DATE: October 8, 2019
SUBJECT:
Title
INFORMATIONAL PRESENTATION AND UPDATE ON PORT MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
In May 2019, the Board of Port Commissioners requested an overall update on the status of marketing efforts and measures of their effectiveness since the launch of the brand in May of 2017. The Marketing & Communications Department has compiled the following elements to provide the requested update:
• Brand Tracking Survey Results - A summary of branding and marketing efforts including an overall update on the overarching brand with high-level survey results on the two-year benchmark of community survey results of Port awareness.
• Sub-Brand Examples - One marketing campaign for each sub-brand was selected to showcase the process for delivering the pre-determined objectives through strategic planning, monitoring and measuring as outlined below.
o Brand Alignment - All campaigns are connected back to the overarching Port of San Diego brand to ensure the community understands the Port’s overall role in the region.
o Sub-Brand Messaging - The particular function of the Port within each sub-brand area is also consistently reinforced in campaign messaging.
o Campaign Objectives - Each campaign begins with specific objectives to achieve in addition to general marketing and outreach goals to ensure we are achieving desired outcomes.
o Strategic Call-to-Actions - Each campaign advertisement and message is created with a specific call-to-action to generate desired behavior in the identified target audience for the campaign.
o Key Performance Indicators - Standard marketing metrics, as well as campaign and program objective specific metrics, are set in advance and monitored to measure performance and effectiveness, to allow for course correction as necessary.
Through this model, the Marketing & Communications team has been able to support multiple Port business units in achieving their objectives while simultaneously building awareness, increasing community understanding, and fostering positive sentiment for the Port in the region.
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
This is an informational presentation only. No action is recommended at this time.
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FISCAL IMPACT:
All campaigns described in this presentation are currently funded in the FY2020 budget. Ongoing campaigns will be requested during the annual budget process. No additional funds are being requested.
Compass Strategic Goals:
An integrated marketing strategy allows the Port to deliver on multiple Compass Strategic Plan goals as listed below by delivering the Port’s brand promise to the community, helping us build credibility with the public and stakeholders, and ultimately contributing to revenue generation as an integral part of the business model.
• A thriving and modern maritime seaport
• A Port that the public understands, trusts and values
• A vibrant waterfront destination where residents and visitors converge
• A Port with an innovative and motivated workforce
• A financially sustainable Port that drives regional job creation and regional economic vitality
DISCUSSION:
I. The Rationale for Marketing in a Public Benefit Corporation
The objectives of marketing and communications are to be understood and to be trusted. The public needs to know what their options are in order for them to make informed decisions.
In order for the Board and the Port to maximize its effectiveness, it's helpful and appropriate for stakeholders - all Californians - to have an understanding of the Port's higher mission, and of our broad spectrum of work and responsibilities for maritime -- fishing, cargo ships, cruise ships, and aquaculture; waterfront development; public safety; experiences; and ecology and the environment. When an individual or a community has demands and expectations for one thing, it's helpful when they are aware of the other things we must balance.
There's a hierarchy in communications and marketing. Transparency is a base level. Engagement is higher on the pyramid. Our objectives are to build understanding and trust with the public. Trust is the result of open communication, knowledge, integrity, and the belief that others are acting in the best interests of the whole.
We are doing great work for the public good, and the public should know what we’re doing on their behalf. For the Port as a public trust entity, whatever it is we wish for the public to think and feel about the Port must be the result of our actions. Not the result of brand marketing through which we tell the public how they should think or feel about our actions. It is appropriate for us to market those things - projects, actions, policies, results, etc. And then the public makes of them what they will. In other words, we don’t spend money telling the world how great we are. We spend money doing great things, and what others feel or think about us is a result of our actions. Of our reputation.
Know that our marketing and communications efforts are now and will remain focused on our core responsibilities: Maritime, Waterfront Development, Public Safety, Experiences, and Environment.
II. Overall Brand Update:
As part of the brand launch, the Port commissioned a baseline brand survey in the spring of 2017 that showed our unaided brand awareness in San Diego county was at 20% and combined aided and unaided awareness was at 73.3%.
