire life and herself for over ten years. Kathryn is plugged into the Kent school district and local sports community. Neuts stated that both she and Kathryn have worked for several years for a mutual client. Kathryn does beautiful design work with the ability to think strategically and long term. When I thought about partnering with her I knew she would bring talent, professionalism and vision to the project. Together 8 we have extensive branding, marketing, and promotional experience, and we have worked on large scale government projects. Neuts stated that she is a member of the Kent Community Foundation Board (KCFB) and Kent Downtown Partnership (KDP). I'm always visiting events and seeing what is new. Because we are local there would be no travel costs and we are easily accessible. We would conduct all our research here, meet with the community, the Kent Chamber of Commerce (KCC), and whoever wants to learn more about our project. I started 'ilovekent' in 2007 and since then grown an audience of several thousand on social media and the website. My audience is engaged and has contributed to the site's success by telling me about new businesses coming to town, asking me to squash rumors, sharing news and other tidbits that I might not otherwise have. Neuts stated that a key benefit in choosing our team is that the transition would be quick and seamless; stating that she has been involved with the 'visitKent' project from the first day , wrote most of the initial web content and wrote blogs for the Kent website twice a week. I know what has been done, is in the works, and what is coming. Neuts stated that they do not want the project to lose any momentum and are anxious to start on this project right away. VisitKent won't be just another client; it will be our top priority. As part of the Kent community we are passionate and want to see Kent succeed on a long term basis. We are excited to share Kent with the world and are in a unique position to tell Kent's story. We have the experience and enthusiasm to refine Kent's brand, to create something that we can all be proud of, reflects who Kent is, and who Kent wants to be. If you choose our team we will impress you with our hard work and dedication. We will put heads in beds and bring new people to Kent to experience different things for themselves. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Dione questioned how the team would get the AD out in front of the people? In response Kathryn stated that she feels it is important to coordinate with other city organizations to help spread the Kent brand. That would involve asking other organizations like the KCC and the KDP as well as our nonprofit organizations to share. We would ask Kent to host it on their website. I would host it on 'ilovekent'. We would conduct a full blown social media campaign and a public relations campaign. She further stated that their videographer Dennis Minor suggested asking the city to include a link to the video in their signature line. It's a captivated image that we could get them to click through. He suggested posting it biweekly on social media. We can use a different thumbnail at each of the social media channels so it will engage various people in different ways. We would ask businesses to host it. One idea we had that might be a technical issue is we wanted it for the hotels, for those who have an in room channel or a business center or a TV in their lobby; this could be something they could show on a regular basis. We need to hit our future audience and existing audience, to share it with people in and around Kent, as we believe they are our biggest advocates. Dione questioned that since they have a focus on revamping the website; if the Committee wanted to scale that back and spend less money on the website what else would you do with some extra room in the budget? Kathryn stated that whatever needed to be scaled back, we would look at extra funds going towards social media. There is probably a bit of room that could come from scaling back the website but would be cautious in doing so. Branding helps to promote the direction the city wants to go and the website needs to be part of that. We scaled back the budget a bit by using some different templates to pull in there to make the back-end coding and transition easier. Dana stated that the current website is visually distracting with too much going on with the quiz, sliders, and the logo superimposed on photos. For those whose first and primary contact with Kent is through the website, that site needs to be simple, easy to navigate, clean and sophisticated because that is who Kent is. 9 Boyce stated that the Committee has a budget they want to stick to. How do you work around that with respect to the website redesign? Have you done a project of this size before? Dana stated that she did a project for Kirkland that involved a lot of research and included a packet encouraging employers to come to the city. Kathryn stated that she was brought onto a 2 ½ year government project to do a complete website overhaul for the Kitsap County Public Health District. They had a website that was from the 90's with over 1300 pages of content. Kathryn stated that she drilled all that down, worked with a writer, came up with a design and created a navigation system as well as a branding guideline similar to what Kent has. I had to train people on emergencies as well as branding. We are going to look at the budget from a worse case scenario, so that fall within the available budget. Dana stated that she was National President for the Society of Professional Journalists with roughly seven thousand members. Though I was not involved in certain day to day operations, I was ultimately responsible for allocating the million dollar budget. In working with all kinds of journalists, and with organizations including the government, has prepared me to deal with different personalities and to take on a large challenge like this. Wolters stated that he would like to explore the basic thrust of your strategy. You want to develop a sense of longing. In terms of the presentation and message, I thought this was intriguing getting local residents to basically be the applicants for the city and build off of that. There are many different perspectives on what Kent is; and part of being a larger city is that there are many different experiences to have in this city. Some days, folks want to present the city as more dynamic, vibrant and active. Other days it may be that feel of calmness, and respite. Walk me through your strategy and vision for how you want to position this community and how you would get people to come here. Wolters questioned what their thoughts were on using the video as a conduit to reach different audiences. In response Kathryn stated that they feel Kent's brand needs to be refined before it is shared with the world. We need to talk to key community stakeholders and take into account the 20/20 vision to find out what people believe Kent is. I think we can speak to those different segments by looking at different target audiences such as business travelers, sports fans, arts and entertainment, culture and diversity. Those could all be different market segments that we could address in different ways. She spoke about how they could use Facebook advertising, to see what pages are more popular, what people are clicking on, messages or images, what particular audiences are being attracted. Wolters stated that as part of your initial scope of work you want to revisit the brand and vision statement? In response Dana stated that we want to refine what has been done. The logo is on the website on all the sliders, the logo is cutoff and is superimposed on photos which go against the branding statement. We want to be consistent and stick to the initial brand statement that was created and agreed upon by the community. Kathryn stated that the brand statement is not respected the way it was developed. We would refine that, staying within the branding guidelines and expanding on that more as far as topography, photography use, and the way we present ourselves. Dana stated that beyond the website, in looking at each of the social media accounts, the branding on Tweeter and Facebook is the original image that was on the VisitKent website. Those sites are not being used consistently. If we want people to instinctively know that this is Kent and this is who we are, we need to be consistent across every piece that we do, every marketing channel. Wolters stated that your vision is that you believe that you can do all of this for $150,000. In response Dana stated that we looked at this as a long term project, knowing that we can't accomplish everything in year one with the budget so we picked the things we felt were the most important and then added those in priority. 