Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:00:00] If I learned anything, it was from the people that told their stories, they all made a change by doing something radical and doing something that was outside of the box and that's what we have to do to make things happen.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:21] Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the Destination Marketing podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. We've got a fun episode for you today. It's a conversation that I've been wanting to have for a long time on the show. I've actually referred to this destination several times over the last several weeks because as many of, you know, I've been talking a lot about owned media and the importance of using owned media to tell the stories of your destination and to build audiences.
And I've got a good friend of mine, a good friend of the show. Her name is Rachel O’Neill-Cusey. And Rachel is from Visit Laguna Beach and just produced one of the most amazing owned media assets that I've ever seen in Destination Marketing. And I had to get her on the show to talk about it. Rachel thanks for coming back.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:01:07] Of course, it feels like the last time we were together on this show was when I first started here at Visit Laguna. So I was fresh, fresh ideas when I first was here. And now it's kind of fun to see some of those ideas come to life with some radical origins.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:24] You know, you show up there for five minutes and you do just and industry-changing project. I wonder what you'll accomplish after five years there.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:01:34] Oh, don't even get me started. I have dreams, I have dreams.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:38] I love it. Well, let's talk about that because you said last time you were on the show was right when you had gotten to Laguna Beach. You were kind of dealing with, okay, stepping into that new CEO role, getting your arms around your team. You know, you were really in the early days of it. I'm curious, what was that experience like? And then maybe what have we missed out on over the last several months as you've gotten up to speed and really gotten your arms around your team?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:02:03] Yeah. So, you know, when I first came to Laguna, I'm thinking, oh, gosh, it's just only a couple miles away from Dana Point. It can't be that different. I have grown up coming to Laguna Beach. I felt like I knew the city so well, just from living here. But, oh my gosh, it could not be more different than Dana Point. The community is so different. It's so vibrant. It's so eclectic. And what I realized immediately is to be successful here is to get to know the people in the community, and the people that live here and that have grown up here and that are very passionate about the city.
So that's what I did. I just started walking around and I'd go get coffee, I'd talk to people. I’d set up lunches with maybe people that weren't specifically involved with marketing or my hotels, but that could provide some Intel. So I just really started to wrap my arms around the community and for the most part, they have wrapped their arms around me back, which has been really nice.
Adam Stoker: [00:03:07] That's awesome. And you've built out your team, you've made several hires. Tell me a little bit about the key hires that you've made since you've been there.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:03:14] Yeah, absolutely. So I brought over Alex Stall from Visit Dana Point. I had hired her over at Visit Dana Point and I just knew that I needed to have her be part of this team. She handles all of our social media. She is dabbling in the group of sales side of things which is near and dear to my heart because that is my background. So it's kind of fun to mentor somebody on something that I'm really passionate about.
And then additionally, I brought over Emma York who I had worked with as well in Dana Point. She was working for the Harbor Partners on the Harbor Redevelopment Project. And it was really neat when I called her and was like, hey, would this be an interesting career move for you? Would this be something that you would want to maybe possibly pursue? And she was like, yes, this is definitely something I and she's been such a great asset in addition to the team. Like, I feel like we are just a really well-oiled machine and really working together well.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:18] Yeah, I had the chance to hang out with your team a little bit at the Destinations International Marketing and Communications Summit last week in Salt Lake. And really, you can tell that not only do they have great skills, but they also have great chemistry and clearly work well together. I think when you're trying to do something meaningful if you don't have the right team around you, I think it's going to make it really difficult to get the things done that you want.
So tell me and we'll dive into the project you worked on, of course. But first of all, how important was it to make sure that you had the right pieces in place, the right team in place to be able to get done what you wanted to get done?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:04:57] Yeah. So, I mean, from Radical Origins Campaign is really unique as, we were really deep-diving into the community. And when you're doing that, you have to be really sensitive because you're talking about people's lives, you're talking about their stories, you're talking about their backgrounds. It's more than just a marketing campaign that's glossy and pretty and all those lovely things.