Our recently concluded brand tracking survey showed a 6% increase in unaided awareness, increasing from 20% to 26% in the county-wide results, and the combined aided and unaided awareness increased from 73.3% to 76.3%. When segmented out, the unaided awareness increase in the five member cities went up 6.1 points, while the rest of the county went up 5.8 points.
Awareness is based on positive or correct responses to the survey questions:
• Do you happen to know which public agency is responsible for managing the San Diego Bay waterfront?
• What is the name of the agency?
• Prior to taking this survey, had you heard of the agency called the Port of San Diego?
If the survey respondent is able to identify the Port on their own, without being prompted, it’s considered unaided awareness. If the respondent correctly chooses the Port from a list of other possible agencies, then it’s considered aided awareness.
Unaided & Aided Awareness of SD Port by Study Year
Additionally, knowledge of the Port’s responsibilities increased in every one of the 11 categories measured between the 2019 benchmark survey.
Knowledge of SD Port Responsibility by Study Year: Overall
In addition to the brand survey, the team uses other tools to gauge public awareness and sentiment, such as earned media, reported regularly by our communications team, and social media. Our social media analysis tool scans multiple social platforms for comments mentioning the Port of San Diego for neutral, positive and negative language.
The year prior to brand launch, 18% of comments were negative, and 34% were positive, while 48% were neutral. In the two year period following brand launch, the share of negative comments decreased by half to 9%, share of neutral comments also decreased to 39% and positive comments increased to a majority 52% share of the total comments. Additionally, the number of followers on the Port’s social media platforms increased by 47% to 91,200 during this same time period.
III. Sub-Brand Campaigns & Key Performance Indicators:
All campaigns are created in alignment with the sub-brand language to help reinforce understanding and awareness of Maritime, Waterfront Development, Public Safety, Experiences and Environment. The messaging for each sub-brand and associated campaigns are designed to increase understanding of the Port’s role in the region, in addition to achieving business outcomes without spending marketing dollars on general brand awareness.
For every campaign, the team develops a plan that includes the target audience and objectives, then builds a media plan designed specifically to deliver that audience. Using innovative technology and strong negotiation skills, the team is able to deliver targeted results with the goal of keeping the campaign cost-per-mille (CPM) as low as possible. CPM is the industry standard for media buying and is the cost for delivering one thousand gross impressions or opportunities to see an advertisement. Each campaign begins with a projected CPM and is followed with a complete analysis and actuals to ensure our media partners and campaigns are delivering as expected. We use the results to optimize future campaigns.
Below we have included an example from each sub-brand on how this process is adapted for different objectives, target audiences and outcomes, depending on the needs of each campaign.
Sub-brand: Maritime
Campaign: Cruise Marketing
Welcome to the Port of Land and See
The Welcome to the Port of Land and See campaign was developed in close collaborative partnership with the Maritime team. The team defined specific objectives in advance, both Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C):
• Increase the number of homeported ships in San Diego (B2B)
• Increase the number of ship calls per season (B2B)
• Increase the number of cruise lines calling the Port of San Diego (B2B)
• Increase passenger demand/number of guests on each ship (B2C)
The campaign launched in January of 2017. Overall, cruise calls are up an estimated 33% over our 2016 baseline and passengers are up an estimated by 52% in the same time period. Additionally, our Maritime team was able to engage three new cruise lines who have committed to new calls in San Diego since the launch of the campaign.
The first year of the campaign garnered over 15 million impressions and delivered an exceptional performance on digital click-through-rates, overall website page views, and the amount of time spent on page. The average number of visits to the website per month more than doubled with an overall increase of 127%. The second year amassed another 11 million impressions (there was lower budget allocated to cruise marketing in FY 18/19), however the website continues to perform incredibly well with an average of 7,858 page views per month.
