Joe Hamilton 0:07
Joining me today on SPX is the president of paradise advertising. Rudy Webb, welcome, sir.
Rudy Webb 0:52
Thank you so much for having me appreciate it.
Joe Hamilton 0:54
So advertising has changed a lot, and you’ve had the distinction of being almost 18 years with paradise. So you’ve seen those changes from back in the billboard days to Now lean into the AI days. So you know, as best you can what’s changed, what stayed the same in all this time?
Rudy Webb 1:11
Oh, yeah, it’s nuts, Joe, you’re familiar with this a little bit too. Yeah, I remember sending press releases via the mail, right, and with an embargo and faxes, and we’ve come so far with technology, you mentioned AI, which I’m sure we’re going to get into a little bit down here. But really, technology has changed how and when and where, the types of communication channels that we’re using, but you think about the fundamentals of marketing and advertising, those will always be the same, you know, tell a good story and get in front of the right people, yeah.
Joe Hamilton 1:46
Paradise specializes in mostly called destination marketing
Rudy Webb 1:49
Yeah, yeah, travel and tourism, destination marketing, CVS Convention and Visitors Bureau, yeah.
Joe Hamilton 1:54
So give us some examples of some of the type of work you would do with, you know, a city or a theme park or something like that.
Rudy Webb 1:59
Yeah, absolutely. So CVBS, Convention and Visitors bureaus, right? Are set up around the country, usually a government entity sometime, you know, pseudo or quasi, right, public private partnership, but most of them are government entities, right? So they collect an assessment on a hotel night stay, and then that is required by law to go back into marketing or or promoting the destination. So usually, we go through an RFP process to identify a client and win that particular contract, and then we dig in right we develop a relationship, a partnership with our clients, invest time with the community, listening to stakeholders and the community residents, and obviously the staff of the CVB to understand what their community goals are, and then develop a marketing strategy around that, because we want to make sure that they’re congruent, and then that way, we don’t end up in situations where, you know, marketing is doing one thing, but the community wants to do another, yeah, that makes a lot of sense as you go across communities.
Joe Hamilton 3:01
Obviously the benefits of a community are, from a commodity standpoint, kind of similar. So differentiation, you know, I know when we worked on the the EDC site here in St Pete, as we had our first sort of round of ideas, it came back to live, work, play, right, then you pop up EDC sites from around the country and they all say, live, work, play picture, somebody in a kayak or something like that. So how can you go about differentiating and tapping into the authenticity of one community versus another?
Rudy Webb 3:32
Yeah, that’s a really good question, very difficult to do. And I think that’s honestly what makes us a little bit different from maybe the other agencies or organizations that are out there. It’s part art and science, for sure. You understand that what we say is we try to get to the soul of a destination or a community, and that’s really hard to kind of just take one aspect of it and define that. So we try to dig in as deep as possible. So when we’re immersing ourselves in a new client or a new opportunity, or just refreshing ourselves with an existing client, we take the time to dig in and spend time as a tourist right experiencing the destination, and again, talking to those stakeholders. And yeah, usually it takes a bit of time to really define what makes them different, but I think over the years, we’ve gotten really good at using that, those insights and gut instinct to help tell that story and really differentiate them. You know, it’s hit or miss sometimes, right? And, you know, he’s trying to appeal sometimes to a lot of different folks that are along the way. Some have larger voices than other, but I think we always end up in a very good spot that community can rally behind and that we’re proud of as well.
Joe Hamilton 4:43
Yeah. And I suppose, with that, you can’t, as you find this whole you also can’t over optimize for one variable, because if you do, you know, if you leave out the nuts and bolts stuff, even though it is, you know, kind of a commodity, then you maybe don’t perform as well.
Rudy Webb 4:57
Yeah, yeah. You know, everybody tries to be all things to all people, which, you know just doesn’t work, but you got to do something really well, and kind of hang your hat on that. And then if you define that, and you find that right spot, then everything else just kind of falls out. It ladders back to that, so you can make that connection to all those other intricacies of the destination. So you’re not a one trick pony, right? Yeah, you take visit St Pete Clearwater right here in our backyard. They’re obviously more than a beach right, especially with St Petersburg and Clearwater and everything in between. So, yeah, you can’t just hang your hat on one thing.