So I think it was important to have the right agency that we worked with as well as the right team in place to make sure that all of those sensitivities were being thought about. And we were being thoughtful about our approach and the way that we were carrying ourselves in the city was correct and all of those things.
Adam Stoker: [00:05:41] Great. And so you get the right team together with kind of shared values and goals, and you start on this project. I want to understand, you know, from Radical Origins has become in my mind just this incredible storytelling machine for Visit Laguna Beach. And I want to know how did you first start thinking about it? What was the process like of actually taking it from an idea to a realistic possibility to something that was approved by the board and so on and so forth. How did you go through that process?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:05:41] So it's kind of a funny way that everything kind of fell into place. So I, when I first got here, as I was telling you, I was starting to get to know everybody. And I started noticing people when I was meeting them. They wanted to tell me their story. They wanted to tell me their history.
And I was sitting down having lunch with a former city council member, her name is Toni Iseman, and she's telling me about the march in the canyon and she's just telling me how they save the canyon. And I'm listening and you know, oh, yeah, that's great. And then she goes, yeah, and I changed myself to a bulldozer and I got arrested. And I'm like, what, excuse me, what did you do? And I'm like, tell me, tell me more. And so now she's telling me all about this Canyon March, which I've heard about.
But now I'm hearing like kind of another side to it. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I'm like, I thought there were more stories like this out there. So I started trying to like write down anytime somebody would say something that was interesting, I'd write that down like, oh, that's a story or that could be a story, that could be a story.
So one of my board members and he's also in city council Mark Orgill, he was like, you got to meet this guy John Zegowitz. He lives here, but you just got to meet him and tell him what you've been writing down what you're thinking about. So he and I go to coffee at Mulan and I tell him that I'm thinking about doing a podcast and he's like, Rachel, this can be so much bigger. And he ended up divulging up the point that he worked for an agency called Schiefer Chopshop. And they had done our brand in the past, Visit Laguna's brand in the past.
And he was like, do you know how big this can be? And he's like, I have ideas and the next thing, you know, two hours later, we're still sitting at Mulan and we're like throwing all these ideas all over the place. And he puts together a proposal and I bring it to the board with so much enthusiasm. Like my board was probably like, what is wrong with her? Why is she so excited right now? And I was just like, we have to do this project. And they approved it and they were like, let's go. This sounds great. This sounds exciting. And we just went for it.
Adam Stoke: [00:08:29] Can I stop you on that for a second? Because I think this is a really important component of this project is in the destination marketing industry, a lot of us have a fear in presenting things to the board because it's like, how will they react? How will this affect my job standing and all of that? And you went in with an idea that was definitely a shake-up to the budget that they had approved, right?
And it was definitely a major pivot from anything that they had done before. And yet you went in there with full confidence and excitement and enthusiasm. And said, if we do this, it will work. I wonder if maybe you could give some guidance to those that are listening, that might have a strange dynamic with their board of how can you do something that's a risk or that's outside of the norm that maybe they're not easily comfortable with. How do you get something like this approved?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:09:22] So I'm going to start off by saying I have an incredible board. So I am very lucky and I am very fortunate that I have a board that is open to creativity. They're open to new ideas and they're open to thinking outside of the box, which is not always the case.
Adam Stoker: [00:09:42] Yes.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:09:43] So I'm going to start by saying that like I have a really unique situation with my board and I also have a level of comfort with them as well, which is nice. So I do feel like I'm able to talk to them and explain to them if I have an idea why I think it's a good idea. But with that, there's also a mutual respect that if they don't necessarily agree with it, it's okay to say that. We have an open dialogue with this project.
I just, I was so passionate about it. I don't know if they were able to say no because I was so like, excited. And I'm like, this has such a great opportunity for us and like it's just begun. Like, you've seen the videos you've seen, you've listened to the podcast, you saw what we did for the community at Rivian Theatre. This is just chipping the iceberg of what is to come with it.
