Here's what changed her mind:
First, the population of 81601 was 'sold' on using the current marketing plan through the use of a lot of 'Big Talk'. And the simultaneous oxymoron 'reality' of not having a public vote. Just like so many things in Glenwood Springs such as medical marijuana, 'back-in' parking, The Ghettos 'improvements' and continued development, Midland Avenue, public art, 200 large+ spent on the concept of 7th Street's 'Sea World', the debacle of how poorly the construction is on the Community Center, traffic calming on Grand, the 'political statement' of the city's comprehensive plan, capital improvement projects using tens of millions of dollars of borrowed 'good deal' money in the middle of the first worst recesssion in history and the ongoing issues of major public relations problems; the folks really don't have any say at all in how they are led or how their tax dollars are spent. Not really. Not in Glenwood Springs.
The conclusion of her first point? 'Big talk' is not only paid 'Big Money' to perform; as a vendor trying to play in the same 'Big Leagues' as all the thriving tourism promoters surrounding 81601; the logical assumption is that they are "Big Kids" who should not be sheltered from the review of the general population they serve.
Nanny's second point, is that there are no city screened checks and balances on tourism marketing performance in Glenwood Springs. We have no media that is not 'owned', we have a fledgling city council that is just finding its sea-legs in standing up to the rigors of performing sworn duty, we have a partially strong citizens tourism board that is heavily seeded with special interests, we hold the now three year rank of the lowest in the region when it comes to tourism and sales revenues (and) we can go nowhere in prosperity until we clear a minimum 60% deficit in our tourism performance.
Simplistically, her point sums up to:
Where, exactly, are the folks supposed to go in order to speak up freely if she doesn't toss this up out of her sincere feelings of pity on the cartoon concept of 'Glen Wood'?
As one more of her long-standing in the community business friends, recently decided they had no choice but to close their doors due to inability to withstand the continued 'year' of reckoning' here in Glenwood Springs...SandBox Nanny thinks it's best, now that the ink is nearly dry on the 'Big Deal', to let 'Big Kids' finally begin to first-time ever face the shock of being treated just like the rest of the business community.
A word of caution to commentators:
There is so much fodder in the truth here on this article, you have no reason whatsoever to get overly personal at any one individual. You are being moderated closely on this one. Stick to public information and public viewpoints only.
(Learn more? Click title and comment to start discussion)
"Truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."
14 comments:
This might be as big as the terracotta warrior man.
First, a public fact:
The name “VirgZilla” and “Chamber of Vengeance” was created by 4MM on the PayBackPal site. smalltown8 and Sandbox Nanny have nothing to do with it. Never have. Both esteemed titles took off like wildfire in popularity because they sum up a woman and a nonprofit that have deserved the notoriety since 1998.
That’s a public fact, nanny so I ‘spect you’re not going to be blocking anyone from using the terms. I’m starting us off here in my next comment using very same. By gum, if it was good for the legendary 4MM it’s good enough for me.
Here’s another public fact that at least this commentator is going to use:
We’re now just barely coming up on one year in of our city having any control at all over the tourism fund marketing provided by the accommodations tax.
Find all the background, info and how the folks really feel about that right here: http://www.safeplacetowhistleblowonnonprofits.blogspot.com . Stay tuned to city council meetings and news coverage on the abysmal revenues Glenwood Springs churns out or the second coming of God’s Miracle flying in on the wings of an Angel and wiping out our catastrophic debt and slammin thousands of heads in beds steady every night for the next three years as our blessed recovery anointed down on the chamberettes by God. Again, public information. Way, way, way, way too much “public” information.
Another public info that’s applicable to make the not get booted by nanny list is the “Tourism Lions” named out over on the old PI hub by an avatar not associated with smalltown8 and sandbox. Used by dozens of bloggers every day as a testament to what American ingenuity can accomplish getting somebody else to pay for on behalf of a private business. They’re famous our Lions are and set up like some kind of shining example over on Denver Post, Salt Lake’s even picked them up and so has the Gazette down in the Springs. Great work whoever that PI avatar was.
So I’m declaring that the safe list nanny. Boot me if you want.
What are some famous terms that get associated with different parts of coverups and high ineffective performance?
smoke and mirrors.
shell game.
red herring.
schill.
pea soup fog.
Quid Pro Quo.
Hat Trick.
By hook or by crook.
Buy a pig in a poke.
Lipstick on a pig.
Now here's my opinion of the New Face of Glenwood Springs: Glen Wood.
Vail has Lindsey Vonn as its face, 35 million dollar profits, small businesses booming, world class draws, 5 Star hotels and dining everywhere and is packed year round. They've got the folks and businesses all pitching in with great ideas that don't cost a dime but pull the crowds in like crazy. Like celebrating all the international holidays and making guests feel a touch of home. Who knew they'd pack the stores and restaurants?
