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VLMDAC March Meeting Minutes Public Notice Vail Local Marketing District Advisory Council Thursday, March 22, 2018 PLEASE NOTE LOCATION: Antlers Lodge 2:00-4:30pm Packet Link: http://bit.ly/2GvxuRf VLMDAC Members Present: Phil Metz (Vail Resorts) Laurie Mullen (West Vail Liquor) Jessie Klehfoth (VRD) Beth Slifer (Slifer Designs) John Dawsey (CME) Cindy Krieg (Doubletree) Skip Thurnauer Also Present: Mia Vlaar (Town of Vail) Laura Waniuk (Town of Vail) Greg Clifton (Town of Vail) Carlie Smith (Town of Vail) Jessica Sweetin (Vail Resorts) Yann Benjamin (Vail Resorts) Hannah Eflin (Vail Resorts) Kristin Yantis (MYPR) Anna Robinson (VVP) Meggen Kirkham (SITE) Hannah Green (Cactus) Sarah Berkheimer (Cactus) Mike Lee (Cactus) Ainslie Fortune (Cactus) Katie Harker (Cactus) Jack Affleck (Affleck Photo) Satchele Burns (Deadline) Erica Cannava (Manor Vail) Nicole Martin (Manor Vail) Gabe Shalley (Vail Resorts) Seth Valentine (Vail Segway Tours) Chris Cremer (Alterra) Sarah Franke (Vail Valley Foundation) Chuck Smallwood (Vail Rotary Club) AGENDA • February 2018 Monthly Financial Report - Carlie Smith • Approval of February 15, 2018 Meeting Minutes - Board Motion/Second/Approval (//Unanimous) • Partners’ 2018 Tactical Marketing Presentation - Partners - Cactus – Strategic Overview (Ainslee Fortune, Sarah Berkheimer) Primary focus is families with teens. Review of program guide print ads: (Bravo, Vail Dance Festival, Kids Adventure Games, Gourmet on Gore, Film Festival, etc). Program Guide ads tend to be in-kind as part of sponsorship. Discussion RE: Copy seems too broad if the goal is to entice them to do specific things while they’re in town. Review of Videos: Brand spots (Coming of Age – families with tweens & teens; 15s Early Summer Super Boomer; 15s Adventure Events spots). Next up will be Culinary, Cultural event spots, Fall Super Boomer. Discussion RE: small tweaks & edits (shot order, sound, etc). Big ideas/Non-Traditional Marketing: - Vail + Sound of Music+ Pentatonix: bring Pentatonix to Vail and recreate the Do-Re-Me song from sound of music – create a music video. They have 3 – 5 million views per video on You Tube. Also presented Teen/Tween version of the same idea. Musicly allows you to make a lipsyncing video. “Muses” (Musicly Influencers) post one, ask followers (12 – 15 million each) to do the same, then pick a winner who gets a trip to Vail. - Teen Winter Olympic Athletes: bring them to Vail to “take on summer adventure.” - Target Temperature-Hot Markets (Dallas, Chicago, etc) and bring some “Vail Snow” – shave ice truck. Or bring a Cool Mountain Breeze tunnel (misters, cool air, pine scent) - Turn Pedi cabs into little gondolas – target baseball games - 360 VR Video Gondola – place in high end shopping areas - Review of pricing – See slides for details - Discussion RE: ranking of each idea. Discussion RE: longevity of physical items, cost to run them. Can we test the music idea? Leveraging partnerships (can it be worked into VVF contracts for bands already coming here?) Scalability of bigger ideas. - Takeaways: explore variations on the Do Re Me idea. Is there a test that would actually be valuable? VVF – working on riders right now for some of the Mountain Games artists. Would be a good level of artist to start with. Sarah Franke to follow up with Cactus. Discussion RE: Can we highlight all the different types of music that come to Vail? (Jazz, classical, etc) - SITE Marketing – Traditional Media/TV (Meggen Kirkham) Review of media cadence for summer (traditional & digital) see slides for details. Review of destination target markets (Dallas, Houston, Chicago). EGE is looking at possible direct summer flight for Chicago market. Review of digital paid media. Review of Traditional media (TV) – mediums are Live Action Sports, Advanced TV (set top box analysis), Addressable TV (non-skippable ads). Review of cadence for each medium – see slides for details. Discussion RE: is September marketing a good use of funds? That marketing actually stops after Labor Day, not the whole month of Sept. - Cactus - Digital (Katie Harker) Digital video will be heavy in this recommended strategy. Hulu – reaches live & VOD across all devices. Yume – 1500 premium publication partners (USA Today, Golf Digest) See slides for details. YouTube – will be used to target Teens in destination markets (70% of all teens use YouTube daily) with keyword capabilities. SpotX – teen audience heavy, taps into other apps like Spotify, Mobile Gaming, etc. Streaming Audio – Pandora will target only Super Boomers, but both destination and front range. Super Boomers use Pandora at least weekly. Able to use audio & video. Discussion RE: are people in our economic bracket using the free version? Mobile A.I. – Cluep monitors what you’re posting & talking about on social media. Will be used a lot on Front Range with event marketing. Also has image recognition capability – can serve content based on your recent posts. Can even understand contextual words. Utilizes keywords provided by VR/Cactus. Destination markets will be brand focused, Front Range will be event focused. Paid Social – Facebook & Instagram. 