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Tacoma: America’s #1 Wired City
Tacoma
187,500
Becky Japhet
Economic Development Marketing Coordinator
(253) 591-2054
2001 AWC Municipal Achievement Awards
Title of Project: Tacoma: America's #1 Wired City
Population:
Tacoma, Washington, 196,000
Contact:
Becky Japhet, Economic Development Marketing Coordinator, (253) 591-2054
BACKGROUND AND STRATEGIC APPROACH
Purpose. To start this story we'll need to turn back the clock a few years. That's when the
City of Tacoma facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge: turn around a sharply
negative image with the local and regional media and get the attention of the national
press, all with the ultimate goal of bringing business to town. One involved in the effort
knew that getting media coverage-positive coverage, and lots of it-was key to making the
city livable and economically viable, and bringing in revenues that would allow City
government to offer improved essential services, like building roads and offering police
protection. But that task, often difficult in even the most reputable communities, was an
especially tall order in Tacoma. Positive stories on the city were virtually non-existent,
and for good reason. Beginning in the 1960s the city had fallen into serious decline.
Families and businesses moved to the suburbs and downtown became a ghost town as
buildings fell into decay. Gang members moved up from Los Angeles and sold crack
cocaine, giving Tacoma the third-worst crime problem on the West Coast. The federal
Government identified Superfund sites within City limits and business investment went
to Seattle, just 30 miles north. In the early 1990s the City Council worked hard to turn
things around for this community of 196,000, reducing crime, settling Native American
land claims, addressing environmental issues head-on and making economic development
a top priority. But most importantly, City government got Tacoma in the tech game. For
years, high-speed cable and Internet service providers had scoffed at Tacoma and passed
the city by. So the City Council took matters into its own hands and invested $ 100
million in building Click! Network, a high-speed fiber optic network that covered every
city block. Tacoma now had a t business product-but it was virtually unknown.
Intended Outcomes. The group needed to create a comprehensive media relations
program that would enhance Tacoma's reputation in regional and national media outlets
that reach business decision-makers in target markets, including Seattle, California and
New York.
To get there, they would need to achieve these outcomes:
 Create a foolproof, winning story angle and use it to get media coverage.
 Change Tacoma's negative self-image by generating at least 20 positive local
articles about the City's turnaround.
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Change Tacoma's negative reputation in the Seattle market by generating at least
10 positive Seattle placements about the city's tech climate and reputation as
"America's #1 Wired City."
Begin building Tacoma's reputation nationally and internationally by generating
at least five articles in prominent national/intemational publications featuring
successful Tacoma CEOs.
Generate at least five new business leads through media-driven queries about
Tacoma.
Use these articles to generate a positive image with site selection consultants and
stakeholders.
Target Audiences.
The team needed to reach a variety of audiences. Directly, they needed to reach:
 Local media, including columnists and editorial board members-An often cynical
bunch that didn't look kindly on the City spending money on selling itself, also
bored and frustrated with Tacoma's continual " revival attempts”that had come
and gone… mostly gone.
 Seattle media- getting them interested in Tacoma (about anything other than
crime) would not be easy.
 The national media- who had ever heard of Tacoma, Washington? Another
Challenge.
 The international press-Plenty of competition here. This would be an amazing
accomplishment.
Through the media, the team aimed to reach:
 CEOs and other key business decision-makers of fast growing tech companies,
primarily in Seattle and California-We needed to convince these folks to bring
their businesses to Tacoma.
 Referral sources, including site selection consultants and real estate brokers-This
audience had a great deal of influence over businesses and their location
decisions.
 The internal market – Tacoma civic and business leaders and others who would
serve as primary sales force for the community.
 Employees – get them talking up to Tacoma too.
The varying characteristics of these audiences meant the team must develop an appealing
message wrapped around a tech-related theme. It also had to cut through the clutter and
set Tacoma apart from the thousands of other communities vying for media attention that
would ultimately result in business investment.