Adam Stoker: [00:10:40] Yeah. Before we go any further though, Rachel, I think I've made a mistake here with the audience because not everybody's up to speed with this project and we keep kind of talking about it, and I don’t think they know.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:10:51] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:10:52] So give us the board pitch, Rachel, what is this project? And what did you say that the impacts were going to be why you need to do it and give us the overview?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:11:04] Okay. So yes, you're right. We did not give that overview. I got too excited. See, I'm still excited about this project. So, you know, we're noticing people are traveling very differently these days. Yes, people come here for a beautiful beach. They come here for the outdoor activities and all the beauty that Laguna Beach has to offer. But nowadays, especially with the millennials traveling and spending money, they want an experience. They want a story. They want when they go somewhere to feel a connection to that place. We call them the experience collectors.
So when I pitched this to the board, I said, if we want to captivate that audience who is spending money right now and they are spending money in destinations and like having nice dinners and staying at nice hotels and really investing in these experience, we have to give them a reason to have an experience here. And us telling stories of lore and kind of those off-the-beaten path type of stories. That's what's going to capture their attention.
We can have a glossy, beautiful, colorful story that's safe, yes. But that doesn't necessarily capture somebody's attention fully to go. Oh, I want to go in and see what that's all about. So that was kind of the pitch. We came up with a couple like things like we want it to be inspiring. Like people want inspirational travel like we want them to have a journey. We wanted to take them on a journey with these stories. And I think we did a really great job of doing that.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:50] And I think that's a great description of the, you know, why. Why are we doing this? Let's talk about the what? So what was the actual format that it ended up being, you know, from radical origins, has a multifaceted storytelling approach? So what are the different pieces of storytelling? What stories did you tell, you know, tell me a little bit about the what?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:13:12] So we told seven stories. And we wanted to show, tell them all in podcast form and also in video form. So our first story that we released was called Reef Madness. And that was all about the Brook Street Classic.
So, Reef Madness is about the longest-running surf contest. And the reason why it's the longest-running surf contest is because it doesn't necessarily happen every single year. So the waves have to be just right some years, it doesn't happen, but it's still considered the longest-running surf contest. We are not necessarily considered a surf destination, but the locals that are here surf here regularly and their story rarely gets told. So we love telling that story.
The second story where we released was about mountain biking and it was called Trails Unbound. And the story of the Laguna Rads, which was this kind of underground wild group of mountain bikers that made these illegal trails initially, but ended up working with the county on making these trails legal. And now they are trails that people come from all over the world to ride and they ended up maintaining them. So they actually did good for the environment, which is pretty cool. At the end of the day when you think about it
Adam Stoker: [00:14:41] Yeah, absolutely.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:14:43] We talk about the birth of skimboarding. So one of the neat things that we kind of claim here in Laguna is that we are the, the birth of skimboarding. We got to meet with the owner of Victoria Skimboards, Tex Haines who just is so passionate about his sport and about what it's doing for the next generation of athletes. And he's just seen it grow and it was a fun story to tell.
And my favorite part of this whole thing is I was watching the cut of it and I'm like something's missing, something's missing. And everybody's like, what do you mean something's missing? I'm like, I don't know, it's missing a key element and I go, oh, I know what it's missing. I'm like, it's missing my buddy Greg Viviani at SoLagLocal. I'm like, he has this Instagram account. He's always at the beach. Like he's my information guy. Like, if I need to know something, he knows what's happening and they're like, well, how do we get a hold of him? I'm like, oh, he's always at Aliso, let's just show up.
So we show up at Aliso Beach. There he is with his dog buddy. And I'm like, hey, can we film you right now? And we set up shop in the back of his truck and we did a full-on interview with him. And I think it gave us like the right local voice that we needed in that episode.
Adam Stoker: [00:16:04] Those are great examples. One of the things that's kind of interesting is I feel like it's really on brand that you created this because you know, the surf competition, those guys early on were pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable. And then you've got the mountain bikers, right? They, they started creating these trails that they weren't even supposed to be creating.
Then skimboarding is pushing the boundaries of what was in existence. And it's like you are pushing the boundaries of what's considered normal for destination marketing in Visit Laguna Beach, which in my mind is very on-brand based on the stories that you're telling.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:16:41] And you have like hit the nail on the head because even though this was called from Radical Origins and the title radical means that people are doing things radically. At the end, when I started watching them and listening to everything together, I realized that what makes Laguna Beach so special and unique and what has made things happen here is people that have pushed the limit and pushed the boundaries and fought for what they believed in, and that's how change makers happen. That's how things have come to be here.
