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Home My WebLink AboutVLMDAC minutes June 2016 DRAFT FINAL 1 Minutes Vail Local Marketing District Advisory Council Thursday, June 16, 2016, 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM The Antlers – Caribou/Pronghorn Room VLMDAC Members Present: Mark Herron (Four Seasons Resort Vail) Michael Holton (Vail Valley Medical Center)   Jim Kellen (Vail Resorts) via phone Jessie Klehfoth (Vail Recreation District) Laurie Mullen (Vice Chair) Skip Thurnauer Beth Slifer (Chair)   VLMDAC Members Not Present: John Dawsey (Colorado Mountain Express) (Treasurer) Jenn Bruno (Vail Town Council) Also Present: Kelli McDonald (Town of Vail) Carlie Smith (Town of Vail) Chris Romer (Vail Valley Partnership) Meggen Kirkham (Site) Laura Waniuk (Town of Vail) Kristin Yantis (MYPR) Melissa Delekta (MYPR) Sybill Navas (Town of Vail) Ivie Parker (Vail Cascade) Hannah Eflin (Vail Resorts) Ainsley Fortune (Cactus) Diana Berry (Cactus) Alan Cardenes (Wyndham) Jack Affleck Satchele Burns Sybill Navas announced her retirement and thanked the group for everything over the years. Slifer thanked Navas for her years of service. I. May 2016 Monthly Financial Report – Carlie Smith Town of Vail – see packet for details. Revenues to date are at 50% of budget, expenses are at 30% of budget. Ending fund balance is a bit over $2M.  Motion: Thurnauer/Second: Mullen/Unanimous approval. 2 II. Approval of May19, 2016 Meeting Minutes Thurnauer/Herron– passed unanimously III. Recap of June 1 CSE Joint Meeting (Laura Waniuk) – see slides for details Laura will be taking over the liaison role with CSE. Skip, Laurie, and Jessie attended the joint meeting. It was noted that there were no changes made to RFP. It was reiterated that there is a need to continue to recruit events to the area. It was also noted that there is also a need to extend programs by one day to increase occupancy. Other programs encouraged moving to mid-week. CSE funding process will occur a bit earlier than past years. IV. Group vs FIT lodging/research VVP (Chris Romer) – see slides for details Romer covered the new Group vs FIT report from DestiMetrics which shows % of group and % of leisure occupancy by month. Ten properties are participating, and this report will give an index of group vs FIT occupancy. Romer also gave an update of the in-market and web intercept surveys. Discussion ensued re: GoPro, summer occupancy trends, timing of advertising efforts, past guest marketing, winter/summer visitor trends. V. PR Update Kristin Yantis MYPR (Kristin Yantis) – see slides for details Kristin introduced Melissa as new account coordinator. Yantis distributed View Finders that are distributed to media, and new reels are sent to media partners. Driving traffic to media center on website. It has helped with media outreach and feedback has been positive. Key placements that were noted: Money Magazine, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Forbes, Westword, Curbed, Artful Living (Coldwell Banker magazine). Discussion and questions ensued: summer press visits (4-6 media each), 55-60 visits scheduled for summer, New York Times coverage on Epic Discovery scheduled for Sunday VI. Email Update Vail Resorts (Hannah Eflin) - see slides for details Eflin presented data from May 16, email (see slides for all metrics). Testing subject lines and tactics to try to increase open rates year-over-year. Segmenting flight markets with customized messaging for future emails. Pushing Epic Discovery and summer lodging. Discussion ensued about flight marketing data, flight load factors (specifically LA), VII. Digital Update Cactus (Diana Berry) - see slides for details Berry reviewed creative in-market digital media plan. Video, social, radio, banners all being utilized – on pace for impressions, heavy on front-loaded campaign to drive early awareness. Berry reviewed KPI metrics and everything is being optimized and reallocated to top performing activities. Performance by audience information reviewed, with ‘Dynamic Families’ performing best and ‘Millennial Achievers’ (test market) tests continuing. Social Media is generating high engagement across segment – especially well with millennials (above benchmark targets). Pre-roll video investment throughout all audience segments due to high performance. 