Joe Hamilton 5:32
You mentioned many voices, and this is something I’m always trying to run away from as fast as possible. And that’s bureaucracy. I always feel like board decisions reduce everything to the mean, you end up back at the live, work, play. So how have you learned to navigate bureaucracy and the boards in many voices?
Rudy Webb 5:48
Fortunately, we’ve been doing this a while, right? So experience helps and trust in the relationships helps as well. So that’s the first thing that we try to do, is establish that relationship with the decision makers and guide them along the way, right? And just coach them honestly, just share with them that, hey, if we get too many cooks in this kitchen, right, we’re going to end up with vanilla, and nobody’s really going to be happy with where we’re at. And when you find that right spot, usually people say, ah, that’s it. It’s like, when you buy your first home, right? You walk in, you’re like, This is the place. It just feels right.
Joe Hamilton 6:20
How often do you run into situations where you feel like there usually is one clear winner, or sometimes are there multiple paths that could all get you to the goal?
Rudy Webb 6:30
When we present executions or brand positioning, we always provide options, right? Because we just want to make sure that we cover the bases. Usually, the agency has a lead dog, and we always debate about where we put that in the presentation, does it come first or in the middle? But we never present anything that we’re not happy with going, you know, being produced, right? So everything we think is sound, and it’s based on right, the strategic direction, and everything we’ve learned, so we’re happy with everything, but usually we have a, have a lead dog that we would like to see the client choose.
Joe Hamilton 7:03
That’s interesting, because, you know, there’s, there’s so much psychology that, you know, a lot of times people will latch on to the first one, but then want to see options, but then always come back to the first one, because that’s when they latched on to and there’s little psychology in there. I’m assuming that you’ve earned the right with reputation and just time in to be a leader in a lot of the relationships where they come to you, not as just even a service provider, but actually a partner.
Rudy Webb 7:27
We’ve been around a while, started by cedar Hames, who was just an amazing individual back in in 2001 is when the agency was around. So we’ve got that 23 plus year history, so that helps establish us at in this space, as a player and a thought leader, we’ve added a number of team members that have just depth and experience in the space as well. So experience definitely helps with that.
Joe Hamilton 7:55
We brought up Cedar. Let’s jump and talk about him. You know, he passed away in early 2018
Rudy Webb 8:01
It was quick unfortunately,
Joe Hamilton 8:03
Cancer, I believe, yeah. So what do you when you sort of distill the essence of cedar and working with him and his place in the community, what comes to mind?
Rudy Webb 8:11
He’s just a gentleman, I think, a friend of a lot of people, genuine, authentic, and would be willing to do anything for anybody. I started with him in January of 2008 and I’ll just take a step back here. So you think about what’s happening in 2007 I was actually working for myself, consulting with a number of clients and some other agencies. And you know, oh, seven came and it started to slow down. And I said to my wife, she was consulting at the time as well. One of us has to get a real job, and Paradise was hiring during this time. So I started with him in 08 during the downturn, and this mark, a little marketing firm was growing with 15 individuals, and he taught me a lot about just how to do the right thing, lead by example. We’re here to win the war, maybe not the battle, and relationships absolutely matter.
Joe Hamilton 9:05
And you started as account manager.
Rudy Webb 9:07
I did, yeah, moved all the way up to the basically just under ownership. President, Now Barbara and Tony kurasic own the agency. They purchased it in 2018 so yeah, I’m an account guy. Started out that way. Started my career that way. So understand that. And yeah, have have grown in the agency and in the industry and proud of where we’ve come.
Joe Hamilton 9:27
When there’s a somewhat unexpected passing of the founder, then obviously it can throw the place in the turmoil. But it seems like the sale happened, and then, the Karaseks established their leadership. You are here and still rolling, so you have that continuity that you brought. Can you talk about what you remember when you first found out in this sort of that transitional period?
Rudy Webb 9:50
Yeah, it was 2018 so cedar had kept his health very personal. So it was shocking for most when he finally did share. So they took over in January two. 1018 cedar passed about six weeks later, I think, and at that point, there was a transition plan in place, which we just basically threw out the window. And we really focused inward at that time, right on our staff, first of all, and then also our clients. We wanted to make sure that we were communicating, connecting and reassuring, that really nothing’s going to change. The agency is intact. Everybody’s here. We’re dealing with this as well, just as you are, because he was close with everybody. It was challenging, but we made it through it. We didn’t lose a single staff member or a single client during that time, which always could happen right during a ownership change, because you just never know what’s going to happen and or what the direction of the agency is going to be like,
Joe Hamilton 10:43
And the culture since then, how do you feel like the culture has changed under the Karaseks?
