Brand Development Committee Hard At Work

Last Thursday’s meeting of the Brand Development Committee was covered by Steve Bandy of the Marshall News Messenger. For the story, click here.

July is Happening in Marshall

From wine tastings to arts festivals, July is a hot time in Marshall. For all the details, click here.

New Visitors Guide Now Available

The Marshall Convention & Visitors Bureau is pleased to present the all-new visitors guide to Marshall. You can download it here, or from the CVB website at www.visitmarshalltexas.org. Printed copies are currently being distributed throughout Marshall’s tourism centers, hotels and restaurants and at state welcome centers.

This Month In Marshall, Texas

The CVB officially launched it’s monthly e-newsletter campaign this week which is sent to over 3,000 individuals who have requested it. Primarily designed to drive weekend overnight stays, each newsletter will feature notable events, performances and attractions which appeal to tourists within a 150-mile radius of Marshall. Direct links are provided to each highlighted topic and also to pertinent areas within the CVB main website. Recipients may also link directly to book their hotel or B&B stays. To view May’s newsletter, click the banner above.

Seeing The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Thank you to all the Marshall citizens and community stakeholders for attending the presentation by Townscape and Fd2s this past Monday. We were pleased to see all the ideas and community input in a visual form and we now have detailed action steps which will begin immediately. Read the meeting recap from the Marshall News Messenger here. To view the presentation for the downtown area by Townscape, click here. We also had our first look at the wayfinding strategies from Fd2s. This was only a preliminary presentation designed to gather input, however, it is exciting to understand just how many fantastic opportunities exist in Marshall. To view the Fd2s presentation, click here.

Again, we encourage everyone to submit their feedback and constructive input to both of these presentations. Please email your comments to me at john@zgroupcom.com and I will make sure they get to the appropriate party. Thank you!

Urban Planning and Wayfinding Experts To Present Recommendations April 20

Two years ago, the City of Marshall embarked on an ambitious journey to revitalize itself and launch an aggressive tourism development plan. Now, as we round the corner into the next phase of progress, it’s time to see detailed recommendations from the urban planners (Townscape) and a first look at some proposed wayfinding concepts (fd2s). On Monday, April 20, the CVB invites all Marshall stakeholders to participate in this presentation/workshop. There will be two identical sessions beginning at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. The public is invited and we look forward to your attendance. The location, determined by the number of RSVP’s, will be announced by April 17. Please accept this invitation by contacting Geraldine Mauthe at the Marshall Convention & Visitors Bureau, 903-935-7868 or by emailing her at cvb@visitmarshalltexas.org.

Battle of the Bands – Thursday April 23

Thanks to the tremendous work by Dr. Tom Webster and Meagan Smith at ETBU, Main Street Manager, Bo Ellis, and City Manager, Frank Johnson, downtown Marshall will play host to this year’s ‘Battle of the Bands’ presented by ETBU on April 23. The event, which will showcase a variety of bands from Marshall and the East Texas area, will be held for the first time in downtown Marshall at the Swepco Stage. The venue, which used to provide power to the City, is rapidly being repurposed into an eclectic entertainment area complete with staging, sound, lights, projection screens and, dare I say it, public restrooms. The festivities begin at 6 p.m. Afterward, the crowd is invited to walk over to Washington Square to join a street party hosted by the Texas Master Gardeners Association. Look for this to be the first of many events at this venue. Bo Ellis has big plans and we applaud his creativity and his vision. To read more, click here.

Listen to John Arend interview on KMHT Radio 103.9 FM

We’re excited to join Chris Paddie this morning on KMHT Radio’s “The Talk of East Texas” at 8:30 a.m. Chris and I will discuss the progress being made on the implementation of Marshall’s tourism development plan.

A Work In Progress

The story continues in Marshall with a ton of activity the past two weeks. We have already hit the initial progress milestones established in January and will be outlining a critical path for the balance of 2009 within the next several weeks. The consultants for urban planning and wayfinding have begun to integrate their teams and we’ll be excited to report their specific recommendations very soon.

Last time, I posted an article on “Placemaking” by Townscape. It is an excellent article which gives some insight into the process. The Fd2s group has also provided an article on “Wayfinding and the Visitor Experience” which explains their end of the equation. Click on the article to read this great piece.

 

Since our last post, we have continued to seek the input of Marshall stakeholders. We had an excellent dialogue with Mayor Buddy Power about the history of Marshall and his magnificent vision for Marshall’s future. Christina Anderson shared her thoughts about The Marshall, her plans for Lady Bird Park and the grand re-opening of the Courthouse. And Bo Ellis continued to lend his valuable expertise on a host of initiatives underway.

