Airport marketing: Flying local

DN airport seeks more passengers

The campaign will emphasize the local airport’s appeal: It’s easy; it’s low-stress; there’s no crowds.” Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

On Friday, the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority green-lighted a $182,000 budget to boost regional awareness of Jack  McNamara Field through an increased web presence, joint marketing with SkyWest Airlines, advertisements, signage and community events.

“We still have an average of 30 seats a day that are empty right now. We want to make sure that we let people know that this convenience and this ease is worth a little more in terms of money,” said Jack Penning of Sixel Consulting Group, who presented the strategy before airport commissioners approved the project budget.

The average cost of a one-way ticket to or from the Del Norte airport is $153, Penning said. In 2010, half of the seats in and out of town were empty. The goal of the campaign is to bump up these passenger loads by 10 to 15 percent this year, reducing the need for an annual $1.78 million in federal subsidies currently sustaining SkyWest Airline’s service from San Francisco and Sacramento.

A $200,000 Department of Transportation grant will pay the marketing bill, along with $20,000 from local partners: $15,000 courtesy of the Visitor’s Bureau and $5,000 from the Chamber of Commerce. Sixel’s preliminary budget leaves $38,000 in the bank.

“We’ve got $220,000 to get the job done. If we wanted to go to San Francisco and promote this as a destination there we could easily blow this amount of money in two to three weeks. Our focus is going to be on this region because it’s more cost-effective and it will have a longer lasting impact on this airport,” Penning said.

The biggest piece of the marketing pie is a $50,000 allotment for joint marketing with SkyWest Airlines, which will plug Crescent City into the airline’s inflight magazine and on regional signage, said SkyWest spokesman Rob Brewer.

Some $40,000 is apportioned for radio advertising. Airport Commissioner Kelly Schellong is an account executive with Bicoastal Media and recused herself from the vote, though she said she would not be handling any airport account personally.

Another $25,000 will be spent on billboards featuring a logo for “Fly Cresecent City,” not Del Norte County Airport.

“Why Crescent City? Because that’s where the airport is,” Penning said.

FlyCrescentCity.com is slated to launch in March and will be a one-stop hub for all things CEC, including buying tickets, Penning said.

Sherri Dobay of DobayDesign in Eureka is building the site. She also made ExploreDelNorte.com for the Visitor’s Bureau; the Chamber of Commerce site, DelNorte.org; and a slew of North Coast bed and breakfast pages, though she’s never made an airport site before.

The approved budget pegs $15,000 for this site, though the actual cost from DobayDesign  came in at $6,500, Penning told the Triplicate on Monday.

“The rest of the money will be reallocated into one of the other areas, like newspaper advertising,” he said.

Another $15,000 in the approved budget is for weekly web videos and multi-media, while community events, promotions, contests and one-on-ones with business owners are allotted $10,000.

Sixel Consulting takes in roughly $27,000 for creative development and travel expenses.

The message of the campaign is time equals money.

“The airport is hassle-free,” Penning said, “It’s easy; it’s low-stress; there’s no crowds; you are not driving and you are not paying for parking.”

In other airport news, final plans for a new terminal design are stalled again. Commissioners granted Vanir Construction a 45-day extension on presenting a hashed out concept, putting the new deadline for plans and square footage in late February.

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