10 Kathryn conveyed this this as a building block system. We have a long term vision but we need to get back to how do we refine what we have currently and then how can we build upon that in order to make it look cohesive. Smith asked about their knowledge of Kent's historical attributes not just the downtown. How many days do people stay to see historical things? In response Dana and Kathryn shared that the historical aspect has probably been under- served, stating that if the numbers tell us those are some of the things that will bring people to Kent that can be an audience segment that we want to address. Through Visit Kent we could create this larger vision, create snippets, than putting out advertising that speaks to those types of visitors within a year or two, citing ancestory.com as a possible good place to grow about the history of Kent. Dana stated that from the historical aspect, Kent was initially settled by people from different European countries including the US. Kent is known as culturally rich and diverse. Boyce questioned if they were comfortable with this portfolio? In response Dana stated that if chosen, she envisions that the first step is to gain access to what Genesis is currently doing with the back end of the web site and the social media accounts so we can take a look at the ad words to see what has been done. We need to meet with LTAC key stakeholders. Based on what we see, we may need to shift our budget or may realize this is exactly what we were expecting. I feel our budget is spot on. We worked with the videographer, agreed on a price we were willing to pay and he was willing to accept. Kathryn stated that to appeal to local residents, she would create a mass mailing campaign to excite people who live here, because so many of them stay on the hill. They don't experience some of the local businesses and vice versa. I think doing something that is pretty, that creates the desire to check these things out, to see how Kent has stepped up their game. Dana stated that with respect to the budget, there is some wiggle room to concentrate attention on multimedia, where we need to devote time and energy to creating those campaigns. We recommend that we suspend paid advertising on social media at this time. Refine our vision, then see what results we've gotten in the past and decide how to best spend the money. We think there is money that we could set aside or where we could postpone aspects of the budget for a year or two as needed. We could move things up, and would love to see us do the magazine. We would pay for initial production costs and for our time for content and imagery. We want the magazine to be self-sustaining after the initial project through local ads. Josh said that it is important to get on the diversity part of it and that hitting the key players in the community is important. You talked about placing an ad with the WTA. Are there any thoughts you have around any other organizations or tradeshows you can get in front of? Dana concurred that there are a lot of opportunities such as tradeshows; stating that she does not want that to be the focus in year one, rather wants to refine the image first. Concurred that tradeshows are a great idea and would explore that. Ryan stated that you have been involved with the process and that current strategy has been to focus more on outer markets and generating heads and beds through advertising in Portland, Spokane, and other parts of the state. What is your opinion on that strategy and do you think that is something we would want to incorporate? Dana responded that with support from the Committee, we would like to shift the market towards Western Washington, Southwestern British Columbia, and Western Oregon; rather than Central Washington. Part of that is going to be a data driven decision. We would look at business travelers, sports fans, multi-generational families, especially because of the diversity aspect and make the necessary adjustments. Wolters stated that a lot of reference has been made to printed media materials. There has been much debate over this question among the committee over the last couple years. It has been debated whether it has been a waste of time and money to provide card racks in hotels. 11 Dana responded that statistics show guests will grab brochures or cards that will capture their interest, and encourages return visits. I think that print materials are valuable but not always from a budget standpoint, so that is where we have to be careful with everything we do. We want to take small steps, see what works then move on to the next step. Patti Belle stated that she was looking at their video budget noting that they have just one blanket video budget. How would you utilize Facebook Live, Video Live, Instagram and things like that? Does it come out of the same budget for one singular ad or would you be doing continual smaller ads with a lot of Facebook and other social media posts? Dana responded that she was not prepared to answer that question. However, we have talked about creating one three minute video in year one along with producing smaller segments , doing attraction and specific videos in year two. We have not yet decided how to distribute those and how to spend money on that. DISCUSSION: Dione voiced her concerns with where she is allocating her budget; as she put in her proposal $35,000 for the website, opining that a lot of it comes down to the fact that she is a small business, is going to out-source a lot of that stuff. My biggest thought was whether she could accomplish as much as the other firms in the same budget. Boyce concurred with her analysis. Dione further stated that the video could cost $35,000, will it reach enough people and justify the cost. Dione voiced that she didn't think that Dana really has that laid out and if you are going to reach a large number of people you would be incurring other costs to accomplish that, which is not accounted for in the budget. Wolters stated that he would like to hear from the hoteliers from the basis of their strategy, stating that conversations had been held over the last couple years related to trying to purposefully market towards residents as well about 150 miles out based on the concerns of most hoteliers. We should reach out to those that really have to stay in a hotel versus the deep desire on the part of the community to market itself and more broadly as an indirect way to generate stays; and to help generate both pleasure and business travel. This proposal is more heavily weighted towards marketing the community as a whole. What I thought was an intriguing and interesting idea was to educate and inform our local residents to become advocates for anyone coming to Kent. Dione concurred strongly. Hutchison stated that it is a huge investment to develop a video and place it on the website without any distribution or plan and no guarantee that with clicks on the website that people will see the whole video. He voiced his support for the WTA membership, but did not support the printed materials, as he does not see many brochures going out the door of his hotel. The city should engage the concierges at the hotels; help them to better understand how to guide visitors as they get a lot of the questions. There is a need for some sort of map guide to Kent that concierge type people and other businesses could use. Smith felt that an educational component should be built into the contract for hoteliers, restaurants, other businesses noting that the KDP's dining guide is appreciated by the hotels. Smith stated that she appreciates their accessibility, not having to spend money on travel nor having to spend all my time telling them what is going on because they are connected. Dione stated that although she doesn't have travel costs, her administrative costs are higher at $30,000. Bryan opined that this was a good presentation and supports TV ads in hotel lobbies. Josh stated that having lived in this area for over 30 years he noted that 85% of business is in the valley suggesting focusing on educating people in this area, to show the value in Kent, versus, Renton, SeaTac, or