Tulsa Tourism - Who Markets Tulsa? To Whom?

[PonderInc]

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?


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.

[Townsend]

It's telling a story?

[we vs us]

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.)

[pmcalk]

^^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?"

[SXSW]

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.

[TheArtist]

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.

[waterboy]

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?

[Rico]

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.   

[Rico]

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/