The Difference Between "Real Fun Beach" and "Summer White Sale"

Here are 5 reasons why “Real Fun Beach” will work and 2008’s “Summer White Sale” wasted a lot of money.

1. “Real Fun Beach” (RFB) tells you exactly what Panama City Beach is, has been, and will always be.

It is what “the Beach Lovers Beach” was trying to be, but never was.

It replaces the long time, halfway official “world’s most beautiful beaches.” Claiming to be the world’s most beautiful beaches is a little too broad and boastful to hang your hat on, even though it’s a very true claim to me and thousands of others who love it here.

2. They got the domain name! YAY! “RealFunBeach.com” is a beautiful, easy to remember, easy to type, tells-you-what-it-is domain name.

3. The sub-concept — I’ll call it “Yesterday: Real, Today: Fun” since I don’t know what the staff and agencies call it — is equally brilliant. Its message says “one day you’re in your real world: worker, parent, student, etc., and today you can be in the fun world at the Real Fun Beach. This is perfect bait for fishing in PCB’s honey hole, Atlanta. A fast five hour drive from the real world to the fun world.

4. The “Yesterday/Today” idea can be used and reinvented in so many great ways. This is a concept that can grow and thrive for years, because it’s so flexible in letting us compare real world vs. fun world.

5. The offline campaign ties in perfectly to the online campaign. Go figure. Read Jason‘s article on the online campaign for more info.

And the “Summer White Sale”? It had none of this. Nothing to differentiate PCB, nothing to transform the mindset of the consumer about PCB (it actually reinforced negative perceptions of being a cheap, lower-class destination). Nothing that could grow and live on as a brand, nothing that could really help us move forward with a new image. It never had a chance.

A few concerns (only 3!) with this new campaign:

1.
Real. Fun. Beach.
Using. Periods. For. Emphasis. In. Headlines.
Way. Over. Done.
But. Maybe. It. Still. Works.
Heck. I’ve. Done. It. Before.

2. The cute little names for our tourists, Sandy Bottom Bunch, Soul Searcher, etc., are clever and can be expanded to define more types of visitors. Another great concept that could live on for years.

But since local tourism businesses will now have the ability to target these segments directly through the CVB site, who’s to say a big bar can’t clutter my “Soul Searcher” page when I expect only “relaxed and laid” back results for my vacation planning? Perhaps the CVB has a plan in place for this, but then they’re walking a fine line by telling one business that they do not qualify to market to the “Sandy Bottom Bunch.” This is another perfect example of why government entities and tax dollars should not be used to run business and marketing campaigns such as this one. This campaign, in a perfect world, would have been developed by one of the large accomodation providers or a coalition of private businesses such as the Greater PCB Chamber.

3. I am convinced that Jennifer Barbee and company will accurately measure online traffic through all the major channels, and probably help with offline measurement as well. With all this new data coming and being properly measured, don’t we all get to have a copy of that information? All bed tax dollars are spent equally and fairly for the benefit of the Bay County tourism industry, right? And since it’s run by the county, all citizens get access, right? And even tourists – who suffer the burden of the tax equally with the collectors – should get a peek since they helped fund it, right?

One last thing. The team did some research for this campaign in Atlanta. The professionals discovered what this hack in Lynn Haven has been telling you for 3 years: Atlanta does not know us, and the Atlantians who think they know us don’t know the real us. The fact that they’re already our number one market is irrelevant. Here’s something I’ll bet on in 2009 and 2010…there are many more potential visitors in Atlanta, Georgia (repeat visits included, of course) than there are the rest of the world. Call me crazy, but that’s just how it is when you add a little real world common sense to all the marketing research and data.

Now, with Real Fun Beach, I suggest all of you bed tax collectors jump on board with this idea, aim 5 easy hours up the road to Atlanta, use “Real Fun Beach” in your advertising, call your guests “Soggy Bottom Bunch” or “Dark Sharks” or whatever is being promoted on the web site and REALLY BUY INTO THIS THING TO MAKE IT WORK.