And when I see people now maybe using their voice or being passionate about things instead of being like, oh my gosh, why are they being so passionate about that? Think back to the history and go well. The only reason why we have this is because somebody did something radical before.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:34] I love that. I think it's actually a pretty interesting articulation of the Visit Laguna Beach brand. It's kind of interesting. I want to go back then to your board pitch because I think the audience has a really good understanding now of what this project is. What you were pitching to the board? What kind of pushback did you get from the board? And what, you know, I guess, I'm trying to think of what the word would be, but what did you have to overcome in order to get it finally approved?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:18:04] I think the hardest part was identifying only seven stories. And that was where I did receive pushback because everybody has a story to tell and everybody wants their story to be told. I only had the budget for seven stories.
Adam Stoker: [00:18:22] Yeah, for sure.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:18:23] So I had to be strategic for this year's budget. And I think that there was some stories that were left out that some communities wish that were told. And I agree, I wanted to tell them stories as well, but I had to keep on brand with what From Radical Origins was about. And the way that we made our decisions at the end of the day for the stories to tell is we had to relate what happened then to now. So if we couldn't find the now, then we didn't tell that story.
Adam Stoker: [00:18:56] Interesting. Okay. And clearly, that kind of rubric that you put together held up. Did it also help the board understand? Okay. This story is worth featuring in this format versus the other ones that may be considered.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:19:10] Yes. And the board was really again, I have an amazing board, and they were, they loved the stories that we identified. There was just a couple of stories that we were like, we wish we could tell that. And we will later in a different format.
Adam Stoker: [00:19:28] Yeah, I like it. So then you got it approved by your board. You go into production. You talked about how, you know, even when you saw the rough cut of one of the episodes, you're like, man, we need to find one more element of this and you went and found, what was his name?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:19:43] Greg Viviani.
Adam Stoker: [00:19:44] Greg Viviani, on the beach and just showed up and he was there and you got a film crew with you. Tell me more about like when you're actually going through the capturing and telling of these stories, what were some surprises that you ran into? Maybe things that you didn't expect. What were some challenges that came along with the filming and production of this that maybe you didn't expect?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:20:05] So we had like a list of our wish list of who we wanted to talk to. Some people were hard to track down. Some people unfortunately passed before we were able to actually talk to them.
Adam Stoker: [00:20:18] Oh, shoot.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:20:19] And so that was really kind of a sad, a sad thing because part, another layer to this project when I was pitching it to the board was, I wanted these community members to have their voices recorded and filmed like as a piece of history. Like for them to have something for them to have forever and for their families to have forever.
And so it kind of, it was a little crushing when some of the people that we really wanted their voices recorded, they weren't able to do that and I was bummed about that.
Adam Stoker: [00:20:55] Can I speak to that real quick?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:20:57] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:20:58] This is actually the danger of not telling these stories.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:21:01] Right.
Adam Stoker: [00:21:02] Right. Is that every destination, every single destination in the world has stories that are key components that made the destination what it is today. And if we don't tell these stories, I'm not even just trying to be like sensational or anything, but some of these people may pass and ruin our ability to capture and document and tell these stories which you obviously experienced in Visit Laguna Beach. But I feel like this is happening every year all over the world in every destination, these stories are being lost.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:21:35] I mean, I just go like from a personal note, you know, I lost my dad 10 years ago. And there's so many times that I go, oh, I wish I would have saved that voicemail or I wish I would have recorded him saying that to me or taken that photo. But you know, you don't know, you don't think about that in the moment. So I'm happy that we are able to have these people tell their stories because it's really, it's for their family too at the end of the day. Their families get to keep that.
Adam Stoker: [00:22:06] Absolutely. And if you think about it, we go back to what's the purpose of destination marketing. Well, it's to make the lives of the residents better. And I think capturing those stories really does make the lives of the residents better.
