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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Lodging Tax Advisory Committee - 08/22/2013 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee August 22, 2013 Start Time 6:00 pm Centennial Conference Room #402 Committee Members Present: Chair Jamie Perry, David Kwok, Barbara Smith, Others present: Ben Wolters, Julie Pulliam, Bob Nachlinger, Ryan Hart, Sara Hanson, Tripp Muldrow, Michelle Wilmot, Kent Sharp, Kevin Jolson, Rick Bowman, Nancy Simpson, Sharon Bersaas, Toni Azzola, Greg Haffner, Judy Woods, and Chad Gleason Chair Jamie Perry called the meeting to order at 6:05 pm. Introductions were made. Branding Presentation - ArnettMuldrow & Associates Tripp Muldrow gave a brief intro of who they are and that they are from Greenville, South Carolina with 6 staff in the firm. They have been in business for 11 1/2 years rooted in planning and economic development and Tripp is an Economic Developer working in Urban Revitalization. Has been for the past 18 years in the consulting business and has been doing a lot of market studies for downtowns along with marketing plans and developing this nitch in community branding and marketing, which has enabled him to work all over the county. Most of his work has been in small and medium sized communities, some rural, some isolated. We work a lot with Main Street Programs as well as communities adjacent to large metro areas Tripp stated. Tripp showed the PowerPoint of some of the communities he has worked with. Some of the Washington communities he has worked with are Gig Harbor, Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Port Angelas. Tripp gave an overview of their process; it is unusual it is a very quick and has a focused approached with an intense involvement from the community. We deliver the concept in 2 1/2 to 3 days. We start on a Monday or a Tuesday and end on a Wednesday or a Thursday. This allows a lot of involvement from the community on the front end with usually around 100 to 300 people participating then in a very rapid way we process that back. When it is delivered it is not the end of the line, we do refinement, then within about 8 weeks we deliver a complete digital package with released copyright to the community. We do not and are not interested in doing ad placement advertising and marketing beyond the initial creative design. We believe the local talent in the community should pick up that part. That doesn't mean we disappear from the scene we are always there we always take calls from communities we have worked looking for follow up materials. We also keep a vast inventory of everything we have done. We are in this to help the community and equip you with tools we are not here to get in and have a long term commitment engagement where we are pulling money out of the community we feel it is important for the local talent to take over once we have delivered the tools. Chair Perry asked What is the digital package you referred to. Tripp responded it includes all the logo design in a variety of file formats to use as well as a style guide. We also include templates for marketing pieces we strongly believe in trying to engage the local business community as well we want them to be ambassador for the identity system so we will developed templates that the local businesses can use as they begin to market as well. What is a brand - a logo, tag line, type face but a brand is so much more than that. Think about Nike all you need to see is the logo. ArnettMuldrow has done 300 community brands since they started. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of August 22, 2013 Page: 2 Tripp stated the city of Kent's marketing material is quite clean and crisp, the city has an identity system but often we are looking at it as being the official governmental identity. There is the more popular piece that is out there to help get the visitor and retain the local customer and build community pride as well. Sometimes when we work in a place we inherent an identity that is already in place and sometimes the community is unwilling to change, we can work with it, we look at a way to add to it and view it with more meaning. Tripp went through the PowerPoint that was showed and handed out to the committee. Cities shown: Ocean Springs, MS; Opelousas, LA; West Des Moines, IA; Valley Junction part of West Des Moines, IA; Pleasanton, CA; Gig Harbor, WA; Ellensburg, WA. Gig Harbor Washington was done this year (2013) in February. ArnettMuldrow were not there to replace the City's identify system we were here to help the Gig Harbor Historic Waterfront Association and its partners refine their message and connect their district, determine a name, strengthen the identity, shorten the organization name, and give a set of tools for business to use. Logos were developed for Gig Harbor Downtown Waterfront, Downtown, Waterfront Alliance want this to continue to strengthen partnerships that were being made with the Chamber of Commerce, and with the City of Gig Harbor, so they were not view as a separate identity which was doing their own thing, but they were really partners, so the alliance was what we were looking for. We deal with all things;typefaces, color palate, logo, tag line, brand statement. We do a brand statement for each community. Ellensburg suffered from what many communities