Sub-brand: Waterfront Development
Campaign: Lower-cost Overnight Accommodations RFP
San Diego Bay Development Opportunity
Real estate development projects create new opportunities for the public to enjoy the waterfront while simultaneously increasing the revenues available to the District to maintain and improve the Tidelands. Marketing campaigns are an important tool for the District in attracting and retaining high-performing tenants to these projects, because they make more firms aware of the opportunities to do business on Port Tidelands. As discussed below, pairing national and international marketing efforts with project and programmatic development solicitations has increased the number of firms aware of, downloading, and responding to District Requests for Proposals (RFPs), which has also resulted in significantly higher attendance rates at information exchanges. It is also important to note that not only are more firms aware of the Port’s solicitations, the reach has significantly increased and we are consistently seeing responses being submitted from all across the country, rather than just from firms in Southern California.
The recent Lower Cost Overnight Accommodations RFP was promoted in partnership with the Business Development team in the Real Estate Department. The project team defined the following objectives for the campaign:
• Increase awareness of the available waterfront development opportunity
• Expand the pool of interested developers beyond the region
• Increase the number of RFP downloads through PlanetBids (Procurement tool)
• Increase the number of complete qualified bid proposals received
The campaign targeted hotel and real estate development publications and online outlets, such as Hotel Management Magazine, Hotel Business.com and Western Real Estate Business. The Hotel Management Magazine campaign was launched at The Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles, where attendees of the conference received marketing materials in giveaway bags that were placed on each attendee’s guestroom door during the conference, and also promoted at the publications booth, which resulted in staff having the opportunity to meet with over 10 development teams during the conference. The campaign was a terrific example of the traditional marketing funnel in action, moving from awareness to action. Some of the results include:
• 975,818 Gross Impressions
• 1,030 Website Landing Page Views
• 79 RFP Downloads
• 4 Proposals Received, 3 Complete Proposals (from Washington D.C., San Diego and a Los Angeles/New Zealand team)
• 1 Micro hotel concept selected
The campaign was targeted which usually drives up the CPM, however, we were able to deliver a $16.82 CPM, which was lower than the projected $18.18 for the campaign.
In 2016, a similar project solicitation for the Destination Recreational Vehicle (RV) Park RFP (12-22-16 Information Packet to the Board) was accompanied by a marketing campaign that reached over 250,000 people, not including social or earned media, or personal contacts, and resulted in 72 parties from across the country downloading the RFP. In comparison, the project solicitation for the redevelopment of the Iconic Waterfront Restaurant Development Opportunity, formerly Anthony’s, soon to be Portside Pier, had no marketing campaign and was downloaded only 46 times and received primarily local development bids.
Programmatic solicitations for large-scale development projects have received similar results. The Harbor Island and Central Embarcadero projects demonstrate the impact of marketing campaigns on increasing awareness, interest and action. The solicitation for the East Harbor Island Basin Development Opportunity was not accompanied by a marketing campaign and the solicitation was downloaded 131 times. In comparison, the World Class Waterfront Development Opportunity RFP (Central Embarcadero) included outreach to developers in 90 counties and reached over two million people (4-21-16 Information Packet to the Board). The results of this outreach included 268 personal contacts and the solicitation was downloaded 261 times.
Within the Waterfront Development area, marketing efforts can also be used to enhance the competition for development related services, such as property management, with the District. For example, the Waterfront Retail Opportunity RFP (10-19-17 Information Packet to the Board) for Seaport Village was accompanied by a marketing campaign that reached nearly one million people and resulted in 75 personal contacts, 66 downloads, and seven proposals from across the country, three of which were complete.
Sub-brand: Public Safety
Campaign: Harbor Police Outreach & Recruitment
At the Ready
In our initial brand survey, for the question of knowledge of the Port’s responsibilities, only 39% of people knew the Port was responsible for “Protecting public safety and homeland security in and near the Bay.” It was the third lowest of the 11 categories we surveyed. However, research shows there are positive outcomes for police departments to have good reputations in the community, including officer safety, crime reporting, crime prevention, community engagement and officer recruitment. The Marketing & Communications team met with the Harbor Police Department to develop the Public Safety sub-brand and a new long-term outreach and recruitment campaign with the following objectives:
• Increase public understanding of Harbor Police and the work they do
• Build appreciation for the cross-trained force
• Differentiate between Harbor Police and other local Departments
• Increase number of qualified, ideal recruits
Additionally, the team will share assets and messaging with the Harbor Police Department’s newly created foundation, designed to supplement the work of the force with resources and donations.
