I've been doing some research on "heritage tourism" which helps people discover interesting places that are notable for their history, unique architecture, etc.
After the National Trust for Historic Preservation came to town last year, I expected that Tulsa would immediately jump on the heritage travel bandwagon. But a quick search of the NTHP list of "distinctive places" for heritage travel in Oklahoma lists two cities: Bartlesville and Guthrie.
Hello? Tulsa?
I looked at the Oklahoma Travel website, and was intrigued that when you're searching for travel info on Tulsa, it directs you to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce home page (where the "breakfast network" group and "human resources forum" don't exactly make me want to jump in my car and travel here for vacation).
Eventually, you'll find a link to the CVB, which is better. But their website doesn't inspire much either. (Those "I Am" icons have got to be the least effective marketing tool ever! It looks like my computer's desktop: "Let's see... do I want to travel to Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat today...?")
Are you excited about Art Deco? This photo will really inspire you. (/sarcasm)
(http://www.visittulsa.com/upload/14.jpg)
But if you click on the link to "View all Art Deco" you get the following list:
1. Mayo Hotel
2. Mayo Motor Inn
Sigh....
"I looked at the Oklahoma Travel website, and was intrigued that when you're searching for travel info on Tulsa, it directs you to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce home page (where the "breakfast network" group and "human resources forum" don't exactly make me want to jump in my car and travel here for vacation)."
Careful you wouldn't want to awake the keepers at the gate....
The ire of the "Executive Order" contract can be quite extreme.
To say nothing of the TYpros that will inherit the Hotel Motel Tax fund.
Help me create an Art-Deco Museum for Tulsa, we will promote and enhance our deco heritage. We will have the only real art-deco museum in the country (the one in Miami isnt really a museum per say as far as I can tell ), we could create the worlds premier, greatest, largest, etc. Art-Deco museum and promote it as such. If you like art-deco, Tulsa will be one of the, if not the, top dream destination/pilgrimage site. This is one of the few things we can hype about our city, and not be stretching the truth beyond defendable credibility lol. Its a natural fit for Tulsa and we could, and should, do it. If we dont its a sad sad statement.
http://visittulsa.com/index.asp
That's the best website I found while Googling. I didn't try to find associated search terms that I would expect: Art Deco, Native American Culture, Storm Chasing, casinos, music, lakes, music festivals (Rocklahoma! Country Fever, DFest), shows . . . whatever search terms SHOULD be associated with Tulsa tourism (giant naked Indian statue). There's a ton of stuff happening that could draw people in regionally for a long weekend or whatever. Come for Paul McCartney, stay an extra day for [insert things here].
Also TravelOK has the NorthEast tourism pamphlet which has a lot of Tulsa stuff (7 meg pdf):
http://www.travelok.com/hm_banners/NEOKHistLandscapes-OT-J156.pdf
/brief search. I agree it could be marketed better and that I really don't know HOW it is being marketed.
Here's an example of what I mean. I was looking at the Oklahoma Travel Guide, which is a big, glossy publication. Based only on the ads below, which one makes you want to go there?
Here's the Tulsa ad:
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2429/3702390940_abb28af40d.jpg)
And here's the OKC ad:
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2643/3701583027_8e5e484c02.jpg)
Good catch.
Tulsa hire an OKC company to advertise Tulsa tourism?
You might be on to something there...
The "urban magic" section of the Oklahoma Travel Guide includes an incredible photo of the Skirvin Hotel at night (lit up in all its newly restored glory) that takes up most of two pages. Then, down in the lower right corner, there's a 2" square (or smaller?) photo of some weird "artsy" sign in the Blue Dome district that I've never even noticed before. (In the parking lot across from Tsunami?)
That's suppposed to make me want to go to downtown Tulsa?
I don't know if there's an OKC bias, or if the Tulsa folks just aren't talking to the OK Tourism folks. Or perhaps they fired the official Tulsa photographer back in the early 1990's? (I bet their picture of the Philbrook garden is at least 10 years old.)
If it were up to me, I'd ask dsjeffries to inundate the OK Tourism people in OKC with amazing photographs of Tulsa. (Why does he have so many great shots posted on Flickr, but they can't seem to find a decent one to publish?)
A little current info on Tulsa Tourism..
The report from the TMCC to the City Council earlier this year.
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y179/rico2/Tourismreport09.jpg)
Then there are these... also from earlier this year. Report given to the City Council.(p.s. the date says 2007 but they may have been short of paper)
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y179/rico2/ChairTypros.jpg)(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y179/rico2/TourismTypros.jpg)
Myself; I don't give a rats a$$ that the Chamber markets the area. But are we getting the proper amount of
bang for the buck?