deal with, they are rich in events, activities and organizations but each one had its own identity. Some were left alone and others were worked with to create they into a system. We arrived on Monday and we provided them with the product on the 22"d which kept within the 3 day process. We have fun doing this process, it is very engaging for the community. There were about 100 people in the room for the presentation. Haffner asked what kind of origination does the City need in place to implement something like Ellensburg? Does it come from the city tourism, the Chamber, KDP or merchants? Tripp replied in each case it is a little different in Ellensburg it was a partnership between Kittitas Chamber of Commerce and the Ellensburg Downtown Association, they teamed up together to do this and engaged the city, the city didn't pay, the monies came from Lodging Tax funds made sense to be allocated to do the study. In the case of Gig Harbor it was lead by the Alliance. But they engaged the Chamber of Commerce and the City because they would be crazy not to as well as a whole host of other organizations such as the museum board, neighborhood associations, etc. Des Moines for Valley Junction, it was the Valley Junction Board which is a Main Street Program and the City was implementation of the City wide Economic Development part. Frequently it is existing organizations and what we are trying to do is give them tools that they would not otherwise have as well as do it affordable and efficient way. Barbara Smith asked she thought there was a range from $11,000 to $15,000 depending on how much work you are doing with some of the marketing materials, is that accurate? Tripp Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of August 22, 2013 Page: 3 responded; yes, the range is between $11,000 to $15,000 to produce what it is you have been shown here in the PowerPoint. What we have shown you is the presentation but included in that you get all the back material the style guide and all the files. When we do an ad we also do a template, show how and when a publication is laying it out, how a merchant might engage in that and place their logo and participate as well. Every community is a little bit different; Kent has done some really good things with way finding in your downtown on your poles Tripp stated. We try to do a roll out strategy to help you understand because communities don't have to be able to spend lots of money on something like this and sometimes it has to be a gradual roll out. Sometimes it is very aggressive. Where ever we work we are always respectful of what is already being done. So the Made in Kent effort that you are working on, we would make sure that it would manifest itself into a downtown or tourism marketing piece as well. We have a lot of experience working on those kinds of partnerships. Perry stated, So that means I am assuming you would make recommendations about what are the pieces missing? We have really never done the foundation piece, so a lot of time we don't know what we don't know. Tripp replied we won't just say it, if we see it is lacking we will design it. We will come in and say this is missing and this is how you should fill in the gap, as well as you getting the product. That is important to us, this isn't just a recommendation to get a banner, we will design them for you and give you the specification on how to get them done. Perry stated she is not sure how many sacred cows we have. Tripp that,is the first question we ask the last thing we want to do is go there and disrupt the sacred cows . A question was asked about creating images for digital media, do you have any examples website wise. Tripp replied, yes, they are not here to show today. We can do banner ads, icons for face book, or for tweets. The other things we have a lot of experience helping communities track how effective they are. Haffner asked what is more productive for the communities to use print or digital media. Tripp responded it has to be a combination of both. Sharp asked, What about TV ads? Not only to bring people to Kent but also to develop a sense of pride for the community. Blane Webber asked for clarification on the roll out when you come up with all the concepts with ideas and formulations for what we would need. Does that include the price of what would be going out for all the different divisions so we would know the whole cost? Tripp answered depending on the scope of the project, sometimes we are just giving the tools, and sometimes we are asked to deliver the media buy plan, which would drive the cost up a little bit, getting into the detail. Ellensburg is working with a firm in Seattle and will be doing the buying for the ads. The local firms can do a more efficient firm. With looking at the whole picture Webber asked $11,000 to $15,000 we spend that then we get the information on what we need to do and it shows we need and extra $20,000 for this Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of August 22, 2013 Page: 4 and $60,000 for that, that is what I am looking at a bigger picture of how, you can roll it out to us then implementing it is another story. Tripp answered we try to give you a very light roll out for the budget that doesn't involve a lot of heavy budget lifting to do, so typically business cards, letterhead and the ads you see can be made into posters and