New Summer Marketing Campaign to Brand "FUN"

“Best dang beach vacation ever. Period.” – Funculator – Funtastic – These are some of the ideas that came out of the brain-storming session yesterday with regard to the summer marketing campaign. The “brand” for this summer is FUN with an emphasis on creating the perception of value when vacationing on Panama City Beach.

Last year’s Summer White Sale, touted as wildly successful was surely a media ploy in that the actual results were not actually wet with success, but the image of the whole campaign from a PR perspective certainly was. Featured in the likes of the New York Times and other coveted news publications, the estimated value in PR placement was in the hundreds of thousands. However, the actual deals were nothing to call home to mom about. As pointed out by Bryan Durta, “The deals that were to be had were nothing more than what you could find on the rack cards or local discount books.”

This year the marketing committee wanted to place an emphasis on value enhancement rather than discounts. The idea is to create incentives that didn’t give the appearance that we were a discount location that would in turn devalue our image. By placing an emphasis on increased value, i.e. getting more for your money, instead of saying 20% off, we look bettter.

I agree with this, but the only question, and this resounded in the room yesterday, was how do we do this and give (as Hoot Crawford so famously put) everyone a fair shake. What is the best strategy for being sure everyone can benefit from this outside of just a few select hoteliers, attractions and restaurants? Well, that seemed to be the presiding issue and concern. In fact, for quite some time, there was quite a bit of discussion as to exactly how to handle this very issue until Marty McDaniel stepped in.

Marty is the new Director of the TDC and kindly reminded everyone that the details are just the details – we still need a big boom, a hook that people will grab on to and follow to Panama City Beach. We’ve got to have a very powerful message that will capture the attention of visitors and potential visitors. Whatever we do has to be revolutionary. If we can come with something that is WOW, it will work.

YPartnership wanted to brand “FUN”, with maybe a Funculator on the main page of the visitpanamacitybeach.com web site that could calculate how much ‘fun’ you would have on your trip here. The idea is to emphasize more fun, more beach, more entertainment, more summer for you, etc.

At the end of the meeting, YPartnerhship left with some ideas as to what direction we want to go and hopefully enough amunition to come back with something great, because we need it.

TDC Marketing Meeting – New Web Site Update, Summer Marketing Talk

Tuesday’s Marketing Committee meeting should bring joy and laughter as we all dance around a silly little hat singing kumbaya. Wait, scratch that, what?!

On the agenda is discussion (or updates, rather) of the new destination web site and discussion of the summer marketing campaign. With last year’s failure of the Summer White Sale, I’m sure very anxious to see what they’ve come up with this year. The nature of the Summer White Sale had promises of creative success, perhaps the way it was carried out and the essence of the body was what failed. Anyway, I digress, it’s in the past.

Agenda can be downloaded here, or observed below:

AGENDA

MARKETING COMMITTEE MEETING
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:00 p.m. Board Room, Visitor
Information Center

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

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

IV. UPDATE ON DESTINATION WEBSITE, Ms. Susan Estler, VP of Marketing

V. DISCUSSION OF 2009 SUMMER MARKETING CAMPAIGN, Ms. Susan Estler, VP of Marketing, and Ms. Kathy Fordham, YPartnership

VI. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

VII. ADJOURNMENT

The Fall is Over, so how did the White Sale go?

I suppose it has been quite some time since I’ve shared a highly opinionated piece on how we market our area. Maybe too much criticism, or maybe I’ve been really busy, but nevertheless here we go.

Right to the point.

The Extended White Sale, as it has been dubbed was an extension of the “Wildly Successful” Summer White Sale. It was decided that the Summer White Sale had gone so amazingly well, that it was prudent to extend the promotions into the fall, so people could download coupons to Shipwreck Island Waterpark that actually closed first week in September. Please note the sarcasm.

The numbers.

It total, the entire campaign saw 95,780 visits on http://www.pcbwhitesale.com (now forwarded to visitpanamacitybeach.com) and 23,890 total coupon downloads. The entire cost rang in at a whopping $575,000. That’s right, the comma IS in the right place. Looking at previously reported numbers, that would leave 15,718 visits and 3,945 coupon downloads for the Extended White Sale. The extension cost $80,000.

