Places to Go, People to See
Downtown Council hopes visitors to the area (and others nearby) will "Make It Your Own."
In recent years, perhaps downtown's most visible marketing effort - albeit indirectly - was a TV spot for Bob Jones Shoes featuring Petula Clark's signature song and some area footage.
Now someone new is urging us to "go downtown."
A long-anticipated marketing campaign to enlighten metropolitan residents about downtown's multibillion-dollar makeover has quietly made its debut on the Web.
The initial rollout of the "Make It Your Own" campaign by the Downtown Council occurred in the virtual world last week with 3,000 e-mail "blasts" to subscribers and the launch of a new Web page, GoDowntownKC.com.
The idea is to replace the lingering mindset of downtown's descent - when reused buildings meant haunted houses and trees grew from the roof of the old Empire Theater - with images of recent major developments such as the new arena and the entertainment district, the Power & Light District.
"The story has changed so much the last two years," said Mike Hurd, marketing director for the council. "If we'd launched this three years ago, many people would ask, 'Why would I come downtown?'
"Now, with the opening of the Power & Light District and
And by the way, the trees are gone and the old Empire in the Power & Light District reopened in May after a $25 million renovation. It's now a state-of-art digital movie complex called AMC Mainstreet.
"The fact is, we've had a downtown that hasn't been patronized since the 1980s," City Manager Wayne Cauthen said. "Now we have something to talk about and it's important to let people know."
The foundation for what the Downtown Council hopes will be a major marketing campaign was built on research done by Blacktop Creative.
The agency was hired about a year ago by the council. It did similar work for Cordish Co., the developer of the Power & Light District, to help create graphics and other branding tools for the entertainment district.
"We have never had a cohesive marketing campaign for downtown, period," said Jon Copaken, chairman of the council marketing committee. "It will be the first time we've had everybody behind a branded campaign."