So it pained us that the Colorado Springs Gazette took an editorial shot at Experience Colorado Springs today ("City Makes a Molehill out of its Mountain") when they chastised the organization for not making a bigger deal about the bicentennial of Pike's discovery of the Peak.
As was the topic of Cameron Olthuis' blog earlier today, everybody thinks they're a marketing genius...probably because we've all watched Super Bowl ads.
So when the Gazette said it was a missed opportunity, I suppose we shouldn't chastise them for thinking that there is a market in bicentennials. Indeed, they used as one of their proofs that Terry and the gang missed the boat that the Lewis & Clark celebration had been in the planning stages since the mid-80s.
Uhhh. That someone has planned something for a long time doesn't mean it was successful. It means that lots of Kool-Aid was consumed over the past 20 years. Indeed, most of my contacts in the L&C region said the whole thing was fairly underwhelming. L&C don't resonate with the vast majority of today's travelers. And neither does Zebulon Pike.
According to the editorial, the Pioneers Museum spent $10,000 marketing its Pike exhibits and saw a 71% increase in visits during the first half of the year. But, they fail to say how many of those visitors were from outside the region and spent the night. $10,000 may sound like a lot of money to the Gazette, but I really doubt that the majority of the ads (and thus, the visitors) were from more than a hundred miles away. Thus, the economic impact of this 71% bump would be nominal.
Look, I'm sure that there are lots of people in Colorado Springs that are proud of and interested in the heritage of their community. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the world necessarily cares. And, in his inimitable tell-it-like-it-is style, Terry said it best when he opined: “I didn’t go out and create an advertising (campaign) that was specific to it because, frankly, it wouldn’t get the return on investment. A Chihuly (art) exhibit has a greater potential to generate droves of people coming here. Although Zebulon Pike might be a well-known figure here, he is not going to be able to draw a family of four from Kansas City to drive 400 miles for a parade or dedication of a statue."
Well said...and a reminder to the rest of us that just because we feel pride about our heritage doesn't mean that we can sell it to the rest of the world.
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