Seattle, and explore avenues for educating about 'take the Sounder'. Andrea voiced her frustration with the presentation, feeling it was a rehash she had listened to five years ago with regard to marketing Kent. 12 Tim Higgins stated that he is proponent of reaching out within a fifty mile swath to market Kent in support of the small businesses. Cynthia Boyd, Marketing Manager at Kent Station, stated that she liked that they are connected, saying that you need to put a lot of money on TV and radio, so was surprised to not see any of that in the proposal. Michelle Wilmot stated that she liked that they are local and connected and that Dana did a great job portraying the sort of feel that we would like to give this community. Michelle stated that the website needs to be refined and upgraded and 'VisitKent' should be everywhere once the site is upgraded. The VisitKent site can't be all things to all people. But you can create data driven design. Michelle said that she likes the refinement piece to put our best foot forward and to get the buy-in internally and locally. Patti Belle stated that the Committee should take a closer look at some of the people they want to contract out with. Patti opined that she didn't feel the person they have to use for their website design has the most experience and felt that their video campaign sites were a little rough and unrefined. John Casey stated that in general he concurs with what everyone is saying. Our most cost effective way is to target specific groups rather than large mass media areas; I think it is such with VisitKent. I think we have the opportunity to find ways to target specific events coming to Kent to encourage people to stay and eat in Kent. I did not hear anything related to the mobile aspect of the web redesign. 65% of the people who view websites now are doing it on a hand held device. Whatever we go through with the redesign on the web site, it should incorporate a mobile feature. When I go to a new city I go to Yelp with Wolters stating that Yelp has played a big factor in defining Kent restaurants. Smith stated that she believes that we have more control where we can go with this group then we might with the other two groups. 2. JAYRAY PRESENTATION Bridget Baeth introduced herself as a member of the team, having been with JayRay for three years. She stated that her background is in Tourism Marketing. JayRay is a full service agency comprised of ten team members located in Tacoma. Tourism is an expertise of ours. We are passionate about that and think you will see through this presentation that we have the experience to accomplish everything you are looking for. Joyce Glavish stated that she is senior communications adviser at JayRay with 25 years’ experience in marketing communications. She stated that she lives between Kent and Black Diamond. Jackie Zils stated that she is a media relations adviser for JayRay, doing a lot of media relations with our tourism clients and getting to know the area. She stated that her roots in Kent go back a long way as my great-great grandparents lived here. She stated that her boys have played ball and taken part in tournaments in Kent. Kacie Leacy stated that she has been a digital strategist adviser with Jay Ray for about seven years. She stated that her experience with Kent relates to going to ShoWare Center for Thunderbird Games, Airways is a favorite spot and that she is involved with the Soos Creek Restoration Project. Bridget Baeth introduced Kathleen Deakins as the president, owner, and lead strategist behind JayRay and two other creative graphic designers as part of the team that were unable to be in attendance. Baeth stated that they feel Kent is rich in diversity and have seen that in the community and culture here. Visitors here are really interested in a unique and different experience. I think that is a great sell that Kent has to offer visitors. Kacie Leacy stated that Kent is rich in its parks from Lake Meridian to Lake Fenwick and down to the Green River. The ability to get out and enjoy the outdoors without having to go too far is one thing we enjoy about the many views of Kent. 13 Jackie Zils stated that there are so many flavors like blackberry pie at Wild wheat to a lot of convenient places in Kent Station to all the things posted on social media about where there is to eat. There is a wide experience when it comes to different restaurants, breweries and distilleries. Baeth stated there is always a reason to come back to Kent and we think people will like that. I've gone to Carpinito Brothers for a decade with my family, the pumpkin patch and corn maze every October. Leacy stated that the many wonders in Kent include cute cozy stores like the Running Stitch, free parking and lots of interesting things to see and do. Baeth spoke about why Kent should partner with JayRay. She focused on their tourism expertise; that they are working with the Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater Visitor and Convention Bureau, and Travel Tacoma. We work in tourism on a daily basis, are committed to tourism and feel passionate about that industry. Baeth stated that she will be attending the Destination Marketing Association International's annual conference in Minneapolis; a way for us to continue growing in that industry and bring back industry trends and best practices and what other destinations are doing around the globe and share that with our clients. Baeth cited an example of an aggressive ad campaign for Travel Tacoma that was focused on taking over Portland. They launched a fully integrated marketing campaign, staged a glass art scavenger hunt in downtown Portland. We contacted Instagram and social influencers on Instagram ahead of time, sent out glass art coasters to get them excited about the event and then they promoted it on Instagram and social media to get residents excited. We pitched the events to outlets in Washington and Oregon, than held an event down in Pioneer Court House Square where we brought in glass artists to do glass blowing on sight. It was very successful. We looked at hotel searches in Pierce County, up 86% compared to prior to the campaign. A big component of what we put into the proposal includes paid digital, social media, and content creation, areas where we really excel, citing an example of when they worked with United Way of Pierce County. They were having some issues with being known as a pass through fund raiser organization. Their donors, volunteers and partners weren't on board with understanding their new direction to help the fight of poverty with youth and families. We came up with a fully integrated campaign where they had some in-kind space in the News Tribune to use. Social media presented this great opportunity because those who were already liking the page were involved with United Way, knew their history, who they are, but we needed to update that. We created a series of small info graphics, that we posted throughout the weeks of the campaign to help explain United Ways new direction. We looked at the boost in engagement on social and it helped spread the message. We were able to help them raise their funds by 23% from previous campaigns. Kacey Leacy stated that we are story tellers at heart. What makes a good story is something that is unusual, interesting, and has some kind of emotional tug to it, something where we could promote Kent as a place where people can come, do something, picture themselves having fun, enjoying themselves, spending the night and making some good memories. We have recently started 'Draft Call', a promotion of stamps and passports for all breweries, and distillery’s between Tacoma and Olympia with 21 businesses participating this year. People can take their little brochure, have it stamped at the participating breweries, and at the end if you get 15 you get a mini growler to take home. It has the logo on it. We've seen a ton of promotions on social media, in newspapers; we pitched it to the general entertainment, beverage and food industry curators, social blog writers and to people who do this all the time. It was so successful last year we brought it back this year and it is bigger and better than ever. Those are the kind of angles that you want. You want to be timely and have a news hook and make it easy for a lot of writers too. Bridget stated that you should partner with JayRay as we are event savvy. We help plan events and make them look pretty. We are willing to offer support and