"From Cowboy to Contemporary, Hip to Historical..."
What a great tag line! I always thought Tulsa was the more creative fountain of word pictures. That just rocks. Perhaps the creatives in this city need a kick in the butt. Frankly, they have more to work with than we do as far as marketing to outsiders. But visitors to OKC must suffer from an intense case of letdown when they actually go there. We on the other hand, with our lowered expectations, always come out with a positive response...."nice little town".
Quote from: PonderInc on July 08, 2009, 05:25:23 PM
You might be on to something there...
The "urban magic" section of the Oklahoma Travel Guide includes an incredible photo of the Skirvin Hotel at night (lit up in all its newly restored glory) that takes up most of two pages. Then, down in the lower right corner, there's a 2" square (or smaller?) photo of some weird "artsy" sign in the Blue Dome district that I've never even noticed before. (In the parking lot across from Tsunami?)
That's suppposed to make me want to go to downtown Tulsa?
I don't know if there's an OKC bias, or if the Tulsa folks just aren't talking to the OK Tourism folks. Or perhaps they fired the official Tulsa photographer back in the early 1990's? (I bet their picture of the Philbrook garden is at least 10 years old.)
If it were up to me, I'd ask dsjeffries to inundate the OK Tourism people in OKC with amazing photographs of Tulsa. (Why does he have so many great shots posted on Flickr, but they can't seem to find a decent one to publish?)
Thanks for the plug, Ponder! On the subject of marketing and photography (two things I think I do pretty well), I've always wondered who was selling Tulsa and who they were trying to reach by using photos from the 1980s. Actually, Ponder, you might be interested to know that part of the reason I have so many thousands of photos of Tulsa on flickr is precisely because I saw that very few great photos popped up when I typed "Tulsa architecture", "Tulsa skyline", "Tulsa downtown", etc. into Google, Flickr or any kind of travel website. Most photos at the time were very old, of poor quality, or were just photos of models or crayon pencils (type "Tulsa" into flickr and see what pops up first).
So I set out to document the city and present it in a dynamic way to anyone searching for photos of Tulsa. I would say that it's been pretty successful, too. 8 of my top 10 photos with the highest views are of Tulsa, with the top photo having been viewed more than 11,350 times. I'm hoping to change the way outsiders view the city, and doing so in small ways like having great images pop up in searches. It's small, but I think it makes a difference. I get so many comments from people saying, "Wow! That's in Tulsa?!?!?", "I never knew Tulsa had such tall, great buildings", or "I've got to visit that place!". That makes it worth it, stolen pictures and all ;).
If I can inundate the Oklahoma Department of Tourism with photos of Tulsa (they always seem to have the oldest and worst) or even our local agencies, just tell me who. :) I'd be more than happy.
One problem that keeps coming back time and time again is no follow-through with our marketing campaigns--we present things like the "i am" campaign and then never complete the websites (or even basic lists of art deco buildings, for crying out loud!), buy ad space in magazines, newspapers, travel websites, or even radio and television spots.
For example, how many times have you heard the cheesy Kansas City radio commercial with its own theme song?
Now, how many times have you gone
anywhere and heard (or seen) any kind of promo for Tulsa?
Especially with the economy like it is and with people taking much shorter trips, Tulsa should be reaching out to every place within 5 hours of here, sticking its neck out and saying, "Hey...Hey!... HEY! Look at me! Come to Tulsa!".
Instead, we place "i am" billboards all around
our own city. Now that's effective (/sarcasm).
While most other places are busy putting their best foot forward, we're busy kicking ourselves with our best foot. It's quite distracting.
Quote from: waterboy on July 08, 2009, 06:56:00 PM
"From Cowboy to Contemporary, Hip to Historical..."
What a great tag line! I always thought Tulsa was the more creative fountain of word pictures. That just rocks. Perhaps the creatives in this city need a kick in the butt. Frankly, they have more to work with than we do as far as marketing to outsiders. But visitors to OKC must suffer from an intense case of letdown when they actually go there. We on the other hand, with our lowered expectations, always come out with a positive response...."nice little town".
What??? And get rid of that great tag line "comfortably cosmopolitan"?
I have always thought the "I am" campaign was the worst I have ever seen. The first billboard I saw was the one with part of a bicycle tire ("I am ____ miles of bike paths). I almost had a wreck trying to figure out what the picture was, and what it meant. I'm no advertising expert, but isn't the point to actually let the customer know what you are selling? Who in the world came up with the idea to crop all of the pictures so you don't actually know what's there? Can't wait to visit "ins room cing" on my next vacation (If I were Cains, I sure would be angry). I live here, and I can't identify some of the pictures. The point of advertising a vacation spot is to make the viewer want to BE THERE. How could anyone want to be in Tulsa based on those pictures, when you can't even figure out what they are pictures of?
