Paradise dissed but CAPC approves marketing plan

How marketing would be handled at the City Advertising and Promotion Commission was the biggest subject for commissioners last Wednesday, but a lack of office staff ran a close second. During the early workshop, concert organizer Larry Schaefer, who has worked with the CAPC in the past year renting out the Auditorium, spoke on upcoming concerts.

Schaefer described his talk as a “State of the Union” saying that, like other organizers across the country, he suffered substantial losses last year and explained that many new challenges were due to pre-pandemic “realities.” He explained that there was a need to improve marketing to a younger demographic to bring them out of isolation.

Schaefer said he wanted to see marketing “tighten up.” He gave praise for the staff at the CAPC but said that if he were paying Paradise Marketing $1 million he’d make them more accountable. He also wanted to see the CAPC dedicate more money to marketing shows at the Aud, and said that ticket sales for a show should begin around 120 days prior and that continued marketing would be needed every 30 days until the event date.

Commissioner Chris Clifton is acting as liaison to Paradise Marketing, which received around $550,000 from the CAPC in the approved budget at a previous meeting. Paradise provided slides showing marketing insights that don’t far deviate from previous years of information, including the top number of travelers to Eureka Springs coming from a combination of the six states that border Arkansas. This fact was pointed out during Public Comments by Cathouse owner Jeff Gregory.

Commissioner Autumn Slane questioned why there was a lack of marketing in January and February. Clifton explained that he had pushed Paradise to use creative content previously made to fill in some of that gap while new content for the marketing plan was made.

Slane also took issue with the seeming use of older content when the CAPC is paying Paradise for, functionally, a new product. Clifton tried to explain that the push for earlier marketing had been made by him, and the original spring marketing had been slated to start in March rather than February.

Paradises’s breakdown of marketing includes:

• $100,000 for spring marketing that runs from Feb. 20 – April 16. The spring campaign will primarily focus on families, with a secondary focus on couples.
• $150,500 for summer marketing, May 1 – September 10
• $65,000 for fall marketing, October 16 – December 10
• And ADARA Impact travel insights for $40,000 from March 1 – December 31. Slides showed that ADARA would give the CAPC more insight into length of traveler stays including number of hotel bookings, length of stay, how long it took for customers to plan their trip, and generated revenue.

Commissioners also discussed what needs to be done to hire office staff, including a hiring committee, and that positions are not attractive to future employees. Clifton said there was no interest in town to work at the CAPC due to a negative atmosphere and not enough pay. He said marketing directors in hotels he’s managed were paid more than what previous Tourism Director Madison Dawson was paid.

And about the meeting

The meeting lasted for nearly two hours with an executive session in the middle to discuss the hiring of an interim director until a new one is found and hired.

In Public Comments, city alderman Harry Meyer said that “rancor” in town and a lack of professionalism had caused employees to leave. He accused Gregory of calling Dawson a profane name and asked the CAPC not to dump Paradise until staff was hired. The first portion of the comment had some irony, as Meyer and Cathouse owner Jeff Gregory had a verbal altercation in the audience after Meyer came to Gregory in the crowd and called him the same derogatory name.

General Manager of the Crescent Hotel, Jack Moyer, voiced concern and frustration that collections were not going for the intended purpose of marketing the town. He noted that the Crescent’s total amount for marketing is $341,000, a $14,000 difference in what the CAPC had planned for digital marketing only. He said that the CAPC had not put enough money to the core element of marketing, and he wants to see a media buy from Paradise to come before the commission. He also said that social media cannot be farmed out to someone out-of-market and still be timely and relevant.

Gregory, while also saying that Paradise’s insights had little difference than what is already known about travelers, described the CAPC’s annual marketing plan as “elementary.” He said that Paradise Marketing is getting credit for the social media and other marketing that businesses such as Autumn and Rodney Slane’s restaurants, the Crescent, Local Flavor Café and others do in town. “You told us what a 28-year-old kid in Florida told you would be best for us,” Gregory said, “That’s ridiculous.” He suggested putting a stop on funding and hiring in town to build the CAPC’s infrastructure.

Randy Wolfinbarger, general manager of the Inn of the Ozarks, offered to be the point person for Arkansas Parks & Tourism to bring travel reporters to the area.

Former mayor Beau Satori also gave warning to new commissioners and said they should be careful of who they listen to while on the commission.

Other Items

• The commission approved the $355,500 marketing plan that was presented by Paradise.
• Commissioner Autumn Slane suggested that the commission sees all invoices sent by Paradise Marketing and that was approved.
• Marketing support requests were tabled until the next meeting or special meetings.
• Finance Director Scott Bardin was hired as Interim Director with a review in 90 days, for $80,000 annually. His work will encompass what he does now as finance director.
• Commissioners agreed to build a hiring committee. Chris Clifton was made Chair, Steve Holifield vice-chair, Chris Jones as secretary/treasurer, and Autumn Slane was put in charge of overseeing future contracts. Mark Hicks was also put onto the signatory with CS Bank to be one of the two commissioners to sign checks.