The new campaign is designed to showcase the diversity and cross-training of the Harbor Police and the wide-breadth of safety the officers are always At the Ready to address around San Diego Bay. The campaign just recently launched in June of 2019 and began with a local community promotional wave of print ads in neighborhood and specialty paper.
The campaign has amassed 18,653,544 impressions so far by leveraging several sponsorships, with a CPM of $2.06. We expect to be able to bring that lower through the life of the campaign. Also, traffic to the Harbor Police landing page on the Port’s website has seen a dramatic increase since the launch of the campaign in June.
A second promotional wave will run in alignment with the new recruitment effort specifically for new recruits who will be heading to the Academy, as opposed to lateral recruits from other police departments. The campaign will also add a set of recruitment specific creative assets to help target and facilitate the recruitment process, working closely with the Port’s Human Resources team to develop materials and then to measure effectiveness at the close of the recruitment period.
Sub-brand: Experiences
Campaign: Destination/Tourism
Discover Your Wonderfront
The project team for the destination and tourism marketing campaign included representatives from Marketing, Real Estate and Waterfront Arts & Activation. The team developed a comprehensive destination marketing strategy to bring visitors and locals alike to enjoy the vast amenities of our dynamic waterfront. The Discover Your Wonderfront campaign encompasses one overarching macro-campaign and seven individual micro-campaigns that are connected together to promote the waterfront as a whole, and the different communities along the waterfront that offer their own opportunities for visitors. The team defined the following objectives during the development phase of the campaign:
• Build identity and demand for destination among visitors
• Drive traffic to waterfront locations, both tenants and public realm
• Increase spending at tenant locations (concession revenue)
• Explore co-marketing opportunities to leverage media buys
Because this campaign is essentially broken down into different sections, we will focus on the two most recent focus areas that received promotional support. The National City Marina District and the Embarcadero. In addition to the promotional waves, an ongoing digital core campaign runs consistently through the year online and on social media to continuously drive traffic to the Wonderfront section of our website, encouraging people to explore options and plan visits to San Diego Bay to explore not only tenant businesses and attractions, but also parks, arts, events and public amenities.
The campaign has been incredibly successful in driving traffic to the website and has quickly become one of the most popular areas of the site for website visitors. The first year of the campaign, the website landing page received an average of 4,878 page views per month. In the second year of the campaign (FY18/19) that number increased to 7,768 page views per month. Through the course of the year, the campaign garnered over 50 million impressions with a CPM of $6.16.
Discover Your Wonderfront at National City Marina District
• Promotional wave dates: September 2018 - October 2018
The portion of the campaign dedicated to the National City Marina District lasted from September to October 2018, with National City creative included in the digital core media buy through the end of December 2018. The campaign was focused on activating areas around the National City waterfront, particularly Pepper Park and Pier 32, with $48,000 of the total Wonderfront budget allocated to this promotional wave.
The campaign was designed to target both the public access opportunities of the National City area and the top revenue generating areas of the leasehold. The historical top five revenue categories from Pier 32 Marine Group are Boat Slips/Storage Sales, Miscellaneous and Other Sales, Food Sales, Beverage On-Sale Sales (as opposed to Beverage Off-Sale Sales), and Coin Machine Commission Sales. Pier 32 experienced a seven percent ($71,000) bump in these sales categories on a year-over-year basis during the time of the campaign (from $1.06M during September - December 2017 to $1.13M during September - December 2018). In comparison, the Wharf in Point Loma, with similar ownership, experienced a two percent ($35,000) increase in revenue in these visitor-serving sales categories over the same time period (from $1.56M during September - December 2017 to $1.59M during September - December 2018.)