Quote from: dsjeffries on July 08, 2009, 08:23:01 PM
Thanks for the plug, Ponder! On the subject of marketing and photography (two things I think I do pretty well), I've always wondered who was selling Tulsa and who they were trying to reach by using photos from the 1980s. Actually, Ponder, you might be interested to know that part of the reason I have so many thousands of photos of Tulsa on flickr is precisely because I saw that very few great photos popped up when I typed "Tulsa architecture", "Tulsa skyline", "Tulsa downtown", etc. into Google, Flickr or any kind of travel website. Most photos at the time were very old, of poor quality, or were just photos of models or crayon pencils (type "Tulsa" into flickr and see what pops up first).
So I set out to document the city and present it in a dynamic way to anyone searching for photos of Tulsa. I would say that it's been pretty successful, too. 8 of my top 10 photos with the highest views are of Tulsa, with the top photo having been viewed more than 11,350 times. I'm hoping to change the way outsiders view the city, and doing so in small ways like having great images pop up in searches. It's small, but I think it makes a difference. I get so many comments from people saying, "Wow! That's in Tulsa?!?!?", "I never knew Tulsa had such tall, great buildings", or "I've got to visit that place!". That makes it worth it, stolen pictures and all ;).
If I can inundate the Oklahoma Department of Tourism with photos of Tulsa (they always seem to have the oldest and worst) or even our local agencies, just tell me who. :) I'd be more than happy.
One problem that keeps coming back time and time again is no follow-through with our marketing campaigns--we present things like the "i am" campaign and then never complete the websites (or even basic lists of art deco buildings, for crying out loud!), buy ad space in magazines, newspapers, travel websites, or even radio and television spots.
For example, how many times have you heard the cheesy Kansas City radio commercial with its own theme song?
Now, how many times have you gone anywhere and heard (or seen) any kind of promo for Tulsa?
Especially with the economy like it is and with people taking much shorter trips, Tulsa should be reaching out to every place within 5 hours of here, sticking its neck out and saying, "Hey...Hey!... HEY! Look at me! Come to Tulsa!".
Instead, we place "i am" billboards all around our own city. Now that's effective (/sarcasm).
While most other places are busy putting their best foot forward, we're busy kicking ourselves with our best foot. It's quite distracting.
This type of organic marketing could actually be more successful as it reaches people via the internet, and more importantly, Google. Skyscraperpage is another great medium for promoting cities and has a huge membership, actually one of the largest city-related forums on the internet with members from all over the U.S. and world. They would adore your pics over there. I have posted Tulsa pics there before and people (as usual) are always so surprised and amazed by our city. There is a fantastic aerial photo thread over there http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=158609 (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=158609) that really was an awesome 'organic' marketing tool for all the people that viewed it, and more of that is needed.
Yes, I do a lot of stuff on Skyscraperpage and would love to see DScott to a photo thread or two on it.
Looking at OK tourism twitter...the last time Tulsa was mentioned was June 24th
Quote from: pmcalk on July 08, 2009, 10:15:01 PM
What??? And get rid of that great tag line "comfortably cosmopolitan"?
I have always thought the "I am" campaign was the worst I have ever seen. The first billboard I saw was the one with part of a bicycle tire ("I am ____ miles of bike paths). I almost had a wreck trying to figure out what the picture was, and what it meant. I'm no advertising expert, but isn't the point to actually let the customer know what you are selling?
I, too, drove past that billboard many times, trying to figure it out. "What the heck IS THAT?!" Ugh.
The examples of our I AM campaign versus the OKC photo are a good example of what real estate people mean by "staging." The goal, when selling your house, is to stage it in such a way that people can IMAGINE THEMSELVES LIVING THERE. They can see your house, and immediately picture themselves in that setting.
I look at the OKC picture (of a town I don't even really like), and I think: "That looks cool. I'd go there. I want to walk around there."
I look at the I AM campaign, and I think: "Uh. Whatever." And then I turn the page without realizing that it's supposed to capture the best of Tulsa.
A couple years ago, Southwest Airlines magazine did a cover story on Tulsa. It was fantastic, and it was the first time I'd ever seen anyone market our city properly. It made me proud of our city, and it made me think: "Yes! Beautiful! Cool!"
Oooh... here's a game. Let's try to identify what these icons are. I've lived here most of my life, so this should be easy. Right?
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2669/3703942981_7f0015309e.jpg)
OK, from left to the right, and then going down by rows...
