Greetings!  It's always great to come back to Sun Valley after vacation, isn't it!  And I can say that even after a wonderful week in Maine that included four days of sailing in Penobscot Bay on the Steven Taber schooner: Beautiful islands, harbors, and homes; sun-spangled ocean; dolphin sightings; and ships of all sorts, including many that still have teak decks, masts, and trim, as does the Taber. 

Refreshed, I attended the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance's (SVMA) progress report to the Ketchum and Sun Valley City Councils when I returned.  That was not so refreshing.  Despite claims of success for its summer marketing campaign, SVMA is still not hitting any kind of notable mark - not that it's aiming at anything in particular.  

The presentation is not yet available on either city website, so I can't link you to it. Here, though, are my general observations.   

The SVMA two-person staff reported great success with marketing the USA Cycling Mountain National Championships and the one-week Skippy the Stone campaign in July (kind of late for summer?). I think it's fair to mention that the Championships were brought here by a few hard-working people before the Alliance was staffed and that the event has moved on, having completed its two-year stint at our venue. 

As for the "unprecedented" media coverage garnered by Skippy the Stone, a campaign alluded to in a previous Jigsaw e-letter and whose value I still question, the reported results included 200,000 unique visitors to the website, 1,400 new email addresses to the SVMA database, and more visits to Sun Valley's facebook page than in the previous few months. I'll talk about this campaign more on a blog (the link to come next week) but I'll ask now how only 1,400 addresses were gleaned from 200,000 visitors?  And what does it mean to have more hits during the summer season than slack?   

More the point of SVMA's purpose is what did the staff actually tell us about the organization's marketing success? The "Sun Valley brand" was referred to several times but it was never articulated. When questioned later, staff quoted it as having five elements: vibrancy, athleticism, authencity, culture/sophistication, and ???? (I can't remember) but these are still being tested and yet to be framed in an evocative branding phrase. 

To their credit, two Sun Valley city councillors asked for more information. One queried how "online visits" are converted to actual visits. SVMA's answer was marketing stats about how such things happen, but nothing more specific. The second pointed out the lack of baseline measurements by which to judge increased social media hits, e.g. how we stack up to other resorts. SVMA agreed that it needed more baseline measurement. 

Most significantly lacking was talk of SVMA's winter marketing plan. That, reported SVMA staff, was yet to be determined; it would, however, likely pursue the features of Skippy, i.e. a unique, creative, attention-getting, one-shot campaign that (ostensibly) creates a buzz about Sun Valley. Now, I don't want to be pushy, but the joint City Council meeting happened on August 1 - and winter is "a'cumin in" when it comes to marketing, I should think. 

Oh yes, The Ketchum Council basically had nothing to say except, in essence, keep up your good work.

Until next week...Jima Rice

P.S.  As you consider the LOT increase, keep in mind that a good portion of the tax money will be used to market our valley to visitors (and maybe even potential year-round location-neutral business owners, pretty please?). Will we have to form a completely new marketing group? Surely we can't give more money to SVMA, given its record. So, who's going to do it?