8 second video format, canvas ads for destination markets, hyper targeting in each market/interest Influencers – partnering with Obviously. Platform allows for customization and robust reporting. Can be adjusted as needed based on real-time engagement stats. Discussion RE: reporting capabilities of new platforms – they are all very responsive and offer granular data. Cactus will report stats monthly and make recommendations based on that data. Discussion RE: contracts with Obviously have requirements for influencers and rights to content. - MYPR - Public Relations (Kristin Yantis) Defining the “teen story” for Vail. What makes it newsworthy & start to measure the results. Review of in-market travel – see slides for details. Review of new ways to incorporate teens: bloggers who have teens, teen editorial board (survey them pre & post visit), local teen ambassadors/influencers (partner with youth leadership orgs like Eagle Valley Youth Coalition). May need to be a year two initiative – need to explore the legality issues of with working with teens. Jr. Ski Patrol has been very successful – 1st year, 20 local kids participated this year. Discussion RE: should we use kids slightly older than 18, but still have insider knowledge? - Vail Resorts – Web/Email/Organic Social (Hannah Eflin) Review of website milestones - Summer Event Calendar is done. Content migration is currently underway, to be complete by April 6th. Summer navigation switch is April 16th. Epic Discovery booking live by June 20th (booking windows for activities are short). Discussion RE: lodging booking on Inntopia. After June 20th, you can buy lodging & activities together. Preview of summer activity look & feel – see slides for details. Responsive site will continue to be tweaked based on guest experience & consistency standpoints. Email Marketing - new strategy is to incorporate all seasons into messages to entire database. Bring summer into winter loyalist message and see if anything pops. Target life stage audiences within full database. Review of summer test & email campaign dates – see slides for details. Results will be testing in multiple ways. Ultimate goal is to add summer interest as a behavioral tag. Discussion RE: Next summer VR will be able to gather useable data from summer products, but currently it is on a different platform. Organic Social - unpaid within existing audience/following. Focus on teens & Super Boomers. 3 Tier Strategy: 1) Will continue with real-time happenings in Vail. Will also target audiences in a pattern that follows all other paid media. Will be deliberate about the mediums used to reach each audience. 2) Leveraging social expertise to support influencer strategy. 3) Event promotion & coverage of events in real time. No special coverage for front range, current happenings covers the short booking audience. Review of social video reboot – Documentation vs. Consumer First Narrative. See slides for details. Review of distribution network of social videos – see slides for details. Goal is to create a viral video that has an emotional component – very little money behind the reach. Current Example: Henry the Avy Dog winter story had a reach of 2M. Still popping up new places, so there is no final reach stat. Longer form pieces cost $10 - $15k range, as opposed to $1k for shorter form. Letting the content find the audience is a key strategy for the brand – lends itself to authenticity. The comp set isn’t doing this level of production & storytelling! Discussion RE: budget for content manager will stay flat to last year. Review of timeline of next steps for story concepting – see slides for details. Discussion RE: this is a new idea without dedicated funding, so amount that can be done depends on where funds can come from. May be an incremental ask, but may not. Will need to flesh out ideas. Discussion RE: can we work with partners who already have content to mitigate some of the costs? Timeline would allow for up to 3 videos – it just depends on resources and stories chosen. The longevity of these videos should be considered – can influence multiple summers. Discussion RE: we should not tie a KPI to these videos – these are about emotion and legacy of the brand. - VVP - Groups VVP not represented this month. Mia Vlaar gave brief overview of new softward called Knowland, which will not be an incremental cost. Details will be presented at April VLMDAC meeting. - MYPR - International (Kristin Yantis) Review of Mexico Sales Mission - highlighting mountain games games, dance festival. Review of Summer FAM tours, focused on families & teens. Additional groups coming in for tours & planned trips. Review of VVF Dance Festival package. See slides for details. Paid media – see slides for details. - Cactus - Pixel Tracking (Mike Lee) Trying to find ways to optimize media based on who converts. Partnering with lodges in order to start tracking guests who have already booked at a property. Does not track the dates when the guest is coming, just the fact that they have completed booking. Asking for too much data is a deterrent to participation by the lodges. Pixel tracks where they go after booking, what they do while they’re here and what they do after their visit. - Other Business o Update on interim plan for Nature Center – Greg Clifton. It will be open this summer! May happen through quick remediation on existing facility, or bring in a temporary structure like a yurt. Will be back in front of council in April to decide. Long term – there will need to be a new building. Will require lots of public vetting. Probably 2 – 3 year timeline. o Is the afternoon meeting more convenient for more people? Board should consider and decide in the next 10 days. Would probably be more convenient for partners. Cactus would prefer afternoon but will be here regardless. o Retail strategy still a priority? Recommendation is yes. Follow up strategy from Cactus at next meeting. - Adjournment o Motion/Second - (Jesse Klehfoth/Cindy Krieg) - Upcoming Meetings o VLMDAC Meeting, April 19, 2018 – time TBD, Grand View Room