other services depending what the client’s needs are. We partnered with Pierce County last year, said the US Open is coming and want to have an exhibit at the Washington State Fair. We knew there would be a lot of traffic coming to see this place. We read the greatest moments in US Open 14 History within two days, wrote all of the copy for all of the displays, put together the cycling of key events, profiled some of golf's greats, created exhibits that would help keep Pierce County communicating that not only was the US Open coming but what does that mean for the community, economic impact, and alleviated some of the fears about parking, being in traffic, and promoted Chambers Bay as a place to play before and after the US Open. It was a great event with interactions and videos and resulting in $14,000 of Chambers Bay merchandise sales. Jackie Seales stated that the JayRay team knows about and help others know about and love Kent. You are going to have a high quality experience whether you are going to a professional sports event, going to a concert, or hitting one of the many restaurants in town, without the traffic or parking hassles you find in a bigger city - -that is very appealing to people now. Kent is easy to navigate with a laid back vibe. Kent offers opportunities for more authentic and relaxed experiences. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Hutchinson asked what are your thoughts on branding, budget, marketing and promoting Kent. Barbara asked what is the favorite thing you found in Kent that you didn't know about. Responses from the team included:  They knew about the Soos Creek Trail, Interurban Trail and the Green River Trail, but were not aware of how they connected giving additional opportunities for biking.  That Kent was the 7th largest city in Washington, and that rezoning is happening to allow restaurants in warehouse areas. Barbara asked what they knew about the historical treasures in Kent. Responses from the team included:  It used to be a big diary and farming community. Agra-tourism was a large part of kent. There are still some farms left today which are interesting stories for Kent.  Kent is one of the first incorporated cities in Washington. There are interesting historic opportunities that can draw people. The hydroplane museum combined with some of the other need for speed activities in Kent can be seen as an opportunity to package up play and stay opportunities. Andrea stated that the reps voiced their opinions about how to find opportunities to market Kent through international markets. Can you talk about media distribution and pitch? Can you talk to me about some of your ideas and what your distribution ideas would be? Team members explained that the topics would come as we start to dig in to our initial research phase and what are the most popular and upcoming ideas, discover where we can carry over from some of the on-line things that we are doing through social media. One idea was for a business story related to some of the changes happening in the business district. Depending on the campaigns, we plan throughout the year, potentially include some seasonal topics, or things such as the hydroplane museum, tied into Sea Fair weekend. Once we have identified those opportunities, then you specialize the list that goes with it. Do you approach the business industry, writers, do you look more regionally, perhaps with people from Vancouver BC coming down for an event. If you are into race cars that might be something you would want to do. We have a subscription to Vision, a big media data base. We don't charge our clients for using that. From there you can create any type of media lead. You can look at those niches, and media opportunities. There is a good opportunity to connect with travel writers JayRay has tools where we can see who the most influential reporters are on social media; who is getting the most reach and we can target them specifically because we know if they write a piece and tweet about it that more people are going to see it. That is another tool that we often use. When you pair things together you have a better chance of getting somebodies interest. Kent has the International festival with its bright colors, exciting things, and highlights the diversity 15 of Kent. Ken has wonderful ethnic markets. You start pairing all these things together and you find opportunities from other reporters that might not just go with the festival but when the y start hearing about international food markets it perks their interest. Barbara asked what you think we could do to enhance our current web site, improve it and make it more intuitive. In response Bridget stated that we have looked at the website. It seems to have a nice brand. It is mobile responsive. It follows the trend of being a scrolling site. Improvements might be in just simplifying the site in places where it is repetitive, making sure it is user-friendly. It does a good job of being vibrant. You get a sense of synergy from this site. The luggage with the ad doesn't seem to be as intuitive. We looked at what an itinerary might look like. We would use the 4-times rule. If you are going to bring a business here, then you have to offer at least four times the amount of activity for them to do. For example if they traveled from Olympia, you would need at least four times the activity to keep them here. Here is a full day itinerary and here is where to stay. What are a couple key drivers you would focus on to draw people to this area? In response, Bridget stated that if we were going to do a marketing campaign, we would want to have a strategic kick-off and talk to you about what your marketing efforts have been. ShoWare Center is huge, you can't ignore it and with over 400,000 visitors last year; so definitely something about forests or conservation. There might be a campaign around entertainment. We would want to check and see how hotel occupancy is doing, determine what time of year you want to increase occupancy such as November to February (off-season time). Are there media campaigns we want to do around that? Do we want to create stay and play packages? We were looking at the budget. Do you want to promote the difference in cost between staying in a Hampton Inn in Kent vs Seattle with a $150 difference? You can stay in Kent and enjoy the Pacific Northwest for less money. You can go into Seattle, spend the day and stay in Kent. Another thing we saw as an influencer was on social media. We are doing that on Stay Tacoma, with visit Mt Rainier right now. There is a lot of opportunities where you can leverage with your social accounts as well, another area we could look at. Wolters questioned what are your thoughts on trying to reach more global markets in terms of that interaction? We also used television in a targeted market. We have had quite a conversation among our group over the last couple years as we tried to get direction on how much to market locally to ourselves, by word of mouth, or by targeting 100 miles out , 50 miles out – by using TV, radio, social media. What are your thoughts about the different channels/avenues to reach certain target audiences? Which target audiences would you recommend to us? What target market? How do we reach those processes? In response, Jackie Seales stated that you have this great resource in your channel 21 TV station. You have some video tape capability that other communities don't have. Video and digital don't work very well together. However, Kacie and Bridget have done a good job of bringing that over into the social platforms. The nice thing about that is that it doesn't cost what it would to run a cable program. While cable advertising can be much targeted, at this point with your given budget, and based on my experience, you probably don't have enough to do an extensive cable and radio package. Cable is more targeted than radio, although digital radio suddenly changes the world. There may be some more strategic opportunities when we get into what are the specific target markets and we start developing that plan and look at ways to expand that. Kacie stated that cable can have a wide reach. What we are looking for is that targeting capability and we have so much potential with that from digital and social. We can now go on Google Maps and click on ShoWare center, see all of the tweets coming out of ShoWare Center and respond to that. There is a lot of opportunity there to target it and there is also digital