Jackson tourism signs new marketing contract
Tourism folks in Jackson County are feeling hopeful after hiring a new marketing firm to spread the word about the county’s hidden wonders.
“They’re thrilled to be working with us and we’re thrilled to have them overseeing our advertising,” Nick Breedlove — director of the Jackson County Tourism Development Authority — said of the firm Rawle Murdy. “They get us, they know the mountains and to us that’s big.”
Rawle Murdy, based in Charleston, South Carolina, was one of 18 companies that submitted proposals for the contract to manage Jackson’s marketing efforts when the TDA decided to look for alternatives to its existing contract with The Brandon Agency, based in Myrtle Beach. After reviewing all 18 proposals and interviewing top picks, Breedlove said, the choice was “crystal clear.”
“We’re really excited that so many really good quality people wanted to work with us, and we picked the cream of the crop,” agreed Robert Jumper, TDA board chairman.
Regional ties and enthusiasm
The company has a deep background in hospitality and tourism marketing, and while based in Charleston, many of its top people have roots in the mountains. Bruce Murdy, company president, has a home in Highlands. Jackson’s account representative John Kautz has parents in Franklin, and creative director Patrick Rhyne, himself from Hickory, has a wife from Haywood County.
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For Breedlove, a Jackson native himself, those ties are important.
“It really made me have a great comfort level that they weren’t just a big firm from Atlanta or a large city,” Breedlove said. “They get Jackson County.”
The TDA was also impressed by the vigorousness with which Rawle Murdy went after the contract.
“For me what kind of tipped it over the edge was their interest, their aggressiveness in preparing for us,” Jumper said. “They studied us, and their top people came to nearly every meeting.”
Rawle Murdy brought the full team down to the TDA meeting last week where they presented to the full board before receiving a unanimous vote to approve the contract. Though not all representatives participated in the presentation, four of them were involved in giving the final presentation.
“We’re the right size for Jackson County,” Murdy told the board. “A lot of times in our business you send the A-team up to talk and to you (the board) and then you never see them again. The people that you see today are the people who will be doing the work.”
The team started digging in before the contract was even awarded, with account director Chris Van Duyne presenting results of a survey of 675 adults who take at least one vacation per year. The survey aimed to find out how many people knew where Jackson County was, what the place brings to mind and what kinds of activities people seek during a mountain getaway.
With most of Jackson’s visitors coming from within North Carolina, state residents are the “low-hanging fruit” for advertising, Van Duyne said, but the survey showed that not too many people know where Jackson County is. When heading to the mountains, he continued, vacationers are seeking places heavy in outdoor pursuits and opportunities for relaxation, so it’s up to Rawle Murdy to come up with a brand equipped with an “emotional trigger” to show that Jackson is the place to meet those needs.
Rhyne pitched a couple concepts that might fit the bill. For instance, perhaps an ad campaign featuring slogans like, “Big on adventure, small on everything else,” and “Big on charm, small on everything else” — something to show Jackson County as a place that embraces you while offering world-class recreational opportunities. Breedlove said he was pleased with the concepts and looks forward to seeing a more refined final product, something that will “distinguish Jackson County from every other destination with those common assets,” such as waterfalls, lakes and charming downtowns.
Differences in cost
While the TDA seems unified in certainty that Rawle Murdy is the best qualified firm out there to take Jackson’s marketing efforts into the future, the company will be paid more than the Brandon Agency, which currently handles Jackson’s marketing and website efforts.
Jackson will be paying $106,600 for website management, account management and creative work, as opposed to $85,650 with Brandon. The overall agreement, which includes a media budget, is for $380,000 — Brandon cost $375,600 — and it will cost an additional $40,500 to have Rawle Murdy rebuild the tourism website, www.mountainloversnc.com.
However, Breedlove said, while Rawle Murdy is getting paid more, it’s hard to directly compare their numbers with Brandon’s. That’s because the contracts include different services categorized in different ways, but also just because the landscape is changing.
“It’s likely had we stuck with Brandon they would have requested an increase because we’re requesting more work out of all of them (marketing agencies) than we ever have,” he said.
The two other marketing agencies the TDA works with — Pineapple Public Relations and INNsights Internet Marketing — got a 30 percent contract increase this year, with the TDA budgeting $94,000 for their combined contracts in 2016-17. The agreement with Rawle Murdy is just 1 percent more than the overall contract with Brandon. But, when you back the media budget out of that price, however, the jump from $85,650 with Brandon to $106,600 with Rawle Murdy represents a 24 percent increase.
The TDA’s budget comes from the county’s 4 percent tax on overnight lodging, such as that charged at hotels and motels. The idea is that those funds, which primarily come from tourists, get plowed back into the marketing efforts administered by the TDA. In the four years of the TDA’s existence, occupancy tax proceeds — and therefore the TDA’s budget — have risen 65 percent, Breedlove said. Last year’s TDA budget of $828,000 correlated with $171.16 million in tourist spending.
“With the tourism boom we’ve seen lately, it’s only natural that we would ask more of our partner agencies,” Breedlove said.
According to a report produced by Smith Travel Research, during the week of May 15 to May 21 occupancy in Jackson County was up 4 percent compared to the same period last year — but down 7.2 percent in surrounding counties. During the week of May 8 to 14, Jackson’s occupancy was up 11 percent over the previous year while surrounding counties experienced a dip of 3.3 percent.
“I attribute it entirely to our marketing strategy over the last few years,” said Breedlove, who became the TDA’s first full-time executive director in January. “We have great leadershipp. We have a board that is heavily invested in the success of the TDA.”
Breedlove believes that success is on the horizon.
“There is so much potential to be capitalized on right now in Jackson County that we wanted to find the right partner to do that,” he said, “and that partner is Rawle Murdy.”