1. Window of some church? Holy Family Cathedral?
2. Fish at the Jenks Aquarium
3. A pretty design, possibly ironwork
4. Ballerina legs
5. The Blue Dome at night
6. The BOK Center glass wall
7. Sushi
8. A blury blob of color that might be a coffee cup handle
9. Someone playing guitar
10. More sushi
11. A terra cotta tile from some amazing building we can't recognize.
12. A carnival ride; or a Kokopelli boxing
13. Radishes
14. Shiny brass things
15. Abstract art: TVs on sale
16. Bronze detail from some amazing downtown building that we can't see.
17. Someone's garden really close up; or the inside of an empty fish tank
18. A Geisha girl
19. Native American symbol for "don't walk"
20. Steak
21. Uh... A natural gas pipeline, or someone swinging a bat, or possibly a flag girl in a marching band.
22. The Cain's sign
23. A salad
24. Unripe grapes
25. Abstract image of something
26. Golf course or park
27. A deformed fortune cookie, a Polish pastry, or a peach colored knit tie being worn by an albino.
28. Route 66 painted on asphalt
29. Another park or golf course
30. The rearview mirror of a car
31. Part of a violin or other string instrument
32. Neon lights
33. A staircase at Hogwarts School
34. Peacock feathers
35. The roof of a strip mall?
36. Gumby (walking on water, carrying a surfboard); or the front fork of a bike being ridden on a lake
37. Kid at a skatepark
38. A flower in a white room
39. Bronze of a guy with a hibiscus on his forehead
40. Teenagers legs
41. Spaceship landing on a dark planet
42. A blob reflected on a shiny floor.
It's telling a story?
I do a lot of work with the CVB, which is nominally in charge of selling the city. They are by and large a fine group of people and work their collective butts off to bring new business to town.
However.
They are hamstrung by a criminal lack of funding and a severly ossified upper management team. Of the two, the lack of funding is the most important. Unlike similar sized cities, our hotel taxes don't directly trickle down to the budget of the CVB. Instead, the Chamber and the city take control of the taxes and divvy out a portion -- but not all -- to the CVB. There is currently a movement underway by members of the CVB and of the local hospitality industry to find ways to work around the funding logjam, either by directly mandating that the tax money go to marketing or by increasing the hotel tax.
Unfortunately, this is where the ossification of upper management comes in. We're still a long way from getting a solid effort coordinated, but at least there's an effort being made.
(In anticipating future comments, I can't emphasize enough how severely underfunded the CVB is, and how that translates directly into an absence of Tulsa on any regional or national stage whatsoever. They've been working on a shoestring budget in comparison to similar organizations and unfortunately it shows.)
^^I can appreciate that, but lack of funding really isn't an excuse for a bad idea. I would think that one or two good/whole pictures wouldn't be any more expensive than 42 bad/partial pictures. Again, I am no expert, but the whole campaign simply leaves me thinking, what in the heck were they thinking? As Ponder said, the whole idea of advertising is to get the viewer to envision themselves in the scene. Not to leave the viewer thinking, "what the heck is that?"
Quote from: PonderInc on July 09, 2009, 10:19:23 AM
I, too, drove past that billboard many times, trying to figure it out. "What the heck IS THAT?!" Ugh.
The examples of our I AM campaign versus the OKC photo are a good example of what real estate people mean by "staging." The goal, when selling your house, is to stage it in such a way that people can IMAGINE THEMSELVES LIVING THERE. They can see your house, and immediately picture themselves in that setting.
I look at the OKC picture (of a town I don't even really like), and I think: "That looks cool. I'd go there. I want to walk around there."
I look at the I AM campaign, and I think: "Uh. Whatever." And then I turn the page without realizing that it's supposed to capture the best of Tulsa.
A couple years ago, Southwest Airlines magazine did a cover story on Tulsa. It was fantastic, and it was the first time I'd ever seen anyone market our city properly. It made me proud of our city, and it made me think: "Yes! Beautiful! Cool!"
That one thread posted at Skyscraperpage showing aerial pics of our fair city, and the great response it received from people all over the country and world, made me really proud. Simply taking big, nice photos of Tulsa can capture the city much better than gimicky slogans.
I have to agree, the "I Am" thing is so lame. It sounded promising when they hired that firm and they supposedly went around Tulsa to find what our city was about and "distill" it into a theme or identity. "I Am" is no identity or theme. I thought the "Comfortably Cosmopolitan" idea had potential. Not fantastic, but definitely something that could be played with on many levels and certainly better than what they came up with instead.
The... "From Cowboy to Contemporary, Hip to Historical..." that someone posted could have worked. Where did that come from?