Bo reports that the downtown banners will be going up in the next week or so. He will progress the banners from PRCA Rodeo, St. Patrick’s Day and finally the Spring banners. We’re glad to see this because it will add some visible appeal to the area as festivities kick-off. We are also endeavoring to bring regular outdoor background music to the shopping zone in downtown. This, combined with the display windows currently being constructed, will provide an enhanced experience for everyone who strolls through the area at any time of day or night.

 

On the marketing front, Geraldine Mauthe with the CVB is furiously working as the Gold Wings and Master Gardner’s conventions draw near. There are too many different duties to mention here, but one was an opportunity to place an ad in the MG program center spread. 

As I mentioned previously, in a matter of weeks thousands of new visitors will be coming to Marshall. This is a time for all of Marshall to shine.

 

The Paramount Theater

Two additional things I wanted to mention. We will be working with the ownership of the Paramount to see about refurbishing the exterior marquis. Once that’s done, we have several good ideas about using the marquis space for both brand and event messaging. The other interesting item is the Rotary Park wall. Bo Ellis was kind enough to provide us with the measurements and we will be making some recommendations about ways to turn it into an attractive “wall-scape” in the very near future.

 

 

This past Thursday, we were asked to present a report about the progress of the BDC to the Tourism Committee of the Convention & Visitors Bureau. Will Avery was on hand to capture the presentation on video and you may view it by clicking on the picture to the left. It was great to see several members of the community attend as well and we encourage everyone to engage in this process. As I said in the presentation, the role of the Brand Manager is purely to facilitate the tremendous efforts of all the entities who are making Marshall a better place to live, work and visit. YOU are important. If you’d like to discuss your thoughts with us, I invite you to contact us at your convenience. You can reach me by email at john@zgroupcom.com.

This Week In Fabulous City.

Before I get into this week’s progress, I want to say how much we appreciate the kindness and sincerity from everyone we have met in Marshall. This is truly a team effort. Thank you so much to everyone who is working so hard to making Marshall an even more special place.

 

The Townscape team recently published a very interesting article on “Placemaking,” the art of creating special places. To read the article and understand some of the approaches and concepts that the team is utilizing, click on the picture to the left.

 

This week has been another action-packed round of meetings, research and learning. We began the week “plotting the wall” (our term for brainstorming) and are pleased that there are so many opportunities with which to work. Our consultants (Townscape, Fd2s and Destination Development) are in receipt of the Brand Development Committee’s comments/questions from their initial presentations too. Now, it’s going to get good.

I mentioned a few of the items we’ve begun working on in my last post. Some additional areas where we are making progress this week include year-round courthouse lighting, a green-space inside the Courthouse perimeter, development of performing arts/downtown restaurant packages, and are working with the consultants, the City and others on “wall-scapes” throughout the downtown area. Thanks to the valuable input of a host of Marshall stakeholders, I’m confident that, soon, we can move past the planning stage and into the reality stage.

In addition, we are working with the CVB regarding its upcoming Texas Master Gardners and Gold Wing Road Riders conventions. Both of these events will bring thousands of new visitors to our fair City and we want them to not only have a fantastic experience at their meetings, but a desire to return in the near future with their family and friends.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day week, we worked with the shops of downtown Marshall on promoting their Valentine’s Day packages this weekend. Press releases were distributed to the local press, as well as Shreveport and Longview media. On Wednesday, the Marshall News Messenger ran a wonderful preview of the weekend’s activities. Click here to see the article.

Our work also continues on initial concepts for a new visitor’s guide and downtown retail presentation. Everything is going according to plan on those. We anticipate finalizing both the visitors guide and retail package prior to May 1.

 

 

On Friday, the Brand Development Committee held it’s regular meeting at City Hall (with a quorum!). We discussed a number of items ranging from upgrading the CVB computer system (quite necessary since the one Geraldine has been using was an early 90’s model) to the progress and activity reports of the consultants. The Brand Management team also made a report of our activity the first three weeks. You can view it here. And, in this morning’s Marshall News Messenger, Sandra Cason’s article covered the event. It can be by clicking on the paper to the left.

 

Brand Manager Activity Report

 

Look for a lot more in the coming weeks. We will be presenting a draft of the 2009 CVB public relations plan to the Oversight and BDC the week of 2/23 and are anxious to finalize our “Critical Path” action plan for presentation at the next Oversight and BDC meetings in early March.

 

Please feel free to send us any constructive input. I can be reached at john@zgroupcom.com. Happy Valentine’s Day!