3 Discussion ensued re: click through rates, banner performance, impressions to targeted audience, and performance tracking (qualitative metrics). Video & photo shot list Cactus (Ainsley Fortune) - see slides for details Fortune reviewed recent creative updates (video, photography, Epic Discovery) and recommendations. Focus on (:15) video spots (details in slides). Photo shots reviewed and broken into five key spots (human emotion, graphic composition, inspiring perspectives, potential for endless sky, evolve/advance previous successes). All details and specifics on photo targets, objectives, audiences, events, activities, etc., are included in the packet with focus on town in addition to activities/mountain. Affleck reviewed photo list and shared thoughts on campaign and challenges (ie, how to find new vision for photos to avoid “what we’ve done” and building off past successes – going to places that have resonated in the past, with new demographics and new approach). VIII. Epic Discovery Plans Vail (Ainsley Fortune/Diana Berry/Meggen Kirkham) - see slides for details Fortune covered the “marriage” of the creative assets of the Epic Discovery brand to the Vail brand. Epic Discovery video (from Vail Resorts) shown, and print ad distributed. Berry recommended increased spend on digital media support with heavy spend in the Front Range (50%) with remainder across key destination markets. Complete details in slides. Kellen and McDonald reminded the group this is incremental and not shifting current resources to take away from brand messaging. This is coming from the budgeted event line item (originally allocated to USA Pro Cycling support). Kirkham recommended increased spend on broadcast for three week Front Range focused effort. Complete details in slides.  Motion to approve recommended allocation: Thurnauer/Kellen/Unanimous approval IX. Vail SummerFest Media Spend – (Meggen Kirkham) – see slides for details. Kirkham recapped Front Range radio broadcast buy and promotions. Creative banners reviewed. X. Production Spend Reallocation – (Meggen Kirkham) – see slides for details Budget re-allocation recommended for photography, video targeting, CTO email blast. McDonald noted that much of the budget is available because Cactus has included historical info in their budget.  Motion to move production dollars to media: Mullen/Thurnauer/Unanimous approval. XI. 2017 VLMD Budget and Fund Balance – all McDonald provided background and details to the group; $217k used in 2015 and was asked of council as part of original budget approval. This gave partners three extra months to prepare and is a better use of resources. Current fund balance is 4 over $2M; Kathleen Halloran has reviewed and prefers use of $350k, which reduces fund balance to approximately 32%. Discussion ensued about Vail Town Council and finance projections based on flat winter sales tax collections. It was recommend to focus usage of this budget on “large ideas” (i.e., large music festival or other event to bookend summer season similar to how GoPro Mountain Games starts the summer season) to pursue versus simply allocating a percentage to all partners/vendors. It was also suggested that Vail is currently missing a beer/bbq type event and also suggested CSE needs to be integrated into the discussion. A review of a bottom-up budget allocation to review incremental allocations to retargeting specific audiences was recommended along with a complete review of current partner spends to maximize returns. A complete review of impacts and timing of program to meet needs of town and community well in advance to align all stakeholders will also need to take place. Discussion continued with the group on event recruiting versus event creation and leveraging Vail’s leadership position. What is the next big thing (such as Tough Mudder, Go Pro Mountain Games, Wanderlust Yoga Festival, Kids Adventure Games, etc) and how do we identify trends to find the next signature event? How does this group (VLMDAC) take a leadership position to identify opportunities? Continued discussion on how to drive lodging occupancy and identify ways to achieve this – and market the event/program that helps achieve this. Possible “think tank”/task force to be created to identify types of events, dates, brand alignment, process, resources needed, etc (to include home grown events and/or recruited events). Suggested volunteers include Laura, Mark, Kristin, Beth, Skip, Jessie, TBD Town Council representative (Jenn Bruno?) & TBD Commission on Special Events member (Kim Newbury?). XII. Other Business Romer provided update on new winter flight markets through EGE Air Alliance (Phoenix 3x/week and Washington DC 1x/week).   XIII. Adjournment – Thurnauer/Herron Upcoming Meetings:   VLMDAC Meeting – July 21, 8:30-11:30 a.m. Antlers