advertising for dramatic targeted advertising where we can reach people who are researching their next vacation. You can't do that with cable so we find a lot of versatility and targeting 16 capability with digital that we haven't had before. You can test and refine. If we do have a campaign and we can see how it is going, when you go digital, you can make changes the day of the campaign. Test out a certain ad and change out the next day. How do we strike a balance between the desire to market our community at large for multiple outreach goals and at the same time given the source of the funding wanting to target our advertising for general heads and beds as part of our hoteliers? How would you position striking the balance between those two? These two work together in marketing Kent as a whole and promoting it as a place to stay. I think with digital and social media posts you can do both. You can tell a different story depending on the media outlet; such as a story on the best day trips in Washington State. You could have your key messages around that or that Kent is a great get-away. We might collectively consider targeting a little more heavily toward the overnight stay because whatever we do is going to capture interest and will get people to come to Kent. If we keep the focus on trying to give them a package, give them an experience that will encourage them to stay the night, and then try something else the next day. I think you will get both, but that you will get more of the overnight stayers. Wolters stated that we developed a marketing brand and a brand statement. What are your thoughts on where that stands? Would you recommend any changes to it or is that a strong enough platform to build on at this point? The brand statement seemed pretty straight forward from what I read about being connected, being a place of opportunity, being operational, it resonated as being true. I had questions as to how you came up with the branding platform and how you use it. What are the key messages that came out with that brand? Are you targeting a leisure audience or places of business? Are there mainly events and meetings that are happening here or is there a particular business group you want to go after with that brand, and have me tailor messaging towards that. There didn't seem to be a come telling story with the brand statement, so what is in it for me as a visitor. Why do I want to come here? It was really great about here is what the community wants to achieve and move forward with and here is our effort in the region which is really exciting from a business standpoint. From a leisure standpoint, is there something more, something that would inspire and connect with people? People want an emotional connection to a place. They want to be comfortable and engaged in the community they are in. What kind of brand story could you write from a leisure stand point? One of the Committee Members stated that he thought the Travel Tacoma Convention Bureau was a really good promotion, really liking the glass coasters. What was the budget for that? In response Bridget stated that it was a $10,000 budget with most of that going towards the cost of making the coasters and paying for an artist to travel to Portland. Their team was on site during the event, giving out those glass giveaways. It was a team partnership that did not include the media aspect. Another $10,000 was spent on social media with as well as money spent on media pitching, increasing the event, and renting the venue space for a total cost of $50,000. This was a one month event with heavy saturation. A committee member asked how they measured the outcome of this promotional event. In response Bridget stated that they counted how many made it to their booth space. How many Portlanders came to the booth during the event? We looked at website visits. We measured media impressions, the event coverage and at hotel stays which increased. One of the Committee Members asked who will research the social media aspect of this. In response, Bridget stated that this is her area of expertise and that she did the Travel to Tacoma Campaign and the research to see who the best influencers would be. She stated that would be done for Kent in terms of monitoring a client heavy in social and civil and would pull together a report whenever there was mention of Kent. She stated that her team could look at some in-sites on your social account to determine who your current audience, adjust that and align it with who you are looking to attract more and then try to get more of that audience on 17 board with your social. There are a lot of different things we would dive into and look into once we have it in our hands, are able to log in and look at all those stations with several different tools we can leverage. A committee member asked the team who they use to find social influencers. In response Bridget stated that it is a combination. For the Portland one, they were looking for influencers’ in the Portland area who were specifically interested in travel. Our team searched on line, used a tool called ‘Clout’ where you can figure out who some of the bigger influencers are in certain areas and industries and just who is talking about them on line already as well as knowing and being an Instagram user. Patti Belle asked if the team were using hash tags to find influencers or is it just organic? In response Bridget stated that they used certain tools to search Portland, with certain hashtags and things that they put in their bios about it and it populates from. There are different lists that different bloggers put together and use. It was a combination of looking at all those aspects than putting together a profile for the client about what we would suggest . The client handpicked some of our ideas and we handpicked a fraction of those and then looked at what it would cost. We looked at it as who we would pitch a story to. We looked at 'Decision' to see if there was any reporters that overlapped and then prioritized if they had a blog. One of the influencers had a wife who traveled with him who also was an influencer and so the client got a two for one. We have many different ways of prioritizing both manually as well as relying on the tools we have. We are using a new tool called ‘Mention’ for social monitoring that captures all significant key influencers and is one of our inherent tools that produce the best results. Wolters stated that under Marketing Communications one of the things you offered is the four key community events through budget development, sponsorships, and solicitations. Wolters asked the team to elaborate. Bridget stated that offer was in response to your Request for Proposal (RFP). It literally looked like you had a need and we are certainly capable of addressing those needs. We want to ensure you have the money for the proactive work, that you are still supporting community events but not allowing those events to draw too much away from the proactive work. We are certainly happy to set down and discuss what those key events are that need that kind of professional communications support. It looked in the RFP to be focused around budget or marketing. DISCUSSION: Committee members spoke in favor of the team’s creative approach with the Portland Campaign and how they engage people, their level of experience and expertise with social media and recognizing importance of ShoWare and heads and beds during off months. Others favored their campaigns, writing style, and polished approach as well as their ability to be diverse. Their use of digital is great with quick turnaround. Higgins opined that he did not feel their passion nor felt they had put much research into this project but liked the way they engaged people to get people to come to Tacoma related to the Portland Campaign. Patti Belle felt they were engaging and did quite a lot with their budget although they didn't break everything out. They are likely waiting to set down with the Committee and hear what you want. Patti stated that their budget of $34,000 was very reasonable related to public relations including media clips and photos on top of that. They gave a good video production presentation and got the sense they want to set down with us and propose an idea. They will come back with a proposal at the appropriate time. Wolters spoke to their professionalism, with lots of off the shelve ability, and experience specifically related to tourism which were real strengths. He stated that he appreciated the observation in not wanting to give up the store at this point. However, I would have like to see a little more enthusiasm. It was more of a professional approach with a level of sophistication 18 on the social media element that was very intriguing and how to integrate that more into what they are doing. 