OSAGE BEACH, Mo. — In the spring, the city of Osage Beach approved a $2,000 promotional investment for the 2014 calendar year to partner with the Tri-County Lodging Association (TCLA) for a Lamar digital billboard buy in the Kansas City market area.
Through a special matching-funds program offered by the Missouri Division of Tourism, Osage Beach should have garnered $4,000 worth of advertising. However, because the TCLA also partnered with CBS Outdoor, another digital billboard also in the Kansas City area, and bonused in the same amount of ads that were to be included in the Lamar package, and also included the city in Google, Yahoo and Bing word and phrase search engine marketing campaigns, the city’s $2,000 investment netted them a total of $18,039.82 in ads.
At the November 20 Osage Beach Board of Aldermen meeting, Jim Divincen, executive director for the TCLA, proposed another cooperative advertising program for calendar year 2015 that will provide the city with $33,830 in advertising on a $10,000 expenditure.
“This year, Osage Beach planted a seed, the Tri-County Lodging Association committed a tree –and we delivered a forest,” he told the board.
He detailed the success of the plan in a handout. According to that report, the Lamar digital billboard buy, which is 14 feet high and 48 feet wide and located approximately 6 miles south of downtown Kansas City, guaranteed the TCLA 1,426 8-second time reads per day, equating to a cost-per-read of 12.5 cents. The weekly number of impressions for the Lamar billboard was 421,657. For the months of July, August and September 2014, the city of Osage Beach received a total of 53,267 8-second ads on the board – a value of $6,658.37.
After the TCLA approached the city on the Lamar buy, the association purchased another digital billboard from CBS Outdoor, located approximately 1 mile north of downtown Kansas City on I-35. CBS delivered 80,319 8-second ads for the city during the months of July, August and September – a value of $5,301.05.
Additionally, TCLA spent $6,080.40 in Google, Yahoo and Bing word and phrase search engine marketing campaigns on behalf of the city over the past 12 months. This campaign delivered 666,267 total impressions and 15,186 total clicks to the website, at an average cost-per-click of 38 cents.
“They paid $2,000 thinking it would be matched with state funds for a total $4,000 buy. What they got was an $18,039.82 buy. And that’s not the ‘perceived’ value – that’s the actual value – the total of all the checks we wrote. Osage Beach received 400 to 500 percent higher return on their investment over what they expected to get through the matching funds program. We plan to continue to over-deliver in hopes that they’ll continue to grow their funding with us,” Divincen said in a later interview, adding that the TCLA is proposing a similar digital billboard purchase for the 2015 calendar year including the months of April, May, June, July and August.
In addition, he said they are proposing to use Dan McLaughlin, the voice of Cardinals baseball on TV, to produce a 30-second radio commercial for the city. He said the script would be something like, “Hey Cardinal fans. Let me tell you about my favorite vacation destination –Osage Beach, located in the heart of Central Missouri’s beautiful Lake of the Ozarks. Make plans now to enjoy the scenic beauty, outstanding shopping, boating, dining, golf and state parks that Osage Beach has to offer. Take some time to just relax, unwind and create some lifelong memories. For more information, visit funlake.com. That’s funlake.com. Produced in cooperation with the Missouri Division of Tourism.”
According to Divincen, the TCLA is planning to run 178, 30-second radio commercials during fiscal year 2016, which runs July 1, 2015 thru June 30, 2016, on the Cardinal Baseball network. The 52 AM stations and 59 FM stations in nine states deliver a per-game listening audience of 3.3 million Cardinal fans.
“However, pending the TCLA board’s approval, TCLA might consider rotating the Osage Beach radio commercial into the existing Cardinals purchase agreement of 69 radio commercials that are scheduled to run in May and June of 2015. That would provide an added value of $5,850,” he said. Currently, the TCLA is planning to use four different 30-second ads produced by Mike Shannon. With the city’s participation, five different radio commercial would cycle equally throughout the Cardinal baseball buy. TCLA is planning to purchase 110, 30-second radio commercials that would run July and August 2015, which means the city’s spot would run 22 times, rotating with TCLA’s existing commercials, at a negotiated rate of $450 per 30-second commercial.
In a later interview, Osage Beach City Administrator Jeana Woods said that during budget meetings, the board had set aside up to $10,000 for cooperative advertising but had said they wanted to see a detailed plan of action before committing it all to the TCLA. “I think everyone feels we got a great deal and good results. I think the board would like to see more in the St. Louis area if we’re going to expand our advertising budget,” she said, adding that all advertising will promote the city as a whole. The board will vote on the 2015 budget in December.
In the meantime, the city hopes to attract more people to the city this December with its Christmas light display in the city park off Hatchery Road and along the Osage Beach Parkway. The light park will begin on November 29, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and run through New Year’s Day.
The park will be free and open from dusk to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday.