I would really love to see a breakdown of what cost what – I’m wondering how the bill got up to almost $600k.

So, with the total coupon downloads being at 23,890 and a total cost of $575,000, the TDC paid $24 per coupon download. The TDC paid 24 dollars per coupon downloaded.

I have an interesting question: How far would the businesses get if THEY were given $24 for every coupon of theirs downloaded? Just curious how you think they would have fared had they been given that money, instead of a creative agency. They could do with it whatever they please – keep it on the books, use it for advertising, use it to subsidize lower rates for everyone that comes in their doors, whatever.

I mean, what if Shipwreck Island was to use that money to subsidize entrance fees giving the first random/unannounced number of people each day Monday – Wednesday (or whatever notoriously slow part of the week during the summer) 50% off all summer long. Imagine the lines of people that would be at the front gates in the morning and all the people that would stay and pay full price because they were already there with the kids.

What if Captain Jacks used their share to have Buy One Get One Free Tuesday Nights all summer long. How many more people would eat there when they were in town.

The ideas are only limited by your creativity (I have little, I know).

Look, I think we all learned a hard lesson this year. With that huge sucking noise we hear coming out of Washington as the economy falls more and more into a recession is effecting all of us – we are all scurrying to keep money in our pockets to pay the bills.

I believe rash decisions were made that turned out to be bad decisions, and hopefully next season, we will have a greater understanding as to how we need to move forward with all marketing campaigns.

TDC's $52 million improvement iniative

Wednesday, the TDC’s Revenue Enhancement Committee (fancy for bed tax committee) met to discuss improvement ideas for Panama City Beach and how to fund it all.

The ideas range from a new beach trash disposal system to a grass amphitheatre with bathroom and concessions facilities at Aaron Bessant Park.

The ideas stem from the Strategic Plan and include:

TDC Marketing and Awareness
- Welcome to the Beach campaign which would include welcome signs west of the Hathaway Bridge and along Highway 79, and replacing existing signs.
- New beach trash disposal system to replace the existing blue refuse containers.
- Beach safety campaign to increase public awareness about the flag warning system and fund additional flag poles. (THIS ISN’T ENOUGH, PEOPLE, AND YOU KNOW IT!)
- Estimated total cost of $500,000 per year.
Special Events Marketing
- Construct a permanent stage suitable for concerts and theatrical performances at Aaron Bessant Park, at Pier Park.
- Build an amphitheatre ‘bowl’ with a grass covered berm with restroom and concession space on the back/underside of the grass ‘bowl’. Should be capable of a 5,000 capacity.
- Create space for tents, vendor areas, or other festival support areas in the flat areas of the park.
- Estimated total coast of $5 million

I think this is a really neat idea, and definitely worth looking into, but we need to be planning for 25,000 people, not 5,000 people. Aaron Bessant Park needs some renovation, but will never have the capability to have anything much larger than the summer Concerts in the Park series. We need to be looking at improving larger capacity facilities, like Frank Brown Park.

Sports Marketing – Frank Brown Park
- Develop two additional ‘pinwheels’ of softball/youth baseball fields with the appropriate infrastructure.
- Make two of the fields in the new ‘pinwheels’ the ‘marquee’ fields with additional seating, dugouts, press boxes, etc., one for baseball, one for softball.
- Look at building a warm-up pool and permanent seating at the aquatic center to enhance potential at attracting regional swimming competitions.
- Enhance the equestrian facilities
- Estimated total cost is $7.5 to $10 million
Sports Marketing – Sports Village Complex (in addition to Frank Brown Park, would need to acquire additional land)
- Develop indoor field house to expand offerings to include court and mat sports.
- Develop 8 to 12 rectangular fields for soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, flag football, etc. Some would have grass, others artificial turf
- Develop 8 full-sized baseball fields for additional tournaments and practicing facilities.
- Estimated total cost is $33 to $35 million
Destination Marketing
- Begin international marketing efforts when the new airport comes online and our area becomes more easily accessed.
- Increase domestic advertising – more money is needed in order to fully penetrate our core markets and expand outside the southeast (or we could just use the $500k that was wasted on the Summer White Sale campaign for something that is more innovative, creative, and effective)
- Enhance the Visitor Center with new technology and look and feel
- Estimated total cost is $1 to $2 million

Now, where did all these numbers come from? That is an unknown as of now, just estimations. The committee requested of Dan and Staff to ‘zero-base’ the numbers and give details to how much each aspect of these improvements will cost, ideally to have everything spelled out by the December TDC meeting. The goal is to have everything in order to request an additional 2cents be added to the bed tax first part of the year.