Rudy Webb 10:49
Yeah, I’d say it’s very different. Cedar was towards the end of his career, right? And he used the agency. This was his life, right? This is, this is, was his entertainment as well. So he didn’t really treat it like a business. He treated it as fun for him, which I think we can all understand if we knew cedar Barbara and Tony came in and said, We want to grow. We want to continue to grow, not only our geographic footprint, but also rent and revenue and client size and stature, and we’ve done a great job of that. We’ve had some obstacles come up along the way. COVID was one of them, pretty significant. But in the time that they’ve been here, we have grown. We’re at, I think when I started at the agency, we’re at 15 employees. We’re at almost 50 now. We were very St Pete and Tampa Bay centric, and Florida based with our clients, and we’ve got clients in Alaska now, so it’s pretty awesome.
Joe Hamilton 11:41
Let’s talk a little bit about COVID, just because it was, maybe very into the craft, a little bit. And this is a weird variation on the craft. There was COVID, obviously, which shut down a lot of projects, I would assume. But then there was also a very different world we lived in post COVID. I feel like people, you know, events in general, were probably 50, 60% attendance year over year over pre COVID. And just, you know, obviously a lot of stuff moved to virtual, and getting out of the house and doing stuff seemed to be people had less of an appetite for it. So, you know, what was it like going through COVID? Did you just circle the wagons and then what? Separately? Then what, you know, changes. Did you see post COVID?
Rudy Webb 12:16
Yeah, so I’ll kind of take this in two ways, right? So we’ll talk about it for our clients first, and then the agency, our business, second. So for our clients, it was, what the hell is going on here? Right? What are we going to do? And everything paused. We paused everything we wanted to assess a little bit and understand a bit more. As you know, basically the world was shutting down. No more travel anywhere. What does this mean? How long is this going to be so we had campaigns, right? It was in March, which in season. That’s usually when you’re in market, as people are, you know, trying to make their spring and summer travel plans. We paused everything, and then we pivoted, we, and I hate that word, because we’ve we, and that’s where I think it actually was born during COVID. But we did. We sat down and worked with each and every one of our clients very quickly to assess where they’re at, how they wanted to proceed. Because, you know, we can make recommendations and see what other destinations are doing. And some of them decided to pull back a bit. A lot of them did. Others decided, hey, let’s just re message and re communicate, how we can be in market during this time without travel. So we basically did every client’s marketing strategy within two weeks, redid it repurchased media for the right medium, changed messaging for a number of clients, and got back in market. I think we were one of the first agencies to have a destination client back in market. I think it was about three weeks after the World shut down, and that was just reassurance like, hey, we understand what’s happening. We’re here too. We’re trying to navigate this, and when we’re ready to travel again, we’re going to be here. And here’s some resources in the meantime.
Joe Hamilton 13:58
With that philosophy, were you just trying to keep a pulse out there? Or were you actually trying to, you know, not knowing when travel is going to open back up again, try to build pent up demand for one destination over another?
Rudy Webb 14:11
Yeah, it was a little bit of both, honestly. So we were trying to stay top of mind, right? So we had learned that lesson, when, if you don’t advertise, you lose market share. So we tried to stay and encourage our clients to stay in market. And then as destinations slowly opened up, we were sharing that information in a sensitive manner, providing content to people that you know, here’s what’s happening, and then we also focus locally on communities, right? Because destinations were impacted by the lack of travel to there, and that’s when we shifted to spend dollars locally to say, hey, restaurants still need your patronage. You know, here’s an opportunity. And we, we’ve really highlighted the local areas, instead of maybe getting people to travel across country,
Joe Hamilton 14:53
So you get a little bit of that malleability if you’re working with the TTC or whatever, directly, because as long as it helps the area can be okay with it,
Rudy Webb 15:02
Yeah, so there is a little bit of nuance right in the statute. There are requirements about spending in County versus out of county. I think there were some lack, you know, that took it a little bit differently during that time in order to say, hey, we need to help these local businesses. And they wanted to, and we did as well. So they were a little looser on those regulations.