Getting it Done
To help formulate an innovative and creative solution, the City turned to expertsDevelopment Counsellors International (DCI), a New York firm that specializes in
helping communities market themselves for business investment. DCI’s first task was to
help the City come up with a solid story angle. What was Tacoma’s strongest selling
point? What did the City have to offer that was unique-something that would catch the
attention of the national media and ring true with regional media that for years had seen
Tacoma as the punch line of every regional joke? For answers DCI and the City asked the
folks who knew Tacoma best-the community's business Civic leaders. DCI interviewed
more than 50 people around town, using a carefully developed survey designed to reveal
the city's strengths and weaknesses and key selling points. Very soon it became apparent
that City's $100 million teleconununications infrastructure set it apart-and further
research revealed that Click! Network was the largest city-owned, high-speed
telecommunications network in the country. Companies didn't need to buy a LAN or
server and could get lines installed in less than a week, compared to a months-long wait
in r cities. This feature could fold well into a new image for Tacoma. It was unique. It
was also an image local business and community leaders could get behind. The team
developed several potential slogans and put them in front of a community focus group.
Based on feedback, they settled on the bold statement, "Tacoma: America's #1 Wired City
to highlight the telecom capabilities and call attention to the city's most unusual,
important asset. The team then found several strong high-tech CEOs to serve as
spokespeople, and developed a tech backgrounder and other media materials to clearly
spell out Tacoma's assets for high-tech companies. DCI sumarized it all in a “marketing
blueprint" for Tacoma. The blueprint outlined target audiences and 66 strategies for
marketing including internal marketing strategies, PR strategies such as media tours and
story placement, and marketing strategies such as direct mail, advertising, prospecting
tours, web site promotion and more.
The City and DCI jumped in with both feet, beginning by targeting their message to the
local market. They got local businesses and community leaders to help tell the story,
offering an invaluable business-to-business endorsement. They got city employees
involved by putting the logo on business cards, changing city e-mail esses to
"wiredcityusa.com and creating a "Wired City Millionaire's Club."
Now it was time to take the message farther afield. Together, DCI and City staff
organized a Seattle media and briefings with major Seattle media with a focus on
business publications and writers. They also coordinated interviews with influential news
radio and TV stations in Seattle.
The Seattle media bit. And once the story of Tacoma's resurgence began circulating
regionally, the team was to take it to larger, reputable national publications, generating
reporter visits to Tacoma and ultimately major placements. This new interest in Tacoma
often came with the challenge of having to move quickly. What paid off was the advance
work of getting the buy-in of the business community and other partners. In one case, a
City staffer set up a full day of meetings for a New York Times reporter on just two hours'
notice. DCI also monitored ProfNet and various editorial calendars for media
opportunities. From May through September 2000, Tacoma hosted than 20 national,
regional and trade journalists for visits. Once stories were published, the team used them
as a marketing tool, sending them in direct mail campaigns to community leaders,
national site selection consultants and thousnads of tech businesses in Seattle and other
target markets. The City also backed up the “America’s # 1 Wired City” image by
supporting local tech events- such as the community’s first e-Business Day-in
cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development board and local
tech groups.
Achievement of Stated Objectives
The promotional campaign’s objectives included several numbers, including
generating at least five articles in prominent national/international publications, 10
positive Seattle placements and 20 positive local articles about the City’s turnaround.
Working together, the City and DCI met-and in most cases exceeded-all these and too
many local placements to count.
The campaign generated dozens of articles in national and international publications,
including Inc. Magazine (cover story); Business Week; The New York Times; The Los
Angeles Times; The Dallas Morning News; Area Development; Site Selection; Global
Business; Business 2.0, Plants, Sites & Parks and Site Selection Online. Other hits
include stories in The Wall Street Journal; Boston Globe; American City & County;
GlobeSt.com and foreign publications including Die Welt; Asahi Shimbun; Agence
France Presse and NetBusiness.
And what about regional coverage? Remember, before the campaign, nearly every
Tacoma article in the Seattle press focused on crime or the “Tacoma aroma”. To some,
this turnaround is just as-or even more- meaningful as the campaign’s national success.