3. GENESIS PRESENTATION Mary Kay introduced herself as the owner of Genesis Marketing, and has been in business since October 2000. Paxton McKinney introduced herself as being with Genesis since 2014, starting as an intern in the beginning stages of the website. John Rawley introduced himself as the curator of creativity at Genesis, new to the team starting two months ago with a hospitality and tourism background based in Spokane. Through an audio presentation, they spoke to the desire to continue their current relationship with Kent. That most people know where Kent is but that not all have a sense of who Kent is. Washington ranks near the top of one of the nations' most diverse communities ranking between New York City and San Francisco with 138 languages spoken here. Kent is diverse in the arts, in interests, in innovation, in people, in economics, in history, in the Cascade Mountain range views, in where we go for fun, in how we say hello, in what we eat for lunch, in where we go to work, and where we come home, and is diverse in brewing, in bike riding, in football kicking, in horseback riding and goal scoring, and diverse in how we live in Kent. It is time to share how diverse we are with the rest of Washington, the Pacific Northwest and the Country. As diverse as we are, we are one community and one Kent. It is time to put all hands in for Kent. When we worked on the first phase of putting the web together, we asked to put some special time in to produce some extended videos that we could get more organic authentication on the website, to learn more about the community. There were 24 extended versions of a video produced by different people in the city telling Kent’s story with the purpose of getting people engaged. Mary Kay spoke about her involvement with the T-Birds Sponsorship campaign and traveling around town over the last few dates videotaping Cool Bird doing numerous fun things. We want to support you in having an awesome campaign. It was important to us that you walked into the fall with your awesome campaign to support the T-birds sponsorship. This campaign will be turned into seven different ads that will be played during the t-bird games to promote all the different personalities there are in Kent. We've always been pro-contest. Our intent is to continue with the contest, media posting and involvement with the community in addition to putting together a television and indoor campaign in the winter to support the hotels. The current campaign that is under has had 2,339 followers on twitter, 5,557 likes on Facebook, 398 followers on Instagram, and is currently tracking at about 5,000 hits a week on the website which is more than doubled what we did with the Portland Campaign. 3,336 people have taken the quiz for what Kent personality you are. The most recent contest that we gave away with the event to the ShoWare Center was for staying in Kent. 130 people entered that contest. The current contest is giving away Sea Hawks tickets and some hotel stays. Paxton reported that after going over the RFP we found the need for approval from community involvement. We came up with the ‘all hands in for Kent’ campaign that will involve Kent businesses if they so choose. We created a new logo for visitkent.com that will go with the businesses. The businesses approve, then visitors will want go to places based on recommendations from the locals. Two necessary components will contribute to the success of this campaign. First visitors need to participate than businesses need to participate. To do this, we need to create awareness. We plan to send out an email blast to all the Kent business owners and managers with a helpful plea from the people on the Board to their contacts and sending out newsletters. We will do a paid campaign on Facebook and target business owners and managers. This will link to a visitkent.com landing page with a link that businesses can click. They complete a form and start the process of becoming Kent approved. After they have 19 contacted and reached out to us, all of those will come straight to Genesis. We will start the process of being Kent Approved and will do organic media posts on Facebook. The best thing about Facebook is that they allow targeting through organic posts of paid campaigns. This campaign will need to stay within a 19 mile radius of city center, making sure that we target only people in Kent. After a business gets a 100 likes, they will become 'Approved'. What is in it for Kent? The main thing is that in order to be approved and maintain that approval, businesses will have to ‘like; all of the kent.com social media platforms; Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They will have to host a visitkent.com approved logo on their website linking to the Kent approved page. They will place a window cling in their storefront showing visitors that they are Kent approved so they can get identified. In addition to free advertising, there will be a featured business listing which will be at the top of each category. There is a foodie category, dining category, shopping etc. All of those approved businesses would be at the very top. They will be mentioned in organic media posts, will see an increase in consumer traffic and more visitors based on recommendations from locals, as well as a congratulatory post on their blog. We will mention what the business does to create some excitement for them. Rawley stated that a good website is like a firm handshake of your company. It is your first impression to get to know an organization, to learn and find more information about it. We want to continue to evolve the website, feeding it with new and fresh content with new events, new businesses, new restaurants, and blog posts. Fresh content would include things that are trendy to users, things that will be like a one stop shop resource while on the web looking for what to do in Kent. We want to take a little bit of a time with the blog; add more excitement to it, more life; hence more community oriented content. Currently we have one writer working on the blog but see a benefit for having more local writers who know Kent the best. We are hoping to promote that we want content that tells a story about what you are doing in Kent tonight. That way we are getting more voices into the blog with specialized focuses. We see an opportunity for what we call the Kent Experience, a VP Pass. Not really a discount, more of experience enhancers. We are pushing it through the newsletter, the website and through social media and will test it out over the next couple months. It is local businesses honing new things they have going on. Currently on the website there is a feature called ‘my trip suitcase’, a trip planner tool. In each business listing there is a little suitcase icon that you click on and it builds an itinerary for you. You go through the business listings, see something you want to do and it builds that program for you. We feel it is underutilized and want to promote that better pushing through the website, social media and newsletters. Mary Kay stated that for the marketing campaign we chose to spend the entire $150,000 over the course of a year. We would stick with a social media paid campaign, an on-line Bing and Google Campaign that will support us in the stronger summer months, with television and Pandora in the winter months between October through February. Based on lengths of time, we would be spending the money from October to February and would place the need for frequency in the Wenatchee, Central Washington, Spokane metro area; which are all strong feeders into Kent’s website. It is important that we get you frequencies and we can afford those areas with a high frequency. We are suggesting those areas and sticking with reality based Comcast and Charter Cable, and that will be on a 5 pm to midnight basis on weekdays, and 9 am to 9 pm on weekends. With Pandora we have a broader reach into the outskirts of Portland, lower parts of Canada, but not into Seattle, because when you touch the Seattle Metro it gets us down into a lower frequency. We can stick with about a 2.9 to 3.2 frequency on Pandora if we stay out