Joe Hamilton 15:22
We talk about bed tax and, you know, heads on beds and all that stuff. As a driver for a lot of what you do, how big is the attribution mountain to climb? And what sort of crafts Have you perfected to, or tricks have you perfected to bring attribution back?
Rudy Webb 15:36
In the R type of business, or in destination marketing, we’re not actually selling hotel rooms, right? That’s usually done Hilton direct, or Marriott direct, or through Expedia VRBO. So it’s really hard to understand where that transaction happens. So we, you know, sort of take every piece of the puzzle as we can in order to paint that picture. Now we get reporting from Expedia and from Airbnb and things like that. We can also show economic impact through visitation, right? So we’re retargeting through a mobile device and understand where that device lives, and then, hey, it pings in market. So that can be attributed to a visit as long as they stay overnight or eight hours. We can set those parameters, and then we can associate, triangulate that to a credit card in the household, again, all anonymous. Of course, I don’t want to scare anybody out there, but then you start to understand visitor spend in destination along with length of stay, so you can kind of get what that attribution is and tie it back to your advertising, right? So we’re we’re tracking them along the way. So we can see that lift a little more difficult than selling pens on Amazon, for sure.
Joe Hamilton 16:46
And sometimes I’m assuming, there’s situations where travel is cyclical, right? And it’s often fueled by the economy or news here or there, and even going down less because, you know, you think of traditionally like, hey, we had, you know, you started, you hired us, and you went up 10% but some instances, everybody else went down 10% but you only went down 5% and that, you know, that should be attributed to the work as well.
Rudy Webb 17:09
Yeah. So, you know, it’s a dynamic space, for sure, and without having, you know, the where the rubber meets the road is tourist tax collections, right? That assessment that county has on every hotel room night. So our goal is to impact that right and redistribute that back into marketing in order to get, you know, more messaging out there. So that’s the main number that we follow. Visitation is extremely important as well. When you look at like higher yield, we want less, not less visitors, but more of the right visitors to stay longer and spend more because there’s, you know, over tourism is still a thing, and we’re talking about some sustainable tourism practices at the agency in order to infuse into destination marketing plans so we can, you know, not, it’s not just about more people, right? Because we don’t want to have 1000s upon 1000s of people in our spaces.
Joe Hamilton 18:03
That’s an interesting point worth digging into. What are some strategies you would use for that so that you don’t just overload, you know, Clearwater Beach with Spring Breakers that are not the kind of people that are the highest and best visitor?
Rudy Webb 18:13
Kind of coming back to your first question, what has changed in this business since I started and and that is just at, you know, our cell phones, and being able to track devices and where they go. So when we’re looking at destinations with high visitation to a certain area, we can deploy messaging while people are in market to maybe get them to disperse amongst other areas within the county or the city in order to share information. So kind of like using that data to help have a better user experience when people are visiting an actual destination. So disbursement strategies are one way for sure.
Joe Hamilton 18:48
And how real time is that? Is that it can be real time?
Rudy Webb 18:51
Yeah, absolutely. And we can social media helps with that as well, because we can paint you have an idea of where themes are happening so, or if a large event is happening, we know that there’s going to be an infusion of people in this certain area. We can get ahead of it.
Joe Hamilton 19:07
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So super inside baseball, I guess. But I’d love to hear about, I mean, I find RFPs a weird animal, right? Because you’ll get these amazing opportunities that literally have two people apply for it, and then you’ll get these other ones that have 100 and so, I mean, how would you summarize the RFP process?
Rudy Webb 19:25
Yeah, so as a private entity working with government, we’re used to it, right? Again. We’ve been doing this for a long time, so that I always say that machine is built for us. It’s challenging. You never know. I always say it’s gonna it’s five people on a Tuesday afternoon that are going to vote whether they want to use us or somebody else, no matter the experience relationships matter and experience matter. It’s not ideal, but I understand right that the you know, county government or city government is required to go through that process, and I think we do a pretty good job at that, telling our story. Worry. We never like to get into spec creative, although sometimes you just have to do that if you want to participate. But we’re in a fortunate enough position to where we can look at an RFP or a destination that’s looking for a new partner and say, Is that a good fit for us? Do they match up with what we’re trying to do where we’re at right now? Can we service them so we don’t go after everything? We’re selective and on what we choose and what makes sense for us.
