Home Antioch Antioch City Council Agrees to Spend $236k on Ad Buy for Branding Campaign

Antioch City Council Agrees to Spend $236k on Ad Buy for Branding Campaign

by ECT

On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council agreed to spend $236,000 over a period of 6-months on media placement and marketing materials to assist the City in rebranding and improve messaging.

After an hour-long discussion, the council voted 3-1 to support the ad spend with Councilwoman Lori Ogorchock dissenting.  Not included in this ad-buy is the creation of the creative which could cost another $100k which had previously been allocated. The council also appears to be headed to a larger discussion during the budget cycle on providing funds for a 2-year plan in the spring time.

At November 27 presentation by Orange22 and Evviva on the framework of what a media buy would look like which includes a mix of print, digital (such as social media), radio and to highlight how “opportunity lives here” a concept developed by Evviva to re-brand the City of Antioch.

Kwame Reed, Economic Development Director, provided background to the council of how the city hired Evviva ($95k) to rebrand Antioch and work to change perception of how people see the city.

“As means of getting that message out, it was recommended that the city obtain a media planner to create immediate plan that will assist the city and inserting the creative messaging that will soon be created into various forms of media and numerous media markets inside and outside of Antioch,” explained Reed.

Reed then provided a recap of the prior presentation along with how the plan would be implemented.

“The media campaign is really all about creating the brand awareness, pushing the opportunity lives here message out into the world and really working on changing the perception of how people see Antioch,” stated Reed. “One of the purposes is also to make sure that we’re driving people to the right location so that we can start to monitor and actually, I guess qualify the results of the brand and marketing efforts.”

Reed stated some of the target markets would be consumers and businesses in San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, Richmond and Emeryville.

The City Council discussed the pros and cons of the two plans outlined by Orange22.

Ann Balboa, Orange22, explained the difference between the two marketing plans which they would work with the city to create.

“The higher costs budget is going to give you a more feel everywhere look, this notion I just explained to you a connected TV to outdoors sort of a more holistic across all media. Seems like you’re everywhere and seems like you spent $2,000,000,” said Balboa. “Where the lower cost one is going to take the workhorse part of that which is the hard core digital marketing part that allows us to do the most tracking because the bigger media, even though it’s big, it’s much harder to track.”

Balboa stated the more you spend, the more impressions the city would get.

“Your efficiencies also are not as good when you spend less money because the more we spend, the more efficient we can get, the more bargaining power we have, the more we can negotiate,” stated Balboa.

The council then debated between two plans. Option 1 was at $340,000 or Option 2 at $236,900. In both options, the creation of the material was not included, but according to Reed, it had been previously budgeted at roughly $100,000.

Mayor Pro Tem Joy Motts asked for clarification on the timeline the ad buy would be utilized.

Reed responded it would be for a 6-month period.

“This purchase of the amount of money that’s here, the only real amount that would go to Orange22 would be their fee for helping us create the plan and identifying those markets,” said Reed. “The city would still then have to enter into a standalone agreement with the agencies that Ann would identify for us to insert the media into.”

Motts asked if they were then looking realistically at $800,000 to $1,000,000 annual commitment.

Reed replied he didn’t want to provide a number at this time because the next number would be during the 2-year budget

“I think once we go through this first six months, we’ll be able to identify what it should be going on,” said Reed. “Everything that I’ve heard when it comes to rebranding or marketing a city, it has to be continuous. It’s not a one time and done. We have to make sure that we have the budget to continue and still hit those markets the same way or hit different markets, but it’s just a matter of we want to constantly get that message out.”

Motts replied the “perception here has been very damaging” but questioned what comes first, clean up the city and continue to fix things, or begin to market and sell the city to the Bay Area.

Reed replied this was a “chicken or the egg” question, but there were a lot of positive things going on in Antioch that were unfortunately being overshadowed by negative news.

“Pushing this type of brand, this marketing campaign into the different markets helps combat that somewhat because we’re going to be pushing out a very positive messages about opportunity lives here,” said Reed. “I’m providing the different means of that, I think to those different areas we still have prime land that people could come and relocate their business to here. We have probably Cass A slash B office space that people could insert their companies into that are, that are vacant right now. So this would help get the word out.”

Councilwoman Monica Wilson stated she understand this was a six-month plan and they need to get this started, however, this was not a sprint, but rather a marathon and suggested they needed a long-term plan.

“I think that’s where I’m having the struggle because I don’t want to just do we paid for six months and at the end of six months I guess it was, okay, let’s do another six months,” stated Wilson. “I just really think we need to really start looking long-term. Six months,  a year, five years out, just really looking and I’m and I’m not hearing that.”

