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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/09/2001, C3 - USE OF PROMOTIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE (PCC) ENHANCED PROMOTIONAL FUNDScouncil M0� °� acEnba Report CITY OF SAN L U IS O B I S P O FROM: Wendy George, Assistant City Administrative Office Prepared By: Shelly Stanwyck, Economic Development Manager SUBJECT: USE OF PROMOTIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE (PCC) ENHANCED PROMOTIONAL FUNDS CAO RECOMMENDATION Approve the Promotional Coordinating Committee's recommendation to allocate $15,000 of Enhanced Promotional Funds for a unique advertising opportunity with American Express Destination Guide. DISCUSSION Background Several years ago, in conjunction with an increase in the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) from nine percent to 10 %, the City created an Enhanced Promotional Fund to be used to finance innovative promotional ideas and provide seed money for new special events. Annually, the PCC makes recommendations to the City Council on how this fund should be spent. At its last meeting, the PCC heard a presentation from Jonni Biaginni, Executive Director, San Luis Obispo County Visitors & Conference Bureau, regarding a possible advertising opportunity in American Express' Destination Guide. Advertising Opportunity American Express Destination Guide is California focused - travel publication. Annually it is inserted into magazines (Travel & Leisure and Food and Wine) and direct mailed to American Express cardholders. It has a 1.2 million circulation. In the past, a full -page ad in the Guide has cost $60,000. This year, for the first time,. a new program has been developed with Amtrak. At a reduced cost to participants, Amtrak will coordinate a section within the Guide titled "California by Rail ". Amtrak destination cities will be featured in that section. There will be a full -page on San Luis Obispo County. With the participation level of $12,000, the City of San Luis Obispo will receive half a page of editorial content along with a small ad promoting the City and the availability of our Visitors Guides. Of the $15,000 allocated for this project, $3,000 will be used to pay for the additional Visitors Guides requested as a result of the ad. This program is of great interest to the PCC. It enables San Luis Obispo to be showcased to an affluent audience outside of California. It offers the opportunity to promote the City with both editorial content as well as an ad. More interested readers can receive detailed information through the response 800 number, website and reader response services. Additionally, it is an C3 -1 Council Agenda Report — Report Title Page 2 opportunity for the City to promote visitations to San Luis Obispo through the use of alternative transportation. In fact, promoting rail visits to San Luis Obispo has been a specific goal of the City, as initially recommended by the former Economic Strategy Task Force. The City will receive 5,000 reprints of the piece for promotional purposes. American Express will provide follow up information as to demographics and spending habits of respondents. According to American Express, last year's publication generated response rates for advertisers of anywhere from 1,300 to 4,000 inquires. This is an efficient cost per response rate and the PCC is interested in pursing this unique opportunity that falls outside of the general in -state advertising plan. FISCAL IMPACT A total of $50,000 of Enhanced Promotional money is budgeted to be spent over the 1999 -01 fiscal years. To date $11,300 has been spent for specialized promotional tools, a visitor survey and seed money for the first annual Central Coast Book & Author Festival. Upon approval of this recommendation, $23,700 would remain for Enhanced Promotional purposes. ATTACHMENTS PCC minutes of December 13, 2000 C3 -2 PCC Meeting Minutes of December 13, 2000 Paqe 2 committee agreed that additional and enhanced visitor signage was necessary. Costs for signs include n, location and fabrication and installation the cost may be around $100,000. The City of Santa Cruz ry implemented a new visitor signage program and they spent around $100,000 for everything. c. P estrian Friendly Lighting in the Downtown Dave Gart h roposed pedestrian friendly decorative lighting in downtown. The concept would be for the City to pay for un rgrounding electrical conduit to new lighting and have volunteers buy the lights for their cost with a plaque oh,,the light in their name. This would be analogous to the bench program. Wendy George reminded the PCC at this was a Council goal from the budget but then it was important in neighborhoods. d. Increase the hymber of visitors from new and existing markets focusing in particular on the Northern California m ket to achieve a 25% increase in visitors responding to direct media advertising and regional dia advertising by the VCB. The Committee felt a two -pron d strategy was the best way to accomplish this goal. First more money should be allocated to the City's d agency to increase the amount of media buys. The Committee felt increased media buys would have \req sults. It was suggested $50,000 in additional funds go to BC&A for this purpose. Second, the Cowas conceptually supportive of increasing funding to the VCB. Increased funding to the VCB shoppropriately based on their proposal for new contract; the PCC would come back to Council with exst for the VCB's funding. 