You know, one of the things that I loved that you did in this process is you worked with the community and you launched from radical origins in the local community theatre. How did that come about? And, what was the public reaction to that type of launch?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:22:36] Yeah, I'm going to, I definitely want to talk about that, but I want to call, you said something really quick that I want to touch on.
Adam Stoker: [00:22:42] Sure.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:22:43] When you're interviewing Stuart from Myrtle Beach, not too long ago. He said something in the podcast that I actually wrote down because I think it's really important and I want it to be said again.
Adam Stoker: [00:22:54] Yes.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:22:54] Because I think as destination marketers, we need to think about this. We always think that we're trying to bring in visitors, which we are, but the primary job is to improve the quality of life for the community. And I thought that was so neat to hear that said, and I'm on board with that thought process.
Adam Stoker: [00:23:10] Well, and really, we all should be, because the whole reason we collect that tax revenue is to use it to make the lives of the residents better.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:23:18] Correct.
Adam Stoker: [00:23:22] So, yeah, I agree with both you and Stuart on that. And that is one of the main reasons that I absolutely love this project.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:23:29] Yeah. So back to the community event, so one of the cool things when we were recording and if you watch any of the episodes, which I hope that you do, you'll see we're not in one place doing these interviews. We recorded people in their garages. We've reported people in their backyards. We were in people's personal homes. Like people open their doors for us to come into their private residences, for them to tell their story, like sitting on their couch. And that was, it was a very, very cool experience.
I got a tour of Ron Sizemore's childhood home. He still lives in it. He's an older gentleman, like a great surfer, won the Brooks Street Classic a few times. But we got to walk around his house and like sit with him in his backyard and share a beverage together and it was super fun. And but the Rivian event, we have this theatre in Laguna Beach, which has its own story.
So this theatre has been around forever. Anybody that has grown up in this area has seen a movie there. The floors were sticky. It was just like one of those places where you went and saw movies as a kid. So it had been sitting empty for quite some time. And the Rivian Car Company recently purchased it and turned it into a showroom, but not the type of showroom you may think. They have just like two cars in there and they kept the charm of the theatre.
Adam Stoker: [00:25:03] Very cool.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:25:04] So it's still a theatre and they kept some of the original elements and really elevated it and updated it. Now, one of the things that the stipulations of being there is they have to do four community events a month. They opened in January and we had our event like the first week of February. And so, I mean, I emailed and was like, is there any way we can do this event for the community?
It's like, perfect. It's a theatre. I want to show films. So this would be a great opportunity. They said, yes, I wrote my very first run of script. I begged my board chair at the time. He's now my vice board chair, Kurt Bjorkman, from the Ranch Laguna. I said, please be the MC for the night and he was glad to do it. And then I identified one person from each film to get up and introduce their film. So really like tying it in as a whole.
Adam Stoker: [00:26:04] Yeah.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:26:06] It poured rain that day, like buckets of rain, like thunderstorm lightning. And I'm thinking nobody's going to show up. I am going to have this event where nobody's at and it's going to be a total flop and I'm going to be embarrassed.
300 people came in the rain. The energy was insane. Like I was riding a high from it for a long time because what we did is we brought in all these different walks of life and these different characters and we put them in a room together. And like something really cool happens when you have a room full of creatives, just creatives and change makers.
Adam Stoker: [00:26:47] Yeah.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:26:49] Like it's fun to see you’re on the big screen. It's fun to be celebrated. It's fun to celebrate your achievements with your community. And so people were like happy. The energy was buzzing and it was just an overall great experience for the community as a whole.
Adam Stoker: [00:27:06] That's awesome. And so everybody comes together, you know, watches the films in the theatre. Tell me now a little bit, I want to talk results, right?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:27:16] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:27:17] Because in the end we're going to have a lot of people that are listening say, oh this is awesome. But what did you actually get from it? I'd like to understand how the community kind of came together and supported this. I'd like to understand maybe the earned media that you got from this because I've seen a lot of earned media, and then anything else about the results of this campaign that you'd like to share.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:27:39] Yeah. So we strategically rolled this out community first. So I felt like for this project to have the legs that I needed it to have. I needed community buy-in first. And so I rolled it out to the community first to get their excitement and buzz. And they started sharing with their own personal networks like social media and on YouTube.