The campaign generated positive articles in, among others: Seattle Times; Seattle Post
Intelligencer; Business Examiner; Puget Sound Business Journal; Seattle Daily
Journal of Commerce and Our People, Our Places. A Tacoma spokesperson appeared
on KPLU, Seattle’s NPR affiliate, and the team generated positive stories on all major
Seattle TV stations. Locally, the campaign met the objective of changing Tacoma's
negative self-image, even winning over a skeptical press. The Tacoma News Tribune,
once publicly cynical of the campaign, recently wrote, "...a well-crafted marketing/PR
campaign has succeeded in giving Tacoma an entirely new image-‘America's #1 Wired
City’. This is the kind of publicity that money cannot buy."An Oct. 2000 Tacoma News
Tribune editorial headlined "It's official: Tacoma's rebound is for real" stated, "Positive
national and international exposure could allow Tacoma to even up the odds when
competing with other cities to attract more companies paying decent wages”. Another
local columnist, once publicly skeptical of the media campaign, wrote Jan. 4, 2001, “...it
seemed risky to spend a sizable chunk of public money on a PR campaign for a city
whose media exposure had been almost entirely negative for years. What if this
backfired, and we spent a bundle of bucks to look bad in print?
Well the numbers are in, and I was wrong. And glad of it. Now is not the time to stop but
to build on this foundation of success. “Multiple positive articles ran locally in the
Business Examiner, the Tacoma Index and the Puget Sound Business Journal.
The group accomplished all this work with an amazing degree of cost-effectiveness. The
budget for the marketing/media relations program was $129,150, the amount of the DCI
contract, and there was only one full- time staff member dedicated to the project on the
City of Tacoma's end. As you will see in the following pages, circulation for the major
Tacoma articles the group has placed thus far is 15,672,588 and total advertising
equivalency is $712,681.
Total circulation for the major articles tracked thus far is 15,672,588 and total
advertising equivalency is $712,681. The advertising impact (based on ad guru David
Ogilvy's formula, which says editorial impact is 5 times greater than advertising) is
$3,563,405. And all the success hasn't been about PR. Every one of the 66 items in the
marketing blueprint is complete, and the City is right on track to complete a similar
plan for 2001. The campaign's final objective was to generate five business leads. In
2000, the City assisted 230 businesses, up from just a handful previously. In all, this adds
up to a 5-1/2 to 1 return on the City's investment in a $129,000 contract with DCI, just for
PR alone.
BENEFITING THE COMMUNITY
All of these results are exciting and impressive, especially to those working on the
campaign shooting for just a handful of positive articles. But even more important, the
media campaign is paying off as the City meets its primary purpose: turning around
Tacoma's image and bringing new businesses to town. More than 100 tech companies
have opened their doors or expanded in Tacoma in the past 24 months. Tacoma's new
reputation as America's #1 Wired City is solid, and people around the region now refer to
the city in those terms. The "#1 Wired City" theme line and logo are everywhere,
including on the Web sites of many Tacoma companies. Hundreds of millions of dollars
are pouring into town, including a planned $61 million convention center, the state’s first
light rail system, a just-clinched deal on a $50 million waterfront project with $150
million more to follow, a $100 million retail/office/housing developemnt in the heart of
downtown and the state’s first Institute of Technology –slated for Tacoma, not the state
capitol or Seattle. Private investors are also anteing upfor a new art museum, a Museum
of Glass, the country’s largest antique car museum and a Bridge of Glass sponsored by
Tacoma native and world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly. The City’s image of itself
is changing-as a local columnist wrote on Feb 4, 2001, “(Thanks to the media campaign)
the rest of the world is getting our economic message. Tacoma is now seen as a pretty
cool place to do business. But how does our toughest audience (Tacoma) feel about us
nowadays? Tacoma finally may have turned the corner when it comes to appreciating it’s
own virtues. It’s about time.” Businesses in Seattle and beyond that before would never
have considered moving or expanding to Tacoma- are calling the City about business
opportunities. And to top it off, in late 2000 Entrepreneur Magazine rated Tacoma the
No. 1 mid-sized city for doing business and in Feb. 2001 Industry Standard named
Tacoma one of the “Top 5 Tech Towns” in America.
Great results from a great municipal marketing/PR campaign. A winner, in our book,
and we hope yours.