placed in stores. We worked in a community where they took the brand statement and the Mayor and Council would present that to citizens that were doing great things in the community. Trip showed an ad that was put together for free by a local production company on the script he wrote for a town in Mississippi. A local production company did this for nothing from the brand statement Tripp wrote. Of course they wanted to do more work and by doing this for free, they did get more local work. The question was asked on how do you make this something that can grow and not have to be completely changed in 5 to 7 years as thing change. Tripp stated what we work on is community branding and we gear up for a 10 year or longer life span for these products, rather than a 4 or 5 year campaign. The other issue is the problem of not including the local community and then when they see the product they revolt when they see it because they hate it. The products that get the back lash are the ones that don't include the communities buy in. We try to mirror the community. What we want to hear from the community is "you heard us and you nailed it"Tripp said. Question was asked to describe the process you go through with the committee, what are those days like? Tripp reported we arrive and meet with a small group of people about 4 or 5, usually a representation of the partners involved. They give us a preview of the meetings ahead. We do a total of 4 to 6 roundtables the attendance vary in attendance by community. In Ellensburg we had between 10 and 20 per roundtable, in Wenatchee we had about 40 and 50 at some of the roundtables. Those last about an hour and are by invitation some are open ended some are targeted. We recommend you do both and the round tables are very casual, we chat, we listen, and we let the conversation just go. It really helps if people relax and tell the story of what really makes the community important. Then the evening of the first day is a public meeting, which we keep right at 1 hour, so it is a much more facilitated session. We ask a serious of 4 to 5 questions, our favorite one is the family exercise and the audience turns their neighbors into a human, then turn Kent into a human, then you have to assign the person human attributes. We want to try to get the image down. We do a couple of more meetings the second day. Then we work, you will see us on the street doing photography we take approximately 400 to 1000 shots. We deliver the photo library to the community as a deliverables. We do inside, outside and merchant shots. We sequester ourselves away and work. We have a briefing and update with the core group of the 4 to 6 people and then we gear up for the reveal on the 3rd day. Everyone sees it together. Ben Wolters asked what have been the presentations that you might have considered failures. Tripp responded we did a couple in Iowa that were dictated by the State the community do them. State provided funding the community did not ask for it so they were not engaged. What we do is go back and try to work it, what we don't do is go back and do a contract amendment to double the money to do the refinement; we want to make people happy, In 2 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of August 22, 2013 Page: 5 cases we had to agree, we have given 3 different proposals, take it and use the talent in the community take it an figure it out. Failures do happen but our success rate is 98 %. Not all communities roll it out as fast as others. Some need to go through a City Council more formal process. We are happy to provide referenced. Question asked; Does your process change depending on who the target audience is? And do the communities want to have a target audience? (Shoppers, residence, business, people coming in to live). Tripp responded yes there is some elasticity to it. One thing our process doesn't do, we do not do focus groups in other areas asking their opinion of Kent. Say what does Spokane think of Kent. We will be Kent focused internally, we feel that this works better in giving the community the identity it is comfortable with. We will do a business roundtable or a youth roundtable. In Ellensburg we used high school and college students. We could have Historical groups or corporate groups also included. Chair Perry asked for other questions, hearing none she thanked Tripp Muldrow for coming and presenting to the committee. We will talk with Lodging Tax Committee Members on what the plan is for next steps at the next schedule meeting, which is October 17th. Perry asked we schedule one earlier for a debrief. Perry feels we had two very good presentations which blended well together, one marketing focused and one was very branding focused which complemented each other in distinguishing the two ideas in my mind. Tripp related the firm that we heard from Genesis, also did the marketing part for Ellensburg and participated in the process. Both had a seamless partnership and they were a great contributor. If you have any question please feel free to email Tripp. Good of the order — Nothing Assignments for next meeting - None Next Regular Meeting Date — October 17, 2013 (Committee will meet every other month on the 3rd Thursday of the month 4 pm.) Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned by Chair Perry Submi by Julie P II' m, Secretary Lod gin ax Committee \1