6. REPORT FROM CHAMBER OF Dave Garth told committee members the Chamber wo Nmon making a formal request, at a future meeting for enhanced promotional funds, for a coupon book similar tiego. The Chamber has a staff member who has done this before. He also indicated the Chamber will renovating the Visitor's Center, which would be another good use of enhanced promotional funds. Th could be used for furnishings that go into the improved space or a display for ecotourism. Alex LaChappelle reported that she did a lot of outreach with freelan writers last month. She got several good. responses. Several writers liked the media packets. Alex will Conti a to establish new contacts with new freelance writers each month. The Friends of Hearst Castle dinner happe d on Monday night. Alex pitched the event to a series of travel writers. Next year Hearst Castle will have a seaso of dinners and one freelance writer will come back and do a piece. Golfer writer, Leonard Finkle, arrived in to but wasn't able to finish his trip because he fell ill. He's a great writer so all the hard work on Alex's part will pa off. Runner's World magazine had a follow up article from a few years ago and included San Luis Obispo in their 1 est runs list. James Anderson reported that 149 San Luis Obispo pins were sold in November. Th@ Chamber is looking at doing a denim shirt with the logo embroidered. T- shirts continue to fly off the shelf. Have ad to reorder. Coffee mugs have been slow. 7. REPORT ON MARKETING Maggie Cox got the rate down on Readers Digest and KMG. With GST's closing, our 800 numbers st change to a new service provider. She has been scrambling to cover. She may use the Chamber's new phon system. The downside is there will likely be a change so that the ad response 800 number is one number plus exte sions. Maggie is thinking of a delay of two weeks for ad placement to make sure responses get to the right number nd we don't lose ad responses. 8. REPORT FROM VCB Jonni Biaginni brought up a possible advertising opportunity, the American Express destination guide, 1.2million copies are of this guide are distributed annually. A full -page ad costs $60,000. Readers are subscribers to high - end magazines, American Express customers, and some cross promotion with retail products. There is a new program this year with this guide where Amtrak is doing an insert, which drops the page, cost ()&&0. Could mIn110800.d0C PCC Meeting Minutes of December 13, 2000 Paae 3 combine editorial with hotel coop ads. Deadline is first part of January. Jonni gave the information to Maggie to look into. The Committee discussed possibly using Enhanced Promotional funding. However, lower prices are contingent on Amtrak participating. Pyper moved Baer seconded up to $15,000 in Enhanced Funding for Amtrak ad and associated costs. Directed Maggie to look into cost and ability to complete funding request in time for ad placement_ Jonni passed out the new VCB Visitors Guide. They changed their cycle to debut in the fall. Significant changes include an increase by 10 pages. Made it more reader friendly. Almost everything is back in a grid to look up statistics easily. Council member Schwartz sent a complimentary letter and made some suggestions for improvement. Using the window envelope with up -to -date imprinting on the backside. Took the restaurant guide and laminated for use by VCB members. Infomercial coming along. Castle Rock Films will be filming in the spring a Sandra Bullock film. endar of events generated for all Chambers of Commerce. Celebration California has a record number of tin of events for the region. 9. PCC " S ON SAN LUIS OBISPO No report. 10. CHAIRPERSON' REPORT No report. 11. LIASON REPORTS Baer had three liaison organizations II and invite her to events. Her organizations are very involved. Hunt Roberts went to Chamber concert an it has grown to 51 musicians. She was very impressed with the organization's growth. 12. STAFF REPORT Four grants -in -aid have not sent their contracts back. Vocal Arts, KCBX, Youth Symphony and Arthritis Foundation. VIII call to let liaison George Newland know he hould contact Vocal Arts and KCBX. Baer will call Youth Symphony. Arthritis has gone out of business. 13. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 7:40 p.m. to the next regular meeting on JhQuary 10, 2001. Submitted by: Shelly S nwyck Economic Development Manager C3-4 ffdn110W0.dbC