Beaver Creek has hot tubs under the stars filled every night. The most famous hot pool in the world is ours and we're begging to get bodies to swim. The faces of Beaver Creek are prosperous everyday people who know value for their dollar and don't even look at a gimmick.
Carbondale has the best main street in the valley. They pack in the music, good food and great shopping. Year round. Our downtown market ladies are really great and we kiss their little revenue generating hands for the barely 5 months out of the year they're open. Carbondale has theater and art and comedy that's not a night out twisting your neck around to see if one of elite snobs is going to diss a common out spending their last dime on a 40th anniversary. Carbondale has a world class golf course and lets people know its there through tasteful advertising that has some class.
New Castle has Lakota and the Talbotts.
Silt has the face of the masterful Dave Moore and the Stoney Ridge Pavilion.
Rifle has cutting edge technology named FRED, the Garfield SO, the airport guys and Rifle Economic Development.
Snowmass has old bones.
Aspen has everything under the sun you can think of capitalized on to the hilt with a brand name recognized by every class of man the world over.
You're telling me that Glenwood has a spin off from the distant 1980's Waldo cartoon character named Glen Wood as its new face launching us up into the same big leagues as everybody around us?
By gum, Virgzilla and chamberettes. You've really outdone yourselves this time.
Tell me, how are we going to be tracking all the cash this little guy brings in? Or do we even have a cost analysis accounting in this town?
After learning at RFP time that the 'soak it all in' brand VirgZilla boasts about being hers is really the creation of the professional ad agency the seeded board turned down (Hill Aevium), I've researched the years.
There hasn't been a single marketing concept or idea come out of the chamber vendor in well over 20 years. Every pumped rhetoric is either copied totally from somewhere else or partial copied. 80% or better of all these so-called awards of excellence have long been rumored to be applied for by staff. A lot of them drawings of luck. But they still get attached to the profile and reputation of our beautiful town.
The proof is in the numbers. Just because Kate Collins saved the day back in '06 and '07 and we had our best years yet (still down compared to everybody around us by at least 3%)the only reason we had those good years is because we finally started internet advertising.
That's not a shining testament, that's just pathetic that our leaders hold two years up like a golden Oscar we're desperately trying to "get back to".
Why are we putting up with now suffering a mockery of becoming animated like a Saturday cartoon?
How long will it take for every Biz-opoly person to recover the cost to set up and enter?
For the few hundred bucks or more they just cha-chinged the chamber on they could have made the chamber finally work for them and not the GSCRA bottom line.
Think about the state of our economy in Glenwood Springs, move the emotions aside and deal with just the facts.
The fact of just Biz-opoly is that few hundred bucks could have bought direct marketing to targeted to the specific business networking and advertising. With follow up for that kind of money.
Why is our Chamber of Commerce making us more of a public laughing stock by forcing this ludicrous depiction upon us?
The better question is why is our Chamber of Commerce feeding ineffective and close to falsehood events like Biz-opoly to gullible and vulnerable businesses?
If this is the best we can hope for out of our premier marketing vendor after everything that vendor has had handed to them on a silver platter; then I must admit to desiring their exit and a clean transfusion of new blood brought in before it's too late for Glenwood Springs.
This had better be a performance based marketing contract for 2012 and 2013, Jeff.
It's like Al Gore and the internet.
He invented it you know.
They must not have even bothered to do a name search. We’ve got a race car driver, a yoga teacher and some sex-perv in the Midwest all named Glen Wood. LOL!
Not to mention searches on any engine put it all together into one word and guess what? 98% of them are not Glenwood Springs.
Really. Seriously. There has got to be something done to stop this one. It’s the worst yet.
The most basic of rules. Look at what you’re associated with before you create a brand. My God.
Do they have any idea how many people who’re out here that really do want them to succeed?
Obviously not when this is considered production that’s beneficial to the community.
To save the thing go get a local outdoorsman who’s good looking and at least get off the cartoon gig. Put a real face on the thing.
It's like a weird kind of never ending nightmare you can't wake up from.
Running with Garcia. Only way to save this travesty is to put a real face on it.
Not sure how bad any guy wants to be associated with a yoga instructor or the sex perv in the midwest, though.
As with all things virgzilla, time will tell.
Colorado Mountain News Media (CMNM) is owned by Swift Communications who owns the PI and Aspen Times.
The public will never see real comparisons or the truth of how well events sponsored by their biggest advertising accounts do: Glenwood Springs Chamber (GSCRA), Skico and a few others. Besides that problem of cronyism the public has the entrenched mentality of arrogance within some top admin of CMNM to get through before the cronyism problem can even be discussed. Until those controlling the money that fuels that cronyism via GSCRA step in and ask questions let alone demand transparency; the public will continue to suffer from lack of disclosure and no information.
