Committee Formed to Help Market Downtown Tulsa
By PAT SCHNAKE
Contributing Writer
MARKETING DOWNTOWN: Marlin Keranen, left, general manager of the newly remodeled Crowne Plaza Hotel, is leading an effort through the Downtown Marketing Committee to unite individuals and groups in marketing downtown Tulsa. The committee is part of the Tulsa Metro Chamber Convention and Visitors Bureau and now has more than 35 members. Among those at a recent meeting included Keranen, left, and Nancy Hermann (center) and John Scott (right) from the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.
DANIEL C. CAMERON for GTR Newspapers
Tulsan’s seem to be coming down with “the everybody does their own thing” syndrome, and the Tulsa Metro Chamber is finding out quickly that getting everyone on the same team is crucial to the vibrancy of downtown Tulsa.
The name of the committee formed to bring people and groups together is pretty straightforward: CVB Downtown Marketing Committee. However, the committee’s goals are pretty darn exciting.
“The main purpose of this committee is to let people know all the things to do downtown and come on down and enjoy it,” says Committee Chair Marlin Keranen. “There’s something for people of all ages to do downtown and we want to get that word out.”
The committee is part of the Tulsa Metro Chambers’ Convention and Visitors Bureau, commonly referred to as the CVB.
Suzann Stewart, senior vice president of the Chamber’s CVB says the committee was formed recently as part of the Chamber’s new strategic plan. Promoting downtown was identified as one of four major areas considered high priorities.
“The major goal of the CVB is to attract visitors to the community and to develop Tulsa as a destination,” says Stewart. “Then you start focusing more and you get to downtown, which we believe is the heart of the community as a whole. The majority of conventions and major event attendees are going to be downtown, so marketing those things to people becomes that much more important.”
Keranen is approaching his role as the chairman of this marketing committee from a different perspective. He’s lived in numerous major metropolitan areas, including most recently Toronto, Canada.
Keranen has been in Tulsa for a little over a year after being named as the General Manager of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Keranen says he initially focused his first six months solely on the operations and major renovations going on at the Crowne Plaza. But, during that first six months he was keeping an eye out to see if there were any groups that seemed to be moving forward on marketing downtown.
“What I found was that there were numerous groups that were trying to promote downtown. I started going to their meetings and found that they were going off in different directions, which I didn’t think was productive,” says Keranen. “I happened to be visiting with Chamber President Mike Neal and told him I thought we had to do something to get all these entities together. We jumped on it and got it going.”
Part of the committee’s strategy included bringing together people who are really interested in promoting downtown. Keranen and Stewart already knew that there were a lot of different people interested in promoting downtown. So they began pulling together groups of people with similar goals.
Keranen says that he’s finding out quickly that there is a lot of passion in promoting downtown, but that getting everyone on the same team is crucial.
“What we’re still battling after only a few committee meetings is trying to get everyone to understand that there’s nothing wrong with having a central marketing committee for the whole downtown that would market all of us,” says Keranen. “We’re trying to get past the ‘everybody does there own thing’ kind of syndrome that we currently have.”
From his past experiences Keranen found that when groups with similar interests all banded together they could be more effective in marketing and promoting all of the activities that take place in downtown.
“We’ve found that there is a consensus in having downtown grow and thrive, but it’s a matter of getting everyone on the same page,” says Keranen. “We know the combined efforts and combined activities that happen in downtown far outweigh what any one individual or entity can promote.”
With promotional dollars scarce, Keranen says his committee can do more with less.
“Dollars for promotion are limited to begin with, so let’s do it as group to make it easier and better for everybody,” says Keranen. “For example, there are three or four organizations that have produced their own map of downtown. It makes so much more sense for us to get together and do one map and make it bigger and better so it can be used by everyone. That’s the kind of thing we’re trying to do.”
Even though Keranen lives downtown, the committee experience has opened his eyes to the many diverse activities going on downtown.
“What were finding out is, there is more to do downtown than even those of us who live downtown ever thought. If we can get everybody to join together and promote all the many different things going on downtown, I think Tulsans will be quite surprised” says Keranen.
Stewart said despite the committee being created only a few months ago, there are currently more than 35 members and the interest continues to grow.
“Were not even trying to create anything new right now, we’re just trying to take what we have available and let the world know it is out there” says Keranen. “We’re not going to get there by each of us doing our own thing. It just doesn’t happen that way.”
Keranen and his committee appear to be up to the challenge of communicating the new vibrancy and excitement taking place in downtown Tulsa.
“An energized downtown Tulsa is great for the entire region and getting that word out is crucial to the continuing growth of all the many diverse parts of downtown,” says Keranen.
Updated 10-23-2008
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