of Seattle. Our intention is to support this area locally on social media and paid campaigns. Your on-line campaign and social media would take you lower parts of Canada and the entire state of Washington. We had a fixated campaign with you in Portland where we did a campaign focused on coming to this area for a Seattle sports based game. We are getting close to 5,000 hits per week; the entire State of Washington, lower parts of Canada and a small percentage 20 of Portland. We are only on line only right now and you have a campaign that is giving you those hits at this moment. John stated that with respect to tracking and goals, we want to promote Kent as a destination; a vacation spot, promote overnight stays, and through the suitcase feature, showing people all the different things they can do; promoting local businesses with the Approve Kent Campaign and giving them opportunity to get people in the door and promote their business. We want to increase social media and website traffic especially on our blog and the social media page driving people back to the website and providing consistent tracking reports. Mary Kay stated that at the end of today, we hope you will find us Kent Approved and we will be able to continue our contract with you. Mary Kay stated that one of the biggest knocks you have had with our agency is that there is a reasonable number of people who found the level of production for the TV production in the first round that we did, was not of the caliber that you were looking for. We addressed that in our proposal with the $150,000 dollars in the budget this year. We found a company that has a higher level of production capacity. They are the company we are using for the T-Birds Campaign. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Barbara asked how they were going to expand the blogging on the website to more people. Mary Kay stated that bloggers love to get coverage and have their stories out there. Dana has been an exceptional person for us to work with. She has her own site and writes a very broad spectrum. Although we re bidding against her, I would assume she would retain her professionalism and want to continue to work with us because she has been awesome working with us on this portion of the contract. We would also like to have people who are on a specific focus. We would like to see people that are into hiking, biking, fishing, or eating certain types of foods. I think it would be easy to find those who are passionate about telling their story. We want to reach all age groups, all different people and get stuff out there about what is happening in Kent. In response to an inquiry, Paxton stated that the Kent Approve contest costs under $1000. Dione stated that if I understood it correctly, you are spending about $122 per day on social media. Was that what you were expecting? What do you think could be done to make our social media more organically engaging rather than just paid ads? What would liven up Kent Social Media? Mary Kay stated that more engagement from the community, strong support from the Chamber people on the Committee would liven up Kent Social Media and create a domino affect. The question was posed on how frequently do you do promoted posts? In response Paxton stated that we do one paid campaign every month. Organic posts are 3 times per week on all the platforms. Mary Kay stated that with the quiz we created, we went out to the entire state of Oregon and Washington, invited the media to participate and sent out a couple stories about involvement, asking them to share and cover it. We received minimal clicks on this at best. Wolters stated that you have been working with us for a couple of years. We have tried different things. From your professional perspective what has worked in trying to get the word out about Kent and what do you think is resonating for trying to generate stays? You’ve seen us as a group and a community, debating the right balance between the desire to market the community at large and at the same time conduct targeted marketing in order generate heads and beds? What is your sense of what is working, what hasn't worked and looking ahead what should we be doing? In response Mary Kay stated that what have worked the best are the hits we have received on the web site right now because of what we are doing with social media. I can’t say if it is or 21 isn’t bringing people to spend the night. Where I think we have the strongest play is to do what we have been saying the whole time, which is to ride on the coattails of Seattle. There is an ungodly amount of people that do a search for staying in, traveling and coming to Seattle. Our mind set is if you are coming anywhere near here to travel, think about Kent, and stay in Kent. We are conveniently located. We are a fun place to be. We are close to all the places you want to travel to. Travel to Seattle but there are still things to do here to. I think it is unrealistic to think we can compete with Seattle. If you are coming to Seattle for a game, make sure you stay in Kent. Paxton stated that we have seen a lot of success with the personality quiz campaign. It is taking off. I monitor all comments that come through from the contest and paid advertising. Many comments have been received from people who are excited and more engaged. Mary Kay stated that we want to continue to build on that engagement from the community with the Kent Approved Campaign and would hope they would support the quiz and continue to promote it, share it and people would get involved. A question was raised in previous meetings where we talked about adding a booking.com. Is that something the hoteliers want to do? Mary Kay stated that we asked that question as we knew the committee was interested in tracking but never received an answer. The question was raised as to are we doing anything currently with the email responses we are getting from the contest entries? Mary Kay stated that the contest just ended and that is where the newsletter is going. The quiz will give us the emails. Wolters stated that one thing that has been an issue, is that you are physically based in Spokane. On the one hand you are here, and I love what you did with Cool Bird, as if you are a local. But there is an element of the distance making it difficult for you to engage on a more regular basis. You are also a smaller firm and there is some limitation in that regard. Then there is our limited budget. What you are doing now is a wonderful example of that and you also mentioned getting more support locally. I think that is quite a challenge now. Given some of the challenges that there have been, getting that full foundational support seems like it is starting to build from what we are hearing and experiencing. What other ways could that not be a factor – your geographic distance from this community? Mary Kay explained that the geographic factor is not an issue with our knowledge and familiarity of your community, the Committee or the state. I have lived in Washington my entire life and held jobs in Kent. I travel twice a month to this area for business; as I have Mazda of Everett, Boeing Scarff and Ray Scarff as clients. With respect to my capacity to interact with the community, we could probably do it quite affordably if aligned it with the times that I am here making it affordable. I interact through Skype when not here. In looking at my proposal and having worked with me for the last three years, I do not charge for my time. In reiterating our philosophy, we are all hands in, that is who we are, we join people's teams. I've been here since 1:30 on Sunday and haven't charged you a sent for my personal time, just for my air fare. We don't charge a retainer. I am passionate, promotions oriented and have an extremely strong capacity to communicate with people and get people to get excited about stuff. I think we proved that with getting 24 different people to do videos and with what we did with Cool Bird. I wouldn't see it as a hindrance for me to be in the Spokane area and to come over on a quarterly basis to continue to snowball the social media. Andrew Corona concurred that the team has been expedient in their responsiveness and are easy to get a hold of. 22 DISCUSSION: Andrew Corona stated that the original intent for the day was to have a quorum here, to reach consensus, to have a committee member make a motion for approval of an award for a contract. I'm not sure that we are there yet. Wolters stated that