Today we’re going to talk about the campaign strategy and brand platform framework. The brand platform framework is going to help us get to the design of everything, but the campaign strategy will help us get to what that design looks like and then also the campaign behind it.

This is the book Ulysses. Ulysses is 265,000 words. And considering all of the interviews that we did as an agency (State of Assembly) and the surveys that we did, and the workshops that we did, we took in enough information to write the book Ulysses. Over 265,000 words or more. this is what we know about your county now. , when we say “we,” we mean it, because we can’t tell the difference between us, State of Assembly, begin and where you end. Personally, I've hung out so much in Columbia County I feel like I live there. When you hear me say “we,” I mean us, Columbia County and State of Assembly.

So through this presentation, we’re going to see where we started and how we heard one another and how we found our true value to tourists, and what value that would look like and feel like to the people that we need to impress the most. At the end of this, you’ll know the overarching objectives and the goals that we’re trying to achieve and then the markets that we choose to achieve these goals in, and then our approach as well. And within that, you’ll understand Columbia County's first responsibility to tourists. You'll know what we stand for how we differentiate ourselves and the value tourists have with wandering this community.

So let’s bring us all the way back to the beginning of our journey and a journey to create a brand and a strategy. We started with 16 hours of interviews and 360 surveys and hours and hours and hours of research, not only about tourism in Oregon, but the history of Columbia County broadly and sometimes personally. And we were ready at that point, ready to explore.

We found out that people give up when the answer isn’t easy. If the essence, the value, of Columbia County isn’t plain to see, then no marketing will work. We talked about decision-makers and the people who had influence over them, and sometimes we found that we had put what they did ahead of who they were. We laid out every feature of the county. We discussed which are worthy of consideration and which are worthy of retention. And we found that these were not always the same. We also found that the features we do have are not much more unique than our county neighbors. We asked ourselves, do we need to look for people by what they do or should we look for people who would find value in our county? And we found that that personality that really matters was not ours, but the person visiting. we're not the hero. The hero is actually the people who make the visit. Our heroes are charming wanderers. Then we tried to tie the benefit of our unique places with what is most valuable to our visitors. And finally, we were ready to ask ourselves, who are we? And then how do we want to be seen? And even though we found contrast, we also found that when we combined the best parts of each, that’s when some magic happened.

So we have a lot of work to do in Columbia County and we have to be smart about that.

This is the battle map of Agincourt France in 1415. The English had marched 250 miles in two weeks to battle the French. And in that span, a quarter of their soldiers died of disease. And then with fewer hand-to-hand weapons and fewer folks in armor backed into a corner, the 9,000 English looked to defeat the 16,000 French soldiers over a newly plowed field muddy from rain; the English were weak and exposed. And on October 25th, St. Crispin’s Day, Henry fifth, Henry V, the King of England, said, let's do this and attacked the French.

The attack was a surprise. And because of traditional military doctrine and knightly culture, the French ran into the mud in full armor to defend their land. And this exhausted them. They got stuck and they fell, and they were trampled, and they were suffocated under the weight of the comrades running up right behind them. From 150 yards out, barely armored long Bowman started raining armor, piercing arrows down on the French, and at the end of the day, the French lost 6,000 soldiers and the English lost 112. 112 versus 6,000?! The English did this because of their weaknesses, not despite them. We bring this up because if Columbia County markets itself similarly to the other local counties, we'll lose. We have to reframe our weaknesses as strengths.

What you’re going to see here is a proposition that makes other Oregon tourism destinations fight over money that we would never see anyway. And while they get stuck in the mud of doctrine and tradition, we use our weaknesses and then fight and win without a significant loss.

What are our weaknesses and possible threats to Columbia County? Let's look at the steering committee, SWOT analysis from Columbia County Destination Development Plan in 2019. it has a lot of weaknesses: The lack of leadership and coordination, lack of resources and funding, logic, capacity, traffic, workforce, vocation, natural resources. The threats: lack of funds, not working together. Education of the community, the economy, social and public safety issues, knowledge of assets, proximity to Portland. There's a lot here and it's intimidating, but it's not hopeless because, just like Henry the Fifth, we're not going to just run at our competition with hope and a good speech. We're going to come at them with a strategy.

There seem to be many different ways to define its strategy. Today we're going to be using the definition of strategy is defined in this book, Playing to Win. written by Procter Gamble's, former CEO, A.J. Laffly and co-author Roger L. Martin. they essentially define strategy as a set of choices that position us on the playing field that we want in a way that we will win.

