TDC Approves working with MTVu for Spring Break

The Tourist Development Council approved moving forward with MTVu for promoting Spring Break 2009. I guess at this point, it is too late to “go back to the drawing board.”

Here is the evolution of how it all went down.

The original MTVu proposal included a 10 day village with 8 concerts over 4 days, 300 30 second TV ad spots, 10 million online impressions, a database by which to collect user contact info (mobile numbers, email addresses, etc.), and a few more things.

The whole proposal was discussed during a marketing committee meeting and overall a motion was made to approve moving forward, but with the stipulation that the TDC wanted the price to be lowered to $200,000 (stemmed from what some believe as an effort to come up with less co-op money).

When MTVu heard about this, they weren’t that happy and came back with a proposal that was just more than half of their initial proposal for 20% less money. Of course, that wasn’t gonna work for the TDC. After calming MTVu down, Dan Rowe, et.al. was able to negotiate 250 30 second TV ad spots, 10 million online impressions, database collection, a 10 campus kick-off tour featuring Panama City Beach as a spring break vacation destination, featured premium placement on the MTVu hub page (what does that mean??), and a link back to the micro site (from where???).

Dan explained that some of the benefits of working with MTVu include that they are regulated by the FCC, they have a brand to protect, that they do NOT advertising any alcoholic products, will not publish any film/pictures of alcoholic related activity or drunk students, and that they are good for our image and our initiative to vacation responsibility.

The board stressed their desire to not spend more than $150,000, and that the rest MUST come from co-op sponsors. Staff (Dan and co.) have so far received commitments for co-op in the amount of $50,500 and anticipates that number to grow as we come closer to spring break. All additional funds generated will go first to operational costs associated (costs can be up to $90,000 above and beyond the $150,000 – someone correct me if I’m wrong here), then go to paying the TDC back for the initial $150,000 investment.

This year, compared to last year, there are actually three categories for co-op sponsors:

Lodging – hotels, condos, resorts, etc.
- There will be two levels of sponsorship opportunities, premium and all the others. Premium will be limited to 6 advertisers and will have premium placement on the main lodging page, and all the others will be on a page linked to through an “all offers”, or “all other offers” text or graphic link from the main lodging page.
Food/entertainment – restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. For this category, there are unlimited opportunities available, for premium and otherwise. The premium sponsors will have the opportunity to have their specials, etc. broadcasted to the TDC database via text messages (that is supposed to be geo-targeted).
Retail/attractions – the new element (can’t beleive this never existed before), includes retails stores or services such as Victoria Secrets or California Cycles. This category will have the same premium “text message” opportunity as the food/entertainment category.

There are a lot of cool things that can be done with text messaging marketing. I’m not sure the geo-targeting aspects are all they are cracked up to be as they require to user to have an application up and running on their phone in order to receive messages, and I’m not sure that students will be walking around with their phones open and an app running, or if they’d even start the app in the first place.

Also, with doing just plain text message advertisements are still limited to 160 characters per messasge, which can get used up pretty quick.

Can this be done without MTVu, I’m sure of it. However, at this point, what are the alternatives? I don’t know, and neither does the TDC. I’m sure they would be open to suggestions of anyone that could come in, set up a whole online marketing campaign with millions of impressions, put on a fairly large scale show with several concerts, incorporating a variety of web and tv posibilities and do it all for a package price. Anyone?

TDC to Discuss MTVu and New Web Site Presentations

The TDC meeting scheduled for Thursday at 2pm in the council room should be very interesting to say the least. On the agenda will be to discuss the MTVu program and hear from the interactive agencies bidding to build the new “Panama City Beach” web site. I fully expect the meeting to be long and arduous and some tough decisions to be made.

I also assume there will be tons in attendance, so come early.

I will be making live updates from my cell phone using the lovely Twitter service, so be sure to sign up and follow pcbdaily. And be sure to set up your mobile devices if you don’t want to keep checking our twitter page.

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AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Thursday, November 6, 2008 2:00 p.m. Council Room, PCB City Hall

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

A. Invocation
B. Pledge of Allegiance

III. REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON AGENDA ITEMS (3 Minutes)

IV. UPDATE ON BED TAX COLLECTIONS, Ms. Charlene Honnen, Tourist Development Tax Specialist

V. BOARD ACTION ITEMS

A. Discuss and Consider for Approval Coastal Planning & Engineering Invoice #81029, Invoice #81030, and Invoice #81032, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VI. BOARD DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. Review and Discuss mtvU Program, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VII. INTERACTIVE AGENCY PRESENTATIONS AND BOARD DISCUSSION (Order of Presentations Will Be Selected at Random)

A.    JB, Inc.
Presentation by Ms. Jennifer A. Barbee, Ms. Annette Gilespie, Ms. Kim Powers, and Ms. Marianne Cushing
B.    Miles Media
Presentation by Mr. Roger Miles, Mr. Ryan Nance, Ms. Elena Prostova, and Mr. Scott Templeton
C.    SimpleView
Presentation by Mr. Kevin Bate and Ms. Cara Scholke

VIII. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

IX. ADJOURNMENT

Should We 'Kick' MTV 'to the curb'?

Well, should we? It would seem to me that we aren’t good enough for them. Maybe we should take our $250k (read $200k) and do something more productive with it, rather than waste it on some antediluvian has-been. I mean, seriously, who watches MTV anymore anyway. Sure, all the left-wing east west coasters that are too concerned about the color of their hair than what is actually happening in the real world may still watch it but the ‘kids’ that vacation here during their college spring break spend their free time working, partying, or hanging out with friends, not watching the melodrama unfold between Paris Hilton and her new BFF.

Not to mention that we aren’t even talking about MTV, we are taking about MTVu, a trifle subsidiary of the Bid Dawg. Sure it is college specific, but again, what does that mean today?

So what are these snobs up to now? Well, the last marketing committee meeting, the committee motioned to reduce the amount paid to MTVu from $250k to $200k. When confronted with this issue, MTVu basically cut what they were willing to bring to the table in half.

As per the MTVu Program Recap, the $250k vs. $200k:

In-market, main stage for 5 days instead of 10
Village for 7 days instead of 10
2 concert days with 4 performances instead of 4 concert days with 8 performances
225 :30 TV spots instead of 300
5 million online impressions instead of 10 million
No database
No sweepstakes
No opt-in opportunity onsite

What? They’re basically cutting their offering in half, for only $50,000 less. What’s their deal? Well, apparently, we aren’t good enough for them. Apparently $200k is small potatoes for very little on their part. I say we ditch the Brand and do it ourselves. For $200k, we can hire someone else to put on a good show and do a lot of marketing, a-lot-of-marketing. MTVu isn’t the only game in town.

I don’t like to criticize unless I have a good solution, but in this case, I’m doing just that. There are others being paid to find a solution to this, and they’ve come up with MTVu. I suggest we find an alternative. The reality is, if we throw a big enough party (and for $200k, we can throw a pretty big party) MTV will be here anyway, because that is where the action will be.

Now, to you tourism leaders, resort owners and the like: what are you afraid of? What happened to good ‘ol fashioned marketing. Most of you big guys are paying a salaried marketing person to come up with great ideas to get your brand out there. Why have we become so reliant on the Government to supply us with our business? Furthermore, the sky will not fall if the beloved MTVu brand turns their pink nose up at us. The reality is that college kids still love to come here, others can organize huge shows to keep the crowds busy and the party will still be in Panama City Beach during Spring Break 2009.