Just like everything else GSCRA, 'lipstick on a pig' is slapped on to every bit of advertising or event pushed. If any group of chamber members or any group of these small businesses that participate in things like Biz-opoly would ever really sit down and analyze the total seen and unseen costs that this brings not just them but our community they would be probably be both appalled and outraged. Then join the ranks of the majority out here who moved on to better uses of our business advertising dollars a long, long time ago.
Wake up, look around. Really look. Just because it was a great sales pitch from what is supposed to be an entity of trust, who used to be respected and surface appearances thanks to cronyism still appears to be; doesn't necessarily make that pitch completely truthful.
I would like to make the point that I'm starting to resent all you apathetic business owners who refuse to do the math. Why? Because of all those hidden costs that are coming out of mine and my company's pocket. Drained out courtesy of 81601's cumulative apathy.
We've got the worst yet year and a half at minimum coming up in our national, state and local economy. If you don't care about your own cumulative business health and feel mine doesn't matter to you, then go 'not give a damn' somewhere else and quit spending mine and my family's share of the pie.
Take GSCRA's board of directors with you when you go.
You're right, 44. But I'm still going to tell you to quit the tip-toe around and cut the crap.
Glenwood Springs isn't headed for a year of reckoning. That cronyism has covered up the dying Glenwood Springs for over three years. Just because the surface is all painted nice and purty doesn't mean that the reality of a near tripled homeless population with over 70% of those not transients, 4 to 5 times the number on food stamps and unemployed, the biggest foreclosure rates in the state and small businesses leaving or left in droves steady for those 3 years "doesn't exist".
Yank those city tourism dollars being spent on near worthless advertising at CMNM that we'll never see worth analysis on and we get rid of two problems with one stone.
Cronyism and a worthless newspaper.
At some point, common sense has got to prevail.
Put aside all the comparisons and all that has gone on in the past.
It's about the money.
From the looks of our traffic in town and our hotels, we are still fluctuating wildly with no predictability. When we climb, we climb by inches.
Worse, we have nothing in front of us that will draw in of significant increases.
To spend half a million dollars on magazine and internet advertising as a repeat of the last few years has to be one of the best sales pitches fallen for yet.
While I wish the best to the participants of Biz-opoly the comments here are wise. Measure what you really get and gain against the cost. I recall going back as far as 2001 how we had similar patterns and trends. When everyone else was building the future that is helping them to not only sustain now but thrive we were stuck in gadget and promo fire sale land.
What more can be said now as we reach the summit of need for change except take a look at the new face of Glenwood Springs.
Glen Wood.
I don't think I've ever seen a worse gimmick out of Marianne.
And that is saying something.
Sooner or later, RL it isn't just common sense that needs to prevail. The city of Glenwood Springs is going to have to stop the investing in capital projects and invest in sustainable draws like Vail, Breck and now Junction do.
We can't expect to get anywhere beyond what we have done in the past if we don't make the monetary investment. How much did GJ just pay to get the minor league to come in? How much did Vail pay for the improvements to indoor training facilities for pro athletes?
On one hand the city stops themselves for things like World Kayak and USA Pro Cycle but then spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to a marketer that's buying glossy advertising that really just maintains the status quo, if it even does that.
No wonder we've got a rep now for being a pit stop. Why book a vacay in 81601 when the novelties can be gotten through in a little over a day? Ride the swing, do the zip, take a dip, grab a bite and a night's sleep. Wham, bam and hit the road.
Sooner or later common sense needs to take hold of the city's wallet and start investing in draws that will bring cash, not promises.
In the meantime, everyone.
Hail to "Glen Wood". The face of Glenwood Springs.
The cold truth is we could do a lot with goco funds if we had the light bulbs turned on. Snag major improvements to Two Rivers park and then go after the kids and teens soccer and baseball clubs. Those tournaments that parents do nothing but drive all over the state to hit bring in entire families that stay for up to 4 days or more. Vail makes millions off soccer clubs out in east Vail. Expand with goco funds a competitive grade pro volleyball court and draw the volleyball clubs. Right there you've got winter, spring and summer and fall seasons covered. If goco funds aren't available then isn't it about time that the city leaders buried the hatchet with Garco BOCC? They're sitting on what now, 20 mil in goco funds? Or was that 2 years ago and it's been spent? Doesn't matter, the county is in great financial shape. Enter into a partnership, take out a loan from them.
Or maybe fu's right.
Cut the crap and knock off the cronyism between tourism and at least CMNM. Just the funds yanked away from them and put into advertising that's going to have a return from something that gets read by people who aren't skeptical of the publication would be better.
There's a lot that could be done sue, we just need motivated council. When's the next election so we can bump Leo and Bershyni?
Post a Comment