Landslide Affected Stillaguamish Valley Gets a Boost Through Marketing Campaign

A Cairn Would Become Our Icon

The first I learned of the Oso landslide was through a Facebook post. When I hear something like that, I think to myself, “I hope everyone’s OK.” They weren’t. Forty-three people died.

Soon afterward, publisher Larry Coffman emailed to ask if our agency might be involved in media work connected with the slide, since it was in our backyard and we’d been similarly involved in the I-5 bridge collapse, also in our backyard.

At that point, it was impossible for me to think about a business opportunity in the wake of such tragedy. Yes, we had worked on the bridge collapse, but no one had lost their life there. Soon an RFP arrived at my office in Mount Vernon for a campaign funded through the Governor’s office and the State Department of Commerce.

I quickly called everyone from the I-5 campaign team and each wanted to participate. We had helped the communities affected by the bridge collapse in their economic recovery and figured we could do the same for the Arlington-Oso-Darrington area.

Strategic Media Alignment would again handle media strategy and the media buy. Strategies 360 would work with us on earned and social media. Hand Crank Films would produce the TV spots. And BrandQuery’s job was overall campaign direction, creative, client contact, research, management and implementation.

The RFP response was hand-delivered on Monday, May 12, and we were awarded the contract on Wednesday, The purpose was to encourage the revival of business and tourism in the areas affected by the landslide.

We began work the very next day, facilitating a community meeting in Darrington that included residents, stakeholders, event heads and outdoor-recreation businesses. From there we gathered information that would prove to be helpful to our efforts, and we haven’t stopped since.

Throughout Arlington, Oso and Darrington, I interviewed community members and leaders, continually reminding myself and our team of the lives lost and the families and friends affected by this horrific tragedy.

In this process, I met some incredible people. Martha Rasmussen, who previously had voluntarily built a Darrington website and Facebook page, Oso Fire Chief Willy Harper, who was so exhausted but took time to meet. And Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin, who showed me his cell phone and said, “The calls used to stop, but they don’t anymore…”

Adrienne Hall from the U.S. Forest Service invited me into her home so I wouldn’t have to sleep in a camp with the all-male crew when we were filming the TV spots. And, finally, there was Mayor Rankin’s nephew, Oak, who flew home from a Grand Canyon float trip so he could help his community. These resilient, optimistic, selfless people have driven our work.

We vetted our ideas internally and came up with a strong creative concept, followed by a strategy that would work for all media. After that first community meeting, several people sent us amazing photographs.

We noticed a common thread in all the photos: a cairn (i.e., a pile of stones that mark a sacred place). That would become our icon. It signifies so many things: direction, a sense of place, discovery and, finally, rebuilding.

The community holds these symbols near and dear, on the water and in the mountains. We built our campaign around them. Every scene of every commercial—even the 15-second TV spots—features a cairn.

Then there was Oak. After we met, he spent three full three days showing me all that he could—scouting locations that would be easy to get to with a crew carrying lots of heavy equipment. We scoured low and then we scoured high to focus on outdoor recreation. Soon we had five locations we could get to within a single day. Oak was instrumental in helping us find our way, and ultimately he was the one who built each cairn in each scene.

We were able to pull off the shoot without a hitch. Within a week, we had the final cuts for a :30 and two :15 TV spots. We created end tags for four different Summer events in Stilly Valley. These would be featured the week preceding the Timberbowl Rodeo in Darrington, the Arlington Fly-In, the Darrington Bluegrass Festival and the Summer Meltdown in Darrington.

Our media buys included television, radio (NPR underwriting) and Pandora. The digital strategy includes mobile, geo and demo targeting. The commercials run on KOMO, KING, Global in Canada and on digital.

Social media kicked off with a strategy to provide expanded information for multiple interests, including donors, businesses, events and visitor access. Content also was supplied to Snohomish.org, the county’s tourism website.

At this writing, we launched a week ago. Soon we’ll see results. Our team can only hope the events will have record crowds and that visitors will return to an area for which I have a new respect—for both its natural beauty and the strength of its people.

Last weekend, while taking a brief break from all the work, I was sitting in a sidewalk cafe looking toward Pike Place Market. And in that forest of people—there was Oak… What a small world this is, indeed.

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You can contact Jacque Beamer at jbeamer@brandquery.com or 360-336-0152.

This article was originally posted on Marketing Magazine.

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