Wilson agreed this needed to be kick-started, but they needed a larger conversation moving forward.

Reed explained the marketing plan would still need to be created, what was presented tonight was identifying the amount of funding and identify what the City could achieve with Orange22.

Motts asked if this could be purchased with one-time monies.

Mayor Sean Wright highlighted that was part of the discussion last time that they have $280,000 available.

Councilwoman Lori Ogorchock stated she thought they were starting big instead of starting small and that this was for an ad-buy, but they still had $100,000 to create the material.  Ogorchock also highlighted they already have RFQ and RFP’s out for both social media along with photography and videos.

Reed called those RFQ/RFP items unrelated to the action item tonight and would perform differently.

“The RFP for the social media, I would also include the Antioch on the Move website and providing that support to city staff as additional almost outside staff that would monitor social media and give us the best practices on how we should be inserting and messaging with social media,” stated Reed.

Ogorchock challenged him saying it was another cost on top of this ask tonight.

“I think our first step should be the easiest and instant notification and gratification such as the social media,” stated Ogorchock. “I think we could start with the smaller scale stuff, by the social media first, just to see those benchmarks, those markers to see how we’re doing to get our name out there and to do things with. I just think were tying stuff up for six months and I have a hard time with $391,000 when I’m looking at all calls, I’m looking at parks and stuff and we have not yet done anything with any of the other social media platforms yet. So I think we should start there. I think we should start smaller approach.”

Reed clarified the social media RFP currently out did not include the marketing aspect, but rather it would be monitoring things like Facebook and be like a modified PR campaign.

Ogorchock stated she believed whoever they hire for social media can actually do that type of work.

Balboa highlighted that social media would be a slower growth but is a key part of what they are doing and work closely with the firm to share results on photos and posts.

Maybe there’s a really awesome posts on Facebook that I can go in and boost or pay and get 10 times as many people to look at it and share it that day. So I see those working really closely together,” said Balboa.

Ogorchcok replied that the city has not yet started the social media and when they first hired Evviva, they were supposed to work with social media and that has not happened yet.

Wright stated all businesses face the decision of how much they are going to pay for advertising versus time.

“Social media is more like your time, going out and serving in the community as advertising, but it’s time intensive, buying advertising is a lot faster,” said Wright. “That’s the question, up until this point, the last 10 years, the city of Antioch has paid for zero advertising. There has been no marketing budget so this is a new concept for a community to actually pay to advertise.”

Wright admitted the $391,000 plan was somewhat of a sticker shock to most people, but with 115,000 in the community, it comes out to $3.41 per person.

“Its like a cup of coffee. A per person advertising in this community, if we all pitched in and help, that’s what we are talking about,” said Wright. “We all want new entrepreneurs to think about Antioch and right now we’re doing nothing to encourage them to come. There’s nothing out there outside of Antioch.”

Wright explained they have created a brand and paid the money to create it, now they are going to push the brand or they are not.

“I think having it organically as a Bay Area as a whole, it’s going to be a slow process that we’re not going to see a lot of benefit from or payoff on this is if we do get potential businesses that come here, the sales tax revenue from those businesses, the extra sales tax from those people that work here, the benefit of quality of your life. That is the ultimate payoff,” said Wright.

Motts jumped in saying they could not keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.

“Antioch seems to shoot for the hip instead of trying to go for what I think we deserve here as a community.  For so long we’ve been coming out of the downturn and really running on a skeleton budget here with the police department and all of our departments just really suffering it’s just very difficult to think about how do we honestly go forward and change the perception of our community and really changed the dynamic of what’s happening and make this into what we know it all can be,” explained Motts.

Motts further highlighted she loves the concept of “Opportunity Lives here” and believes in it while noting she would hate to see it just go to waste by not doing anything with it but would really like it to be part of the budget process or use some of the one-time money.

Wilson stated she had a hard time with the $391,000 and suggested they start smaller and then during the budget cycle, they could have a larger conversation at that time with a long-term plan.

Wright asked about Option 1 if they went that route, there was not enough money in one-time money because they had $284,000 in one-time money and would have to pull money out of the general fund to make up the difference.

He continued by saying he would love to go with Option 1, but depending on the votes he could support either Option 1 or Option 2.

Motts stated she would go with how the council wanted to vote.

“Depending on how the rest of the council feels I would be in favor of whatever the majority is going to want to go forward with so we can get something started. That would be my recommendation,” stated Motts.

Wilson confirmed she was in favor of Option 2 ($236,900) and Wright said he would also support it because it got them started and to a larger conversation.