This is different than planning. Planning is deploying the strategy, the specific steps the resources and the timelines required to execute the strategy. We will not be talking about planning today. We will only be talking about strategy.

A strategy must have an objective and goals and the things that we can measure, the things that we're trying to do, those are our objectives. And rather than merely focusing on minor or incremental objectives, we set out really lofty ones and meaningful objectives because a to modest aspiration is far more dangerous than a to lofty one. modest aspirations actually just kill us slowly.

The first aspiration is to be Travel Oregon’s eighth region. There is no advertised Travel Oregon region that represents Northwest Oregon. And we're sure Clatsop County wouldn't mind separating from all the other coastal towns all the way down.

Second, we want the county to be called out by name in a major travel publication, the Conde Nast Travel and Leisure Afar, national Geographic, USA Today, something major in that way.

Third, we want to be the “Columbia County” with the most travel interest out of the eight other counties in the same name.

We don't expect to complete these objectives for probably two years, but we never know. Our goals, the things that we complete to hit those objectives you are familiar with. They're to find a target audience and recommend communication channels, develop tourism focused brand that captures and elevates awareness of tourism opportunities in Columbia County, a marketing strategy that includes a multi-year approach to growing tourism in Columbia County, and 25% growth in two years from direct travel spending and destination spending. Most of these, except for the last one, are expected. The reason why we took on this 25% growth goal is because we saw this in 2014 and 2016 from Hood River, Oregon that made a jump between 20% and thought that was pretty fantastic. In Hood River, there are a lot of similarities between it and Columbia County. we'd like to make it 25% instead of 20.

There are two things that we need to define in our strategy, just like P&G, “where to play” and “how to win.” We need to pick a field where we can win. For the next two years, if we say the term “stay in Columbia County”, then we lose. If we say “play in Columbia County”, then we lose. If we say “eat in Columbia County”, then we lose. These are just copies of our competition. You're probably asking, great. what's left?

What's left starts with an anecdote about a chair. This chair will change how tourism is done in Columbia County, the same way it changed medicine and the field of psychology.

For some reason, the chairs in this waiting room of two cardiologists in San Francisco, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosman, were wearing out at an incredibly high rate. And every month, an upholsterer had to come in and fix a chair or two. One month the upholsterer went on vacation, and a new upholsterer came in.

The substitute upholsterer looked at this chair and said, “what's wrong with your patients? Nobody wears out chairs this way.”

What the upholsterer discovered that day was “Type A” personalities. The hypothesis describes Type A individuals as outgoing, ambitious, rigidly organized, highly status-conscious, impatient, and anxious. They're proactive and concerned with time management. People with Type A personalities are often high achieving. They push themselves with deadlines and hate, both delays and ambivalence. People with Type A personalities experience more job-related stress and less job satisfaction. They tend to set high expectations for themselves and may believe that others have those same high expectations of them as well.

These cardiologists, Dr. Friedman and Dr. Rothman discovered that those Type A people picking their upholstery apart had a great chance of developing coronary heart disease. Their hypothesis is debatable now, but what is not debatable is the fact that these people want their lives to be organized, and because they're outgoing and because they're ambitious, status-conscious, and proactive, we as a society build industries around them, and then call it the standard. But the issue is this—not everyone is like them.

There is a huge group of people out there who are not outgoing, they're not ambitious, they're not hung up on status, they're not proactive, they're not concerned with time management. They might be a little anxious and a little impatient because of society, but they're not organically organized, and these people are being ignored. Columbia County can tap into this segment in a way other destinations won't or cannot do. And we call this group of people: typical people.

These are people that residents of Columbia County would appreciate. The bulk of typical people come from major cities—where typically large groups of people reside. They're not rich, they can't afford to grab tickets to Paris or Venice because prices are cheap this month. They are in debt like most of us, and they can't afford to spend a week at an Airbnb sometime in the summer. They don't work hard to play hard. They work hard to rest. The last thing they want to do at the end of the work week is plan, prep and pack for a weekend getaway. What they need is a breather, just some time to unburden themselves from all the crap that they've been dealing with all week.

The field that Columbia County will win on is attracting typical who need a breather but can't afford the time or money to spend the night.

This means we focus our energies on regions no more than a two-hour drive from Columbia County. That would be North up to Tacoma, Washington; east to Hood River, Oregon; south to Corvallis, Oregon; and west to the Pacific Ocean.

Does this mean that we're not going to appeal to people who want to stay for more than a day trip? Not at all! But for two years, we will build buzz and gain visibility from people who would benefit the most from a visit to Columbia County.