Staff counsel, Doug Sale said that from implementation to actual collection could be up to 90 days, so if they could get the tax implemented first of the year, collections could start rolling in for the new season in spring break.

I’m in total agreement that we need to collect additional bed tax in order to keep up with the competition. I’ve not been too impressed with the way the money has been spent in the past, however. I will give kudos to TDC Chair Andy Phillips for staying on everyone to be sure the numbers included will have some specificity in the near future.

Video of Jason Koertge on the Lee Sullivan Show

I was on the Lee Sullivan Show a few weeks ago, and have gotten the show online. Lee and I discussed the TDC, the Summer White Sale and how IT WASN’T wildly successful, college spring break, sports marketing, bed tax increase, and tons more.

I’ve broken the show down to four videos. Total, it is around 20 minutes.

Segment 1

Segment 2:

Segment 3:

Segment 4:

Be sure to post a comment below!

9/2/08 TDC/CVB: Budget Approved Without Any Changes

8 of the 9 board members were present for the special meeting that was called last Friday. Absent was Mike Nelson. Public attendance was probably the smallest it has been in the last year. It’s anyone’s guess whether this was due to the unusual scheduling of the meeting, a lack of public interest, or the public just agreeing with the priorities of the TDC/CVB as set out in the budget.

The board unanimously approved the FY 2009 budget which begins on October 1st. The budgets were accepted as proposed by staff and no motions were made suggesting any changes. Final approval will now be up to the Bay County Commission which is scheduled to take up the matter on Setember 16^th.

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Panama City Beach Extends ‘White Sale’ For Fall

SAVINGS ROLL IN:
Panama City Beach Extends ‘White Sale’ For Fall,
Offers Discounts From 50 Travel Partners

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (August 21, 2008) – You can still catch the wave of savings at one of America’s top beaches — Panama City Beach, Fla. This award-winning destination on the Gulf of Mexico extends its Summer White Sale, offering deep discounts on weekend getaways and vacations well into the fall.

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Did the Summer White Sale Hurt Local Businesses?

There was a “letter to the editor” published in the News Herald on July 18th from Reggie Lancaster talking about how the Summer White Sale didn’t help local tourism, but actually hurt the existing businesses.

Quote:

Few people have more of an appreciation of what our Tourist Development Council members do than I. I spent 11 years on the board and chaired it for four years and have fond memories of serving with some great people. I would like to offer some constructive criticism to the advertising agency and the board in regards to the current advertising effort referred to as the Summer White Sale.

Although well intentioned, I don’t believe the advertising campaign produced the desired results. Instead of enticing new guests to come to Panama City Beach, it largely accomplished offering reduced rates and incentives to guests who already had reservations or at least plans to come here. Consequently, while everything else in the country was going up in price, we were reducing already stressed profit margins in the accommodation industry.

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The Summer White Sale has been released

I was unaware that this had been finalized, but I guess final numbers were supposed to be in by April 25th by all the retail partners participating in this program.

I came across this press release:

Savings Roll In: Panama City Beach Announces ‘Summer White Sale’ With Discounts From 50 Tourism Partners

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla., May 6 /PRNewswire/ — Surf is up, and prices are down in Panama City Beach, Fla.

This award-winning destination on the Gulf of Mexico launches its Summer White Sale today, offering great savings on everything you need for the perfect beach break. The White Sale joins more than 50 Beach accommodations, restaurants and attractions. They team up to present 75 different discount offers with a total value of more than $6,000. All offers are valid now — Aug. 31. More local businesses can join in for additional savings to roll in all spring and summer long

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