Ogorchock again explained she didn’t understand why if they were bringing it back at budget time, why they wouldn’t start with the social media and start at a smaller scale to get this moving forward.

“It is going to add to what Ann and Kwame are talking about and there might be more dollars added at that time. Its not that we aren’t doing anything, right now we are doing nothing, so starting a social media outreach is starting something,” said Ogorchock who suggested they start with social media and see what the benchmarks were

Reed explained that the RFP for the social media, no budget for that has been identified at this time and would require an additional budget amendment or come back to the council at the next budget cycle.

The council then voted 3-1 in favor of the resolution with Ogorchock dissenting.

Councilman Lamar Thorpe was absent from the meeting.


Editors Notes:

Current spend on marketing/branding by City of Antioch. Unknown at this time is the cost for AntiochOntheMove website and videos by a company hired by City Manager Ron Bernal.

CompanyTaskAllocation
UnknownCreation of materialsUp to $100k
EvvivaBranding$95k
Orange22Ad-buyUp to $236,900
RFQ ClosedPhoto & Video ServicesUnknown
RFP currently openSocial Media ServicesUnknown

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25 comments

Karen Dec 12, 2018 - 10:06 am

Lipstick on a pig. End of story. No advertising or branding the City does will matter if they do not spend the time or effort to actually fix problems. I am a bit concerned why the council feels the need to spend on advertising for outside people when they fail to spend on things that would actually help improve Antioch’s brand by working with residents and fix the crime and trash. This goes back to the whole one can’t be in a relationship with someone else until one truly loves yourself. Until Antioch residents love Antioch, its kind of asinine to ask an outsider to love Antioch and move here or bring a business here.

Jerry Thompson Dec 12, 2018 - 10:25 am

Anyone else concerned about Joy Motts leadership ability?

“Depending on how the rest of the council feels I would be in favor of whatever the majority is going to want to go forward with so we can get something started. That would be my recommendation,” stated Motts.

Grace Dec 17, 2018 - 8:18 pm

Jerry … This shows that there are leaders and then there are followers … Looks like Mott is the latter.

Jane Dec 12, 2018 - 10:43 am

antioch must be that afraid of TV media, eastcountytoday, east bay times, antioch herald for telling the truth about what is going on in antioch. If antioch would fix the problems it has there would not be negative stories out in the media. this is such a stupid decision by the council.

Julio Dec 12, 2018 - 12:43 pm

This is the 5th time in my 50 years here this has been tried in one manner or another. NO. Fix the city. Spend the money on cleaning this place up. We have the broken window syndrome . We need a new economic development director that isn’t a reject from our neighbors and knows what he is doing.

Jim Simmons Dec 12, 2018 - 1:39 pm

Antioch may have the worst economic development team in the Bay Area. It is sad the city manager has created an incompetent team and at some point, Bernal is going to begin to appear incompetent by allowing this to continue.

Antioch does not have a branding or marketing problem, they have a problem of not addressing the issues at hand. Crime and blight. Vacant buildings. Homeless. Cat piss downtown. Making it easier on business to do business. I agree with you Julio, the broken window syndrome is real and Antioch does have it.

Dawn Dec 16, 2018 - 11:17 pm

Go after those people who abandon their cats and dogs in downtown Antioch. It’s not the cats’ fault. We try to pick them up and re-domesticate them so they can trust people again.

Karen Hughes Dec 17, 2018 - 5:19 pm

Cat piss downtown? Cats bury their waste! What you’re smelling, Jim, is human piss left they by the homeless! You think they will use a public toilet? Unlike every country in Europe, we do not have public toilets here. In Europeans cities, there are public toilets manned by retirees and for the equivalent of 10 cents of less, you can use it. They even provide bathroom tissue!

Julio Dec 17, 2018 - 5:32 pm

It sure does stink. Just smell the front yards in our neighborhood because a lady had 20 cats. These are not homeless people. Give me a break!

Grace Dec 17, 2018 - 8:22 pm

White driving, I have seen many scruffy-looking men, stop in front of someone’s fence and urinate into their front yard. I usually roll down my car window and call out, ‘Have a good piss!”

Lola Saavedra Dec 17, 2018 - 8:35 pm

The WORST stench comes from people who eat a lot of beans and then “cut the cheese.”

tammy Dec 17, 2018 - 8:30 pm

People have to blame someone, so why not helpless cats? They will not confront you like people would for fear of having their teeth knocked out. I’ve seen homeless bums do more than just take a piss in full view of people walking and driving in the downtown area. Watch where you step!

