The initial reaction to Taos’ new marketing campaign: It’s a little white.

Representatives of Denver-based Atlas Advertising unveiled a conceptual marketing strategy to a room full of people in the hospitality, recreation and other tourism-related industries last week. The presentation was the first real glimpse at the direction Atlas — a marketing contractor the town hired in July — plans to take the $350,000 marketing effort.

The mock-up ads presented Wednesday included some familiar shots of the Rio Grande Gorge and Taos Pueblo. Tag lines included phrases like “Far away from the everyday,” “On the other side of epic” and “Way outside the ordinary.”

The reaction from audience members was positive. But others were underwhelmed. Avid mountain biker and economic development professional Lindsay Mapes noted that just about everyone in the ad photos, including a raft guide, was Anglo.

“It’s just some generic white dude,” said Mapes, suggesting that the ads instead should show a local guy with a lot of character, like Cisco Guevara with Los Rios River Runners.

Ilona Spruce, the tourism director for Taos Pueblo, suggested Atlas get photos of tribal members at the iconic village to show it’s a living community, rather than the static shot picturing a lone, young white man with a backpack staring at the multistoried adobe structures.

Others in the audience said they’d like to see more of Taos’ cultural side in the campaign. Juniper Manley with the Harwood Museum of Art pointed out the sample ads were focused almost entirely on recreation, not on the arts. “I think it’s very one-sided,” Manley said.
Trying to distill Taos’ essence into a single magazine ad is a challenge the town’s campaign has struggled with in the past. Taos’ strength, marketers have found, is in the variety of things it offers: arts, cultural experiences and recreation. But it’s a variety that’s hard to pin down.

For their part, representatives of Atlas insisted the samples were preliminary and that the final campaign will be less homogeneous and show more of that Taos has to offer. “Diversity is a huge part of Taos, and that will be reflected in our campaign,” said Bradley Hein, associate creative director for Atlas.

Based on Wednesday’s presentation, Atlas also intends to lure out-of-state visitors who are mostly Caucasian. The presentation included four “personas” — fictional people created by the firm who are meant to represent Taos’ target audience. Again, the personas were all white.

They included “Andrew the Adventurer,” a 20-something from Boulder who works at a tech company and loves to be outside. There was also “Jane the Empty Nester,” a middle-aged interior designer from Denver who loves art. “Mandy Mom” was a mother of two from Dallas in her 30s who’s been to Colorado but wants to go somewhere new. Lastly, there was “Will the World Traveler,” a 50-something from Odessa, Texas, who likes to get off the beaten path.

Lucy Bowman, creative services director with Atlas, said the personas were based on people she knew; Andrew the Adventurer was based on a co-worker; Jane the Empty Nester was based on her mom; Mandy Mom was based on a friend from Texas; and Will the World Traveler was the father of another co-worker.

“These fictional characters, these personas, are a way for us to look at the creative [ad campaign] through their lens,” said Hein with Atlas. “When we roll out this campaign in the spring, we have to be very focused. We have to do a lot with a little.” The contract with Atlas is worth $375,000, which includes $187,000 budgeted for media placement and media buys. The town has also received grants for additional marketing.

In the presentation, Atlas said it was focusing on visitors who drive from the Denver area, Texas and elsewhere in New Mexico. Fly-in visitors to be targeted are in Dallas and Austin. Hein said the personas represent the kind of people spending money on travel nationally. He and Bowman said they are also in line with statewide research on what kinds of people come to New Mexico.

The town’s previous marketing firm, Griffin and Associates, said its research showed 41 percent of visitors came from in state, 24 percent came from Colorado, and the rest mostly came from Texas and California. Griffin also found the average visitor was a lot like Jane the Empty Nester — a woman in her mid-50s who earns $67,000 a year and tends to make the decision on where her family travels.

The Atlas marketing campaign is set to kick off next spring. In the meantime, Atlas and the town have done some online-only advertising, and they are giving the Taos Ski Valley more room to handle winter advertising for the area.

Source: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/residents-find-taos-tourism-marketing-pitch-a-little-pale/article_e46d9756-a387-51ed-8394-ee7ec52abdd3.html