By Maddy Vitale
Ocean City will make a bigger push to attract millennials as a centerpiece of the $750,000 marketing plan for 2018 to bring more tourists to town, members of the Tourism Development Commission said at a meeting Thursday.
Michele Gillian, executive director of the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce, is a commission member. She said the city did very well in 2017, using a strong marketing plan and sees the city doing just as well, if not better, in the new year.
“We are looking good for the season and we are going forward with all the advertising and marketing we talked about in the budget plan. We are ahead,” Gillian said.
Hotel occupancy, weekly and weekend seasonal rentals, business at the many restaurants and shops in the downtown and Boardwalk, all did very well in 2017.
“It was a great year,” Gillian said.
Burt Wilkins, chairman of the tourism commission and broker of Sotheby’s International Realty in Ocean City, said the real estate market did quite well this past year.
Commission member Carol Frank, owner of the Impala Island Inn and the Beach Club Hotel, and Councilwoman Karen Bergman, who also sits on the commission and is the director of catering for the historic Flanders hotel, said business has been very good.
Rick Jones, from Universal Media out of Mechanicsburg, Pa., presented a plan for continued aggressive marketing in the New Jersey and Philadelphia markets, as well as other areas of Pennsylvania.
He mapped out a marketing and promotions strategy for 2018, which includes traditional forms of marketing through television and cable, billboards, print and online advertising, as well as some newer platforms including YouTube and Hulu.
Gillian said Ocean City does well because Philadelphia is the fourth largest market in the country following behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Between marketing through television and cable, the city can reach almost four million homes, Jones said.
Gillian said the city is fortunate because it can influence one of the top markets.
“You can’t say enough about that. It is the fourth largest market,” Gillian said. “That is one of the reasons we look to television, because of all the sets of eyes.”
Jones discussed how 2017 shaped and how the strategy will basically remain the same for the marketing campaign in 2018. The campaign will begin mid-February and extend through June.
He said television and cable will always be the dominant ways to reach the public, and it is the focal point in the 2018 plan, to drive people to the city’s website.
Wilkins asked Jones how many people four million households translates to.
Jones said the target market is an estimated 10 million people who could potentially view advertisements on television and cable about vacationing in Ocean City from the four million residences.
During the meeting, Gillian and others made it clear, that the city will aggressively pursue marketing to millennials to attract younger families to the resort.
Gillian said the city has invested in attracting millennials, who range in age from 18 to 35 years old.
“How are we communicating with the millennials?” Gillian asked. “We aren’t doing enough with them.”
But Jones said streaming media platforms such as YouTube.com and Hulu.com appeal to younger audiences, and he has some ideas of how to target the younger age group.
“YouTube is probably the first line of offense I would recommend for the streaming platforms,” Jones said.
Hulu attracts a slightly younger audience than YouTube, between ages 24-34, but still brings a younger clientele to the resort. Hulu is an alternative to watching programs via Comcast or satellites.
“We can target lifestyles. Hulu subscribers can choose to receive ads or not which is good because there isn’t the clutter,” Jones explained, about one of the advantages to working with Hulu.
However, he said it is a bit new to really invest too much in at this point.
“It is more relevant than it was a year ago, but it is for specialty programing,” Jones said. “It just isn’t there yet.”
He told the commission that Universal Media employees are available to work with the city on targeting these emerging forms of media.
Bergman asked if there is a way to see what people are searching for on the different platforms
“Yes, there is a way to see through their profiling,” Jones said, adding that he encourages the tourism commission to work some of these newer platforms, into their advertising campaign.
“I would not suggest pulling money out of your cable and television budget for Hulu or YouTube,” he said. “That is something we should talk about as an additional budget.”
Bergman asked if there was a schedule for advertising in 2018. Jones said there is one in place.
“We are hoping to take the same budget and stretch it,” Gillian said of the monies set aside for advertising. “We’ve had such a good showing already.”
Jones said he and his staff are available to meet with Gillian and the commission should they need more details or have questions.
