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AD INFINITUM
'You've Just Gotta Let Them Know'
To reach our multiple targets takes commitment — and investment
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Business New Haven
9/6/1999
By: Carl G. Ek and Patches Earle
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People will claim that marketing is an arcane science not readily understood by the untrained masses. We take the position that marketing is an extension of common sense - thus, marketing greater New Haven should not be significantly different from most other products.
In every marketing exercise, we need to know the target market: Is it people who work in New Haven but live in the suburbs, or people from all over Connecticut, or perhaps people across the Boston-New York-Washington, D.C. corridor?
For every one of these groups, New Haven has something special to offer. The challenge is in telling New Haven's story so that the desired people will hear and respond.
Folks who work downtown but retreat to the suburbs should be the easiest target market, since they know how to get to New Haven. How to keep them off the interstates at 5 p.m.? You've just gotta let them know!
As a start, these people need to know how much is available to them in "New Haven After Hours." In the last couple of months, seven or more new restaurants have joined the already great list of places to dine out that are open every weekday night. That doesn't even consider the plethora of world-famous pizza places that please palates daily - or the home of the hamburger, or the excellent ethnic eateries liberally sprinkled throughout.
Not hungry? New Haven is famous for its theatrical companies - professional, amateur and scholastic. It's a rare person who can't find a live performance to suit both taste and purse in or around New Haven.
Greater New Haven's eight colleges and universities are a vastly underutilized source of activities for all. In addition to their museums (drop in and see a Van Gogh, Monet or Renoir) and student performances, most local schools field athletic teams that would rejoice to have fan support. Perhaps the play isn't major-league quality - but the effort is, and again, prices are a lot kinder.
Folks traveling from farther afield might be interested in bigger events - and again, New Haven fulfills the need. There is the International Festival of Arts & Ideas as well as a terrific summer concert series.
Athletics? We have Eastern League (AA) baseball in the summer, an NCAA-qualifying hockey team for the winter, and a major women's professional tennis event annually. That doesn't include the many golf tournaments held on New Haven area courses - watch the champions of the future. You've just gotta let them know!
Entertainment? The Shubert and Long Wharf theaters are among the best in the nation, and the Yale Repertory and Yale School of Drama are likewise world-renowned. Or, for the younger set, Toad's Place and the Palace host world-class acts, and clubs feature musical talent from the area and beyond.
Less structured? Start downtown with the New Haven Green - or East or West Rock, or Lighthouse Park or the Shoreline Trolley Museum. There are any number of greens, public parks and playgrounds in greater New Haven, places that families from far and near can come to enjoy. And history...Hello? There is so much significant historical information about New Haven and its residents you could fill books - and plenty of authors have.
People from several hours away are looking for places to stay, along with places of interest and fine dining. Here, too, New Haven qualifies.
The Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale is a showplace that we can all be proud of, and that's just one of a number of fine hospitality facilities downtown and in greater New Haven. These hotels, combined with the Veteran' Memorial Coliseum and outstanding transportation options, make New Haven a desirable site for regional business, fraternal, social, and other gatherings. You've just gotta let them know!
How to let them know? Again, let common sense prevail. A creative, intelligent, cohesive campaign of paid advertisements in the proper mass-media venues offering the right combination of rate, reach and frequency that will speak to New Haven's target market in its defined area of dominant influence.
Additionally, professionally prepared and placed articles that will bring people a new awareness of a new New Haven would bolster the ad campaign with the proper PR angle. And, as with every other successful campaign, it must be an ongoing effort, not a single blitz followed by fizzle.
There must be a commitment - and an investment - in telling the story of New Haven to its multiple markets. Local businesses and professionals should insist that their organizations work together in a coordinated effort to tell New Haven's positive story to the world.
Religious, fraternal, youth, and civic groups can add their voices to tell friends and families near and far about the New Haven we know. Not the six-digit, 150-page market analysis version of New Haven accompanied by the contrived seven-digit Madison Avenue send up of the first planned city in America.
Bet they didn't know that.
Carl G. Ek and Patches Earle are principals in Ad Infinitum, a New Haven-based advertising and public relations firm.
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