Joe Hamilton 20:26
I’ve always felt like RFPs were their own skillset, and a lot of firms that were maybe capable just didn’t want to go through the cost or the time and the bureaucracy to fill them out. And so those that did, you know that was sort of a barrier to entry against competition. Do you feel like with all the various options that are available now, that competition within RFPs has gotten stronger or a little bit lighter, you know, say, in the last 15 years?
Rudy Webb 20:54
Yeah, I’d say it’s definitely stronger, honestly, in our space, especially there are, you know, like us destination or agencies that are focused on destination marketing, and then there’s some that dabble right in that and have a, you know, many different verticals, and it’s competitive, for sure. We’ll see, you know, sometimes the same players that show up at every RFP, and then there’ll be a couple of new faces that are either based in that destination, that want to have that in their backyard, or somebody knows somebody, so it’s as competitive as ever.
Joe Hamilton 21:24
And when you see those same players, which I assume there’s quite you know, at least a core group of a few that are always there, you know, how have you adapted? How do you have those conversations about how you juxtapose against them, to say, here’s what we you know, you know what they’re trying to say that they do uniquely. How have you
Rudy Webb 21:41
How do we tell our tell our story? Yeah, our soul. What’s our soul? And that’s where we came up with, in the last couple of years, our partner for good positioning, and that’s something that we’re really proud of. It took us a while to get there, you know, it’s kind of like the the cobbler with the, you know, the torn shoes, or the plumber with the leaky faucet. We’re in the same boat, but we landed on a positioning that I think is right for us, and that’s a paradise, a partner for good. And how we tell that story is we are not just an advertising agency, and we’re not trying to fulfill this contract with you. We’re trying to be a true partner with you, an extension of your team. We know that many CVBS are usually understaffed, under resourced. So we can help augment that with our team. 33% of our employees come from the DMO side or hospitality side, so they have that firsthand knowledge of what these potential clients are going to go through every single day. And it’s a true partnership that cedar taught us right a long time ago that relationships matter, that we’re trying to see the forest through the trees. And you know, we’re going to make a mistake as an agency. We’re human beings, but we’ll make it right. And it’s that relationship that trust that will allow us to have a long relationship. And in fact, our very first client, when cedar started the agency, Naples, Markle island in the Everglades, a great destination just south here, is still our client today. They’re a government entity that’s been through the RFP process every five years for the last whatever, and we’ve been able to maintain that relationship, and it’s built on trust and being a true partner. And good can mean a lot of things right. It’s doing the right thing when nobody is looking making it right when you need to. And sometimes it doesn’t always make sense, you know, for the agency to make that decision, but we know it’s the right thing to do for our client that in account service, we really believe in our relationships and trust and how we manage our client relationships, so service is a big part of what we do. And then I wouldn’t, you know, be here today. If it wasn’t our creative I think that our creative team is top notch. I would put them up against anybody, not just in the tourism and destination space, but any agency. I think our team does top notch work, and it makes waves within the industry. We always get comments about how people come up and say, Hey, I love the stuff you did for Savannah. I love this stuff you’re doing for Little Rock, and that means a lot. It means a lot for our team, and it feels good when we’re out in the market.
Joe Hamilton 24:10
That’s great. Let’s talk about AI. You know, it’s a very, very powerful tool, getting more powerful by the second. It seems. How do you feel like that’s going to change? And what does paradise two years from now look like with these tools coming in?
Rudy Webb 24:22
Yeah great question. I mean, it’s the wild west out there right now, right? And we’ve used forms of AI, right? Machine learning, right? We’ve used that for a while, especially with our media and optimization of digital and programmatic ads. So we’ve been using that for a while when we get into like, large language models, you know, making sure that content is authentic to the destination. That’s extremely important. We’re using AI right as a thought starter for us. Again, everything we create is by our creative team, but all of our teams are using AI as part of their normal daily activities. You know, we’re. We’re able to digest data and synthesize information much more quickly than we were able to before, and work in processes to automate some things that just took human labor hours. So it’s making us much more efficient. We can get from A to B a lot faster. Will it replace all of us? Not all of us? Maybe. You know, there are a couple of types of activities that can be replaced absolutely in order to make us efficient.