Andrew was giving context in terms of the decision making process. Bill did not want us to rush this. It is an important decision and if we need to take more time we will. Barbara stated that there really wasn't anything new to learn. This was more of an update. The cool bird video sounds delightful, fun and clever. They reminded us of what a good job they have been doing. Dione stated that having read their RFP, she opined that they do not allocate a lot of budget towards contact development. A majority of their budget seems to go toward paid advertising which would not be my preferred method. Most of their presentation felt like it was getting other people to develop the content either through the community or other businesses. Somebody has to spend time to develop content and recruiting them, which is another time factor for people. So getting people on board with that, getting those things done, asking how we can make our content more engaging. We really don’t need more people to participate, as that is a part of what they do. Dione stated that the other part of their presentation relied heavily upon Cool Bird and didn't really talk about anything else that could be utilized to promote Kent as a destination. I did not agree with them that we have to ride on Seattle's coattails. I think we have enough stuff here that we can start making Kent its own unique destination with Barbara agreeing. A committee member stated that it should be up to us to help direct the outreach, to help Mary Kay go a different direction with heads and beds. A committee member stated that people are traveling on a budget. As an hotelier, we need to target our area, getting the word out that the traveler is saving 30% by staying in Kent versus Seattle and promoting the train usage. Barbara stated that she got excited about the other presentations talking about Kent, finding our gems and building our brand on us. It is not that we shouldn't recognize the fact that we are a neighbor to Seattle but we need to start working harder, and better on our own image. One of the Committee members said that Wolters has stated that the fundamental question is how we allocate our efforts, our money, and our resources towards branding vs overnight stays. I think we are struggling as a group to answer that question. And if we can't answer that question we don't know how to provide direction to the agencies that are working with us. Wilmot stated that if we do a good enough job about deciding what Kent is and what the opportunities to enjoy being in our community are, wouldn't the overnight stays come and doesn't it ultimately serve all the same thing. If we all think Kent is cool, we are all telling everyone about the great stuff going on in our community, we are promoting it outside of the region. Doesn't it ultimately provide for the heads and beds and which would lead to what we recognize as our main goal. One of the Committee Members stated that as a hotelier, we know how business is run in this area. How do we know this can generate stays? There is a lot of compassion at this table. They are already working with the city. We need to critique what they are doing moving forward. Jason stated that they have been easy to work with. Originally the date they wanted to film Cool Bird wasn't available. They pushed their entire schedule around so we could make it work. They were given a complete list of our preferred partners that we do a lot of work with, that might be the right fit, and they were able to reach out to all of them, create the entire schedule just to make it work. 23 Wilmot stated that even when they had issues and Mary Kay made reference to our disappointment with the very first commercial, I have never had an issue in working with them at all. They have been great, responsive, respectful and accommodating. My concern is with the level of quality with some of the materials they are putting together for us. Quality piece speaks volumes about how we present ourselves. It is that first impression. Belle agreed, opining that their creative side is subpar. I believe their message they put out with The Voice is completely off brand for it with Dione also agreeing. Barbara stated that we should be listening to two different presentations. One should be the marketing of hotels and one should be marketing our brand because we really need our brand. We spent enough money on the brand and we really haven't done anything to promote it, to use it to our advantage. It was pointed out that we are not respecting the integrity of that brand. Patti stated that no one babysits that brand. Although I know it is not a city logo Wolters stated that Patti is in charge of, along with Multi-Media Services, in guarding and shepharding the city's corporate logo. For me this is the crux of the issue. When I look at the budgets; with the first two presentations, more money is being poured into production vs. Genesis who is pouring their budget into channels and into getting the stuff out. The question is can Genesis up their game in production and how much of that is the direction that they have been given. They have had to suffer through being patient with the ongoing debate frankly among the community representatives on the LTAC and the hotel representatives. In addressing the hoteliers, Wolters stated that generally you have had a more community perspective in terms of seeing that benefit down the road, even as you would like to see some things done more directly in terms of overnight stays. I hope that as we evaluate this with a decision going forward, that we find a way to address that. Whether it is Genesis or the other two groups, they will need more clear direction about where to put their resources and their own emphasis. My challenge with the other two is that they have put more money into production and that they have offered some great ideas about bringing you social media and lower cost options that clearly need to be explored in more depth. Wolters stated that Andrew put together a score sheet and asked the committee to complete the score sheet prior to the end of the week, stating what proposals you have reservations on and get it back to Andrew by COB on Friday. If not, Monday at the latest. If not Genesis, which of the other two is there some real interest in pursuing where there is some confidence or strength there that you would want to pursue ? Higgens stated that everyone had some fine strong traits that requires some one steering them the direction you want them to go. There are huge opportunities with ShoWare Center and contests there if you went with this Kent Approved thing, or setting up games. We could help get that message out in so many ways. It is getting back to who is going to steer in front of them. Questions were raised as to where the recent campaign came from, with Tim stating that he was unaware that Genesis was putting together a television campaign with the T-Birds. It could have been done with our in-house crew, at a fraction of what was done there and accomplish the same thing. Wolters talked about how the video production with Cool-Bird came to be. The questions was asked who is the person here pulling what they are doing with what is going on with hotels, with what is going on with the ShoWare Center, and with the Thunderbird Games. Wolters stated that it is challenging and would like it to be Michelle, but she doesn't have that time. I am not a communications professional. My job is as staff to the committee, to gage what the committee wants to do and make it happen. I can't devote the time and my lack of availability has been a source of frustration for Genesis. We will have to figure out who that staff person is going to be. 24 Wilmot stated that whoever we choose, we have to set proper expectations of what we can and can't provide. I don't want to re-write content to match with our messaging or our branding. From that aspect, I think Dana would be a shoe-in. But there are other aspects that we collectively shared about what she can bring to the table too. Dione and Barbara stated that whoever is chosen, they need to take the initiative to learn about Kent and prepare a cohesive and presentable package. Andrews stated he would reach out next Monday, to get a feel for which way the Committee wants to go. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 5:10 pm _________________________ Submitted by Pamela Mottram On behalf of Julie Pulliam, Lodging Tax Secretary 25 26 27 28 29 30