Discover Your Wonderfront at Embarcadero
• Promotional wave dates: “Nightlife” January 2019 - February 2019 and “Sunshine” May 2019 - June 2019
The portion of the Discover Your Wonderfront campaign focused on Embarcadero media cost a total of $93,970 and ran in two waves: the first wave ran in the winter months and featured evening shots in the advertisements, running from January-February 2019 ($46,240) and the second wave ran as a lead-in to the summer months featuring sunny day time adventures running from May-June 2019 ($47,730). The campaign focused on the historical top five revenue generating categories: Beverage Sales, Food Sales, Guest Room Rentals, Miscellaneous & Other sales, and Parking Services/Space Sales. These areas were identified by looking at the five highest-grossing activities for the Port over a two-year period of January 2015-December 2016.
In order to determine changes in revenue during the campaigns, staff examined changes in revenue from January-June for 2017, 2018, and 2019. The table below summarizes the settlement payments to the District in each of these categories from tenants on the Embarcadero. The year-over-year growth for January to June 2019 vs January to June 2018 was over $1.75 million or nearly 9% overall. Revenue growth exceeded 6% in each targeted category. In comparison, revenue in these five categories grew less than 1% in a year-over-year basis from January to June 2018 vs January to June 2017.
The miscellaneous and other sales category had the greatest relative growth rate as a result of sales increases at four hotels on the Embarcadero. One reason for this large relative increase is that this category is growing from a smaller base than the other items. In comparison, the 6.5% growth in guest room rental payments was the lowest in relative terms, but it was the largest nominal increase at $890,530.
a. Excludes Seaport Village sales because, with the change in ownership, there was no comparable for 2019.
b. The main sources of revenue in the Miscellaneous & Other Sales category are the concession payments from sales at four hotels, which account for about 96%-97% of the revenue in this category.
c. The Intercontinental San Diego opened in September 2018, and that additional inventory was included in this analysis.
Sub-brand: Environment
Campaign: Pollution Prevention/Water Quality
#ThatsMyBay
Finally for our environment sub-brand, the team developed a very different kind of campaign, focused not on revenue generation or website traffic, but on education and behavior change.
Keeping waste out of our bay is a critical step in ensuring the wildlife, plant life and people of San Diego Bay can continue to enjoy our region’s most precious natural resource. In order to achieve those results, the Marketing and Communications team worked closely with the Planning and Green Port team to develop a series of videos on how to keep the bay clean, each featuring a very specific behavior change based on best practice information to help people keep waste out of San Diego Bay. The team set up the following objectives for the awareness campaign:
• Improve water quality by implementing best practice for stormwater management
• Build ownership in environmental championship of San Diego Bay
• Engage public and staff in pollution prevention through humor
• Educate public with actionable behavior change information
These short, easy to understand videos needed to be as memorable as the bay itself, so our in-house team developed a funny set of lovable characters that love San Diego Bay so much, they can’t stop telling the world how to take care of it with #ThatsMyBay.
#ThatsMyBay Campaign Impressions
The campaign delivered over eight million impressions during the course of fiscal year 2018/19, with an incredibly low CPM of $3.32, far below the projected $14.86 projected at the beginning of the campaign, and far out-delivering the projected 1.8 million impressions we hoped to achieve. The high level of social media engagement, completed video views and general positive community response helped amplify our outreach leading to our CPM coming in at approximately 78% lower than anticipated.
*Digital campaign paused in January 2019 for assessment and optimization
#ThatsMyBay Videos Combined Social Media Views (YouTube & Facebook)
The campaign was primarily intended to be delivered online through social media with YouTube and Facebook as the drivers, optimized for video viewing and uniquely targeted to park users in our area. Within these channels alone, the videos received over a half million views, with additional views occurring on Twitter, some broadcast as bonus spots, digital pre-roll as added value, event sponsorships that included video, and other leveraged opportunities not included in the counts below.
#ThatsMyBay YouTube Video Average View Time
The YouTube analytics were particularly rewarding. The videos all average view times in the 90% range, an amazing view rate for any YouTube video content, but particularly for educational or advertising content. In fact, the view time on the first video released averaged 31 seconds on a 25-second video during the first month of release. We didn’t even realize this was possible and had to dig into the statistics and viewing habits to figure out how it was possible to have an average view time longer than the video itself. It turns out that so many people were rewinding the end of the video and watching the final scene over again, that most people were literally spending more time watching the video than its actual length! The table below details the YouTube views and average view rates for each video from the time of its release to the present.
