I promised last week that I would give you all more information on our highly publicized branding / marketing work with the Midlands Authority for Conventions, Sports & Tourism. And since I gave you my word, here I am–ready to spill it.
Last month ADCO was selected to work with the Authority to develop a branding / marketing campaign to attract more conventions and visitors to Columbia, and we are very excited about this. I mean, we love Columbia; that’s why we live and work here. The opportunity we’ve been given to grow our community by growing tourism is an awesome one, and we’re totally ready to rise to the challenge.
What are we actually doing for the Authority, you ask? In a nutshell, we’re working through a comprehensive marketing process that starts with branding and will be carried through with advertising and direct marketing.
The newspapers are saying that the Authority is buying a slogan from us. Because you’re my devoted readers, I’ll tell you that that’s not the case. They’re buying a strategic marketing process that will deliver a brand / identity for the city, brand ambassadors to communicate the new brand, a new logo and tagline that better communicates the brand, and an advertising campaign that targets the meeting planners, sports event planners and leisure travelers determined by the Authority to be candidates for the many amenities and products Columbia’s tourism community has to offer.
For those of you who live in Columbia and are worried about having to pay for this marketing process through your taxes, rest easy. Our efforts are being funded by accommodations taxes generated and paid for by visitors who have come to our city. In fact, accommodations taxes are collected for the purpose of funding tourism, which generates $1 billion in economic impact for the Columbia region each year. That $1 billion impact actually saves the average local taxpaying family an estimated $690 a year in taxes. To me that’s a pretty big impact, and our goal in creating this new campaign is to increase this impact.
So, like I said, this project is an awesome opportunity. We’ve already gotten started, and we’re looking forward to exciting results. So come back here to stay up-to-date on everything that’s going on!
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