Nick Dec 12, 2018 - 5:19 pm

To fix the problem in Antioch you would have to get rid of the residents in Antioch. Any city is a reflection of the residents living there.

Elizabeth R Dec 16, 2018 - 11:19 pm

I’m all for getting rid of the low-lives who moved here and go after the people who rent to them.

Jim Dec 12, 2018 - 7:07 pm

Clean up the city spend money on thing the tax payers can see. If it looks like a dump then no one will care and they will treat it like a dump.it starts from the top down the Manager runs the city….the strategy on the day to day operations. The council just make policy….. there needs to be a full court press on the bad behaving people in this city. Until that happens there will be know change ….

Jim Dec 12, 2018 - 7:16 pm

One other thing isn’t this the council that just gave away 100,000 dollars of tax revenue in a tax sharing agreement to Nokes two weeks ago now they want to get more business to come here for more tax revenue…… I’m confused I don’t think we can afford anymore tax sharing agreements

Christy T Dec 12, 2018 - 9:04 pm

When is Antioch going to fix the crappy job of Lone Tree Way, the over exuberance homeless problem, the trash all over the streets, the rise in crime, etc. Should I go on? Why not spend that money for employees and equipment to take care of some of the problems? You can’t frequent the downtown area without being approached by people begging for money. You get the creeps. If Antioch would clean-up the city then I have a feeling that businesses would be attracted to come here. Spend money wisely not frivolously. Poor administration. Just saying.

Dawn Marie Dec 18, 2018 - 1:42 am

What is going on with Lone Tree Way? Where are the lane markers? Why is that road so rough to drive on? It’s been like that for quite some time. I have to use alternate routes to get from one place to another. People literally run into your car because there are no lane markings.

Julio Dec 18, 2018 - 3:34 pm

No bike lanes either. They took them out. Nice job Ron and company.

tom Dec 13, 2018 - 9:04 am

To whoever is reeled in by this propaganda, just rent a room at quality Inn for a week and do your own research as to the viability of doing business here in Antioch,,, drive around and ask questions before investing hard earned money into Rivertown venture or any where else in town. Drive down the
Somersville strip mall, where most of the shops are boarded up; the Orchard Supply building vacant for years now; take a long hard look along the railroad tracks and surrounding areas,,, then draw your own conclusions…

Black Bart Dec 16, 2018 - 11:15 pm

That place should be renamed POOR QUALITY INN! It’s definitely NOT “Good” quality. Hookers keep knocking on your door asking if you want to “party.” Jeeeeesh!

33,000 enemas Dec 16, 2018 - 10:32 pm

The city is a mess! It’s very poorly run and the City Manager is paid over 1/4 of a million per year .. for what? Businesses are actually leaving Antioch and who can blame them? The place look like the worst Los Angeles ghetto. Blight everywhere! Absentee landlords letting properties deteriorate! No one goes after them. Cars being broken into at night or even in the daytime.

I loved Orchard Supply and shopped there several times a week. Lots of people shopped there! As to the Somersville Mall, if they had some decent stores there and good security, people would go to shop there.

Antioch is done Dec 18, 2018 - 10:54 am

You gotta love public assistance for housing. Where in any country can you rip apart your house and neighborhood all prepaid by the taxpayers ? Then move to Antioch for free to a brand new home and trash that too ? No respect for life and property anymore thanks to the politicians.

Joe Dec 20, 2018 - 3:26 pm

I just moved here a few years ago and like all the amenities the place has to offer for someone like me looking to live in a newer house and preparing for retirement. I like low taxes, expenses and convenience.
1. I would fous my energy on bringing business that need space for light manufacturing. These types of business care about the bottom line (as they should) and the headquarters are usually somewhere else.
-I don’t care as long as someone living here does not have to comute.
2. Create news for events related to the outdoors like a Kayak race and more 5k/10k race or start a kiteboarding business and school.
-Promote outdoor activiies and events related to water and other local natural resources.
3. Make a case that young people can buy real estate in this town instead of throwing it away in rent during the start of their lives. Yes they might move away when their kids become school age but some might stay.
Branding will not help unless there are good and positive stories coming out of this city. Work on this first.

Grace Dec 22, 2018 - 5:23 pm

Many communities would give their right arm to be located near a major river like Antioch and Pittsburg are in this area. I see trash dumped along the river. No one has the brains to develop it into a nice marina with high end stores with desirable merchandise. Instead, we have to take our lives in our hands and head for San Francisco to do that and have to walk on it’s feces-infested streets. I throw out the shoes I wear to walk in San Francisco.

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