#ThatsMyBay Video Online Research
A survey was conducted by Luth Research to test the first six #ThatsMyBay videos to ensure the campaign was producing the intended results, considering this is intended to be a long-term effort with a total of twenty videos in the series. The results will be used to help craft future video scripts and guide the creative and media planning strategy. Overall results from the survey were extremely positive, with averages across all video responses included below.
• 89.6% of respondents said the message is very clear to me
• 84.6% of respondents said the videos shows me what I can do to help keep San Diego Bay clean
• 86.3% of respondents said the videos focus on an important problem for San Diego Bay
• 74% of respondents said the videos were memorable
• 73.5% of respondents said the videos motivate me to take the action highlighted to help keep San Diego Bay clean
The Environmental Protection Department is also tracking metrics to determine trends in pollution, such as the number of facilities observed to be kept neat and clean during routine stormwater inspections, the amount of debris observed in storm drain outfall areas, the amount of trash and debris observed in parks, and audits of trash receptacles. The Environmental Protection Department will utilize this data to determine where to focus efforts and as a baseline to measure how successful prevention efforts are such as the #ThatsMyBay behavior change pollution prevention campaign.
Next Steps:
The marketing and communications industry as a whole has come a long way in the area of metrics over the past few years, and the Port’s Marketing and Communications team has put a great deal of effort into applying the most innovative trends in the field to our campaigns. Using collaborative development with other departments to define objectives, careful strategic planning, aligned brand messaging and creative, relationships with our media partners, tracking links for all digital media, and careful analysis and optimization during and following each campaign, we have been able to support the core mission of the Port’s varied business lines, and ensure we are utilizing our marketing budget effectively.
As we move forward, we will continue to use the above outlined strategies, implement new opportunities for measuring effectiveness as they become available, and most importantly, work with our colleagues in each department to support their marketing and outreach needs to effectively conduct business on the waterfront and keep the public informed of District services.
General Counsel’s Comments:
The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed the agenda sheet, as presented to it, and approves it as to form and legality.
Environmental Review:
The proposed Board direction, including without limitation, an information presentation and update on District marketing campaigns, does not constitute a “project” under the definition set forth in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15378 because no direct or indirect changes to the physical environment would occur. CEQA requires that the District adequately assess the environmental impacts of projects and reasonably foreseeable activities that may result from projects prior to the approval of the same. Any project developed as a result of Board’s direction that requires the District or the Board’s discretionary approval resulting in a physical change to the environment will be analyzed in accordance with CEQA prior to such approval. CEQA review may result in the District, in its sole and absolute discretion, requiring implementation of mitigation measures, adopting an alternative, including without limitation, a “no project alternative” or adopting a Statement of Overriding Consideration, if required. The proposed Board direction in no way limits the exercise of this discretion. Therefore, no further CEQA review is required.
In addition, the proposed Board direction complies with Sections 21 and 35 of the Port Act, which allow for the Board to pass resolutions and to do all acts necessary and convenient for the exercise of its powers. The Port Act was enacted by the California Legislature and is consistent with the Public Trust Doctrine. Consequently, the proposed Board direction is consistent with the Public Trust Doctrine.
The proposed Board direction does not allow for “development,” as defined in Section 30106 of the California Coastal Act, or “new development,” pursuant to Section 1.a. of the District’s Coastal Development Permit (CDP) Regulations because they will not result in, without limitation, a physical change, change in use or increase the intensity of uses. Therefore, issuance of a Coastal Development Permit or exclusion is not required. However, development within the District requires processing under the District’s CDP Regulations. Future development, as defined in Section 30106 of the Coastal Act, will remain subject to its own independent review pursuant to the District’s certified CDP Regulations, PMP, and Chapters 3 and 8 of the Coastal Act. The Board’s direction in no way limits the exercise of the District’s discretion under the District’s CDP Regulations. Therefore, issuance of a CDP or exclusion is not required at this time.
Equal Opportunity Program:
Not applicable.
PREPARED BY:
Jenifer Barsell
Director, Marketing & Communications