I am gonna start pushing Tulsa...The Deco City on T-shirts, posters, adverts etc. to go along with the Art-Deco Museum. New tag line on skyscraper page? Keep using it over and over in as many places and ways as possible, and it will stick.
I really think we should play up our deco heritage. I find it frustrating to see great contemporary deco styled buildings going up in other parts of the world, soon some other cities will have more deco than we will have. And thats stupid for us to fall behind on an aspect where we once had the obvious advantage and should have really played it up to the point that others would have been the pretenders and wanna be's. Miami has a great deco thing going for it, but they have a distinctive, simple, streamline style. Our deco is different, more urban, more "City Metropolis" than "beachy pastels".
I am still amazed how when I mention deco and Tulsa, people around the world will respond,,, "Oh yea, Tulsa has a lot of great deco architecture! I would love to visit Tulsa to see that". I cant think of many other things, any other things actually, that garner that kind of positive response when you mention Tulsa. Can you?
And lets be frank here, we really dont have the second largest number of deco buildings and such over Miami. But yet we have got the image that we do, because we said we do. From what I have seen on skyscraperpage for example; NYC, Chicago, Detroit, and probably quite a few other cities have a whooooole lot more deco, and some stunning examples of it to boot. Yet we still have enough, and the reputation (false though it really is) to make a go of it. And we should play it up for all its worth, and continue to add to it. As the old saying goes "Image is everything" lol. And when you have even just enough truth to back up the image, you have got it made.
Money is a big part of it I'm sure Swake. I think its more than that though. There seems to be a dearth of creative spark in Tulsa right now. Perhaps its part of our conformist, religious, conservative heritage. We seem to want to hold onto the look and feel of the past so dearly, as though it wasn't new and different back then. That's the attraction to Acorn lights, McMansion faux Italianate, Mediteranean, columns of any style, and such. Actually, there's more craftsman style homes here than any other style up to the late 40's. Then our city became mired in 50's mediocrity. That's what makes me so impressed with the old "flat tops" we now refer to as mid-century modern. They were very creative and daring designs for Tulsa.
I think it is reflected in our advertising, our advertising mediums, and the marketing of ourselves to the outside world. The little bit of time I get to spend outside of our city it is real obvious, we don't really know who we are and we're not confident enough to take risks (the Arena was the exception). That makes it hard to develop a good campaign that is descriptive. One feels compelled to create something that really isn't there and the result pleases nobody.
Just an observation. Even bad campaigns are the result of a lot of hard work.
Has there been any measurement of the effectiveness of this "I am" campaign or the "fractured pictures" technique?
Quote from: we vs us on July 09, 2009, 12:27:37 PM
I do a lot of work with the CVB, which is nominally in charge of selling the city. They are by and large a fine group of people and work their collective butts off to bring new business to town.
However.
They are hamstrung by a criminal lack of funding and a severly ossified upper management team. Of the two, the lack of funding is the most important. Unlike similar sized cities, our hotel taxes don't directly trickle down to the budget of the CVB. Instead, the Chamber and the city take control of the taxes and divvy out a portion -- but not all -- to the CVB. There is currently a movement underway by members of the CVB and of the local hospitality industry to find ways to work around the funding logjam, either by directly mandating that the tax money go to marketing or by increasing the hotel tax.
Unfortunately, this is where the ossification of upper management comes in. We're still a long way from getting a solid effort coordinated, but at least there's an effort being made.
(In anticipating future comments, I can't emphasize enough how severely underfunded the CVB is, and how that translates directly into an absence of Tulsa on any regional or national stage whatsoever. They've been working on a shoestring budget in comparison to similar organizations and unfortunately it shows.)
I admire your stepping out and offering an inside view of the obstacles that are present on this issue.
The "money" is there.... The problem as I understand it is that the TMCC is in charge of an agenda of their own creation. The money given to them for "Economic Development" is divided into projects as they prioritize them. "Marketing Tulsa", it seems, is not as big a priority as doing lunch with politicians, business owners, and whatever else they consider a valid step towards "Economic Development".
All of this makes no sense when you have an "Economic Development" Board appointed by the Mayor.
I don't know about anyone else; but I would rather have Sean Griffin and the others on the City's Economic Development Board, deciding how money to grow Tulsa's economy, over Neal and Company any day of the week.
I am not going to go into a rant on the "Great Waste" of the Hotel Motel Tax dollars, however, I think the TMCC should be ashamed that they have taken these monies over all these years and we have, as a result, the items highlighted in this thread to show for it.
Below is a link to something that, if done in a similar fashion, could "Market Tulsa" and would not be of that great an expense...
http://www.boomlouisville.com/