The second part of the strategy is how do we win? We win by encouraging wandering—day trip wandering. It doesn't take much money or effort to wander as casually, leisurely aimless. We encourage wandering through nudges that reframe the county's weaknesses as day trip strengths.

Columbia County has 688 square miles, and it's a very big area, and the cities have small populations. This is a weakness that makes it challenging to find a starting point or a worthy destination for typical people. What's needed are Goldilocks regions, easily identifiable sections with descriptive names that portray value.

Our four Goldilocks regions:

Columbia Waterways:
At the edge of Portland, the Columbia Waterways emerge as a tranquil haven for nature lovers. This intricate network of water bodies, encompassing serene streams, meandering creeks, majestic rivers, and mirror-like lakes, offers an ideal setting for kayaking. Glide through these waters to experience nature in its most peaceful state, where the gentle lap of water against the kayak accompanies the symphony of local wildlife. It's a place where the hustle of city life fades into the background, replaced by the soothing embrace of natural beauty.

Columbia Riverside:
Traveling north through the winding Multnomah channels, one finds the Columbia Riverside. This secluded strip is a hub of riverine pleasures, where the thrills of jet skiing, kiteboarding, and the elegance of sailing coexist. Anglers find sport and solace here, casting lines into the bountiful waters while beachgoers bask in the sunlit shores. It's a place to enjoy a chilled libation as the river unfolds its panoramic vistas, offering a unique perspective on the county's beauty. The Riverside is a testament to the joy of water-based recreation and the allure of living along the river.

Columbia Tidelands:
At the county's northern boundary, the Columbia Tidelands reveal a landscape shaped by millennia. Here, rich soils, nurtured by the tides and lovingly cultivated, produce an array of local produce that embodies the flavors of the region. This fertile expanse, with its leveed fields and farms, is a testament to the harmonious relationship between land and water, yielding crops that are as rich in taste as they are in history. The Tidelands are a source of local cuisine and a mosaic of agricultural heritage, where each furrow tells a story of the land's bounty.

Columbia Timberlands:
At the heart of the region's economic history, the Columbia Timberlands stand as a testament to the rugged determination that built the West Coast. These lands, with their meandering trails and breathtaking vistas, lead adventurers deep into a wilderness that whispers tales of the past. The towering trees and dense forests stand as living monuments to the region's timber industry, showcasing the natural resources that have long fueled local livelihoods. The Timberlands are a source of industry and a natural sanctuary, offering a journey through the verdant heart of Columbia County's storied landscape.

For years, Columbia County has been seen as a pass-through—a dead zone for tourism—with essential convenience stores, gas stations and fast food restaurants littered up and down Highway 30. It signals to those driving by, "There's no reason to get off the highway; everything we are is what you see."

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What if these pass-through conveniences were framed as a wanderer's convenience? Instead of "let's stop and get food" this can be "let's start with some food." Day trips are not preparing, planning or packing; day trips are a destination without designation. An unplanned, casual getaway for the sake of a clear head. We can no longer think that Highway 30 is a “pass-through” (even Google doesn’t think it is). It is the county's artery with branches that signal exploration and wandering.

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Compared to Multnomah, Deschutes and Washington County, we're weak in population and recognition. Columbia County has been forgotten. Few people live here, and fewer people know it exists, even though it has similar, if not the same, maybe even better day-use amenities than any destination around. Which is the solitary experience that typical people often look for.

Meeting people, engaging with people, interacting with people, and navigating their personalities is hard work. And here at Columbia County, we have lots of breathing room. The whole county itself has fewer people than the city of Tigard. You can drive miles and miles and not see anyone right off the highway and just 20 miles from Portland. It's the quickest way to take a moment for yourself.

The responsibility of Columbia County Tourism is to take some weight off typical people and not add. Our tourism business is to unburden, and we want to be Oregonian's place to take a breather and step away.

We offer a destination without designation, an unplanned casual getaway for the sake of a clear head with the benefit of planning less, prepping less, packing less, and simply roaming. Columbia County is the home for the day-long breather, and it's a place to go. It is a place of wander. do you wander? Do you ever wander?

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Video transcript for commercial.

If you're a Type A personality, Columbia County may not be your type of place, and that's okay because there are lots of places for you to go. But for the rest of us who don't plan, don't prep, don't pack, who just like to roam? Columbia County might just be our place. You don't want to bring much as you wander. The Timberlands, the tide lands, the waterways or the riverside. If you get hungry, you don't need reservations. If you get thirsty, you can just pull up a chair and when you need time for yourself, you can come here and just roam. Columbia County is just a moment away. This is your place of wander.