On April 6,2015,with quite a bit of fan- fare,Visit Baltimore threw the switch on a significant new multimedia advertis- ing campaign. In its initial rounds,our “My BMore”campaign featured nine celebrities with significant ties to Baltimore explaining just what it is that they love about the city and why they come to visit.
Actors Josh Charles, Johnathon Schaech and two-time Emmy winner Julie Bowen were featured,as were Oscar,Golden Globe and Grammy award winner Common;TV personality Mike Rowe;BSO Music Director Marin Alsop; former Harlem Globetrotter Choo Smith;Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr.; and business leader Kevin Plank.
The entire organization,our board of directors and the city’s leadership couldn’t have been more excited about the campaign and its potential.
Three weeks later,we pulled it
down.As the national media focused on the unrest that resulted from the arrest, injury and subsequent death of Freddie Gray, forVisit Baltimore to run a sunny, positive ad campaign aimed at bring- ing tourists to town would be the height of tone deafness and, in the long run,could have been harmful to the city that we are here to market.
Although our experience this spring is one I would not wish for any organiza- tion charged with drawing visitors to a city, I know my colleagues in cities across the country have all been there dealing with issues of flooding,hurri- canes, earthquakes and rioting,and more than likely have taken phone calls from meeting planners wondering if it’s safe to visit their cities.
The safety and well being of every visi- tor to Baltimore is of utmost impor- tance at all times,especially during times of emergency.Emergencies do not discriminate based on location or timing,and they can hit when a city least expects
them.As such, the city of Baltimore has developed a unified plan
that establishes communication proto- cols to ensure that every visitor to Baltimore and hospitality partners are familiar with the emergency proce- dures and their individual roles. If you are in my chair in any community and you are not thinking about the crisis that may soon engulf you,you should start today.
In April 2013,we began the process of creating an emergency management plan,developed by my team in con- junction with an outside consultant. Launched in 2014 the plan includes a confidential document for use by our team with individual department plans along with a public facing document that was shared with our membership and meeting planners.
Printed out, it’s thicker than a pre- Internet–era Baltimore city phone book.But the bottom line, in that plan, is the importance of rapid reliable communication to customers,mem- bers, local leadership and media. It is also important to communicate with your staff,because they will be fielding calls of their own and need messaging guidance and personal reassurance.
In the case of the unrest of late April in Baltimore,we needed to swiftly pivot from being a team of convention,meet- ing and leisure sales and marketing specialists to a team of convention, meeting and leisure service specialists. People wanted information and they wanted it as soon as possible.
This included the meeting profession- als planning the conventions and meet- ings already under way in the city, those planning an event in Baltimore in the very near future,and those planning a visit in the relatively distant future. Almost instinctively,my team made that pivot and, together,we took a number of immediate steps.
With our focus on information gather- ing and dissemination,we quickly reconfigured theVisit Baltimore web- site, downplaying its marketing aspects
Mid-Atlantic EVENTS Magazine 83
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