Joe Hamilton 25:27
And it seems like more than ever, the relationship piece of it, and, you know, the intangible pieces of it will rise in prominence. Because, you know, they say it’ll be the first one person company that’s worth a billion dollars within five years, or something like that. Because AI can do so many things and doing them well, that sort of levels the playing field a little bit, right? You know, you look at YouTube and you can make a Star Wars equivalent now in your basement. And so then you start to think about what makes George Lucas and all his power and studio and talent different than the person that’s in their basement using these powerful tools, and that’s going to be the differentiator that keeps the people that are successful now still successful.
Rudy Webb 26:07
It’s kind of that, that last 10% right? We can get there 90% of the way from a machine or providing us information, but it takes a highly skilled or intellectual individual, creative individual, to take it that next 10% and that will be the difference between good and great. A lot of people can’t see that difference, right? So there’s a lot of good stuff out there, a lot of bad stuff too, but there’s a lot of good stuff out there, but the stuff that’s impacted, but taking that next 10% will be great, and that’s our role.
Joe Hamilton 26:37
So how does that change your hiring practices? This is an emergent role in sort of taste, you know, Chief taste officer to be able to sort through.
Rudy Webb 26:46
I mean, you look at some of the colleges that are like, AI is a, you know, a track now that you can take on an AI prompting. So I don’t know if we’ll find some efficiencies. For sure. I don’t know if we’re going to replace an individual at the agency as of yet, but we all need to be very good on how to use the tool to make us all better.
Joe Hamilton 27:03
That makes a lot of sense. I’d like to just finish up by talking about, and again, this is, I don’t want to put you on the spot, because I’ve listened to 1000 people try to debate this or think about it, but when you think about, I’d love to hear your take having been here so long on what St Pete’s soul is. You know, it’s, it seems like we’ve sat around trying to find the words or whatever. Why do you love Saint Pete? Why you’re here?
Rudy Webb 27:29
Yeah, great question. So I’m from Michigan originally. My wife and I – girlfriend then – we got married down here, actually, at the Hilton downtown. And so we moved down in 99 way back in the 1900s which was it was quiet. Then there wasn’t a lot happening downtown. To see the city in this area evolve over the years has been amazing. I mean, I’m so proud of where I live, for sure. And we, you know, I get to go to some pretty amazing places in what I do. And St Pete is extremely special. We actually worked with the city of St Petersburg. This was probably 15 years ago, and they dedicated some funding to help position the destination and get the word out a little bit about the city. And we landed on surprising St Pete. And honestly, I think that can still hold today for sure, because in my travels, you come across people and they’ve heard of Tampa Bay, obviously, maybe been to Tampa, maybe been to St Pete, but it’s been 2030, years ago, and everybody I talked to that comes and experiences the city just says it’s unlike what they expected, right? It’s evolving. It’s dynamic. It can be so many different things to different people. And I, you know, I hate to say this, but it’s got a lot for everybody, whether you’re into the arts or you’re into dining. I mean, it’s amazing.
Joe Hamilton 28:50
That’s cool, wonderful. I’ve enjoyed the conversation. We covered some good ground. And, yeah, it’s great that you’re here in St Pete, doing this good work for the whole country. I’m glad you started here and glad you’ve expanded. It is just nice to build our sort of professional integrity for the quality of the work we produce that the rest of the world gets to see, and Paradise is a big piece of that.
Rudy Webb 29:11
Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Joe, really honored to be a part of the fabric of this community. We have been for a long time. Through the years, we’ve worked on a number of St Pete institutions, All Children’s Hospital when they made the transition to build a new hospital, and then to Johns Hopkins and worked with Florida orchestra with Dali, has been a client of ours for years, the Vannoy, the Museum of Fine Arts. So it’s really been awesome to be a part of this community for so long and excited for what’s to come, because every day there’s something new, and I’m glad that you’re keeping a pulse on all of that for us.
Joe Hamilton 29:48
Well, keep going. Rudy Webb Paradise Advertising, thank you.
Rudy Webb 29:52
Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Joe.