And that was like kind of my first layer. So let's just organically spread the word about this. And that was the same how we did the Rivian event. I did not invite anybody particular. I just invited the people that were in the films.
Adam Stoker: [00:28:17] Oh wow.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:28:19] And allowed them to share with their network and we have 300 people. So I wanted community rollout first. Now that we're entering into 2024, we are doing some connected TV advertising. We will be doing some paid media advertising with a couple of agencies that we're working with, and then we have paid social as well.
And then another layer that we're starting with this is an ambassador program. So we are actually bringing on some of the ambassadors of the people that were in the film and that we are sponsoring. And they will be like our athletes and people will be able to either meet with them when they're here or have an experience with them of some sort.
So we're really kind of bringing it to another level. And saying, okay, you've watched these films, now come do it with us here. And you get to meet Hans, right, the mountain biker. And he's going to show you a trick and you get have a coffee with them or something along those lines.
Adam Stoker: [00:29:18] I love that. So I guess I want to now have you fast forward, let's say you look 5, 10, 15, 20 years into the future, what is the impact of this project going to be on Laguna Beach?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:29:32] So, you know, the impact I feel like with a project like this, that it continues to grow and it continues to evolve. The thing I like about storytelling is that it doesn't get old because the story is old. It actually happened.
I'm not producing something that is going to go out of style necessarily. It's a piece of history. It's a documentary and we can really layer, layer, layer up on that. We can continue to show these films at different events. We can have people come here if they really want to lean into the art side of things. We can have some of the artists that were in the film, be part of teaching them their craft, skimboarding.
Our skim boarders meet every Saturday, and they do like, the pros all go out every Saturday at Aliso. We can build on that with this film. So I think there is a lot of opportunity there to continue growing and building on this one project.
Adam Stoker: [00:30:31] Awesome. It's Evergreen, right?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:30:33] It is Evergreen. Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:30:34] Like that's a great storytelling is, like you said. Doesn't go out of style and this is something you can build off of for a very long time. How will you ever know how many heads and beds you got as a result of this?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:30:48] That's a great question. So as you know, with like leisure sales and transient sales marketing, it's hard to sometimes track, but we will be able to see who went to our website and who clicked on the radical origins link and then who went to a booking engine from there.
So we do have our website set up in such a way that if they do go to book a room through our website, we know that they were influenced by what they saw on our website, which I think is the best thing that we can do when we're kind of trying to see the impact that something had.
I also think, you know, sometimes actual heads and beds, don't necessarily equate to the impact of a campaign if you will. And sometimes the impact is more aspirational. And I think that's okay.
Adam Stoker: [00:31:46] Well, and I want you to know that I was, you know, kind of facetiously asking that question because it's a little bit of an unfair trap, right?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:31:52] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:31:54] When you ask that question. And one of my biggest issues in the destination marketing industry is we try to measure the impact of a campaign in the same year that we ran the campaign.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:32:07] Right.
Adam Stoker: [00:32:08] And yet the impact of this campaign is going to go for years and years and years. And so the way that our evaluation of our performance is structured in this industry, in some cases, is very difficult because if we were actually going to look at it, there's a lot of people that would say, well, there was only a 2% lift in bed tax collection this year. So this campaign wasn't very effective. And that is a ridiculous statement as you look at the earned media that you got from this, the community pride that comes from this.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:32:43] Right.
Adam Stoker: [00:32:45] Which we haven't even really touched on, the community pride that comes from it. You know, the capture of the stories that we talked about earlier that might not be able to be captured if we wait any longer to capture these stories. And yet we're going to quantify all of that value in 2024. How many people booked a hotel room? I think we've got to start looking things a little bit farther out than just in the 12 month period that we're in if we're actually going to be able to make an impact in this industry.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:33:14] You know, I couldn't agree with you more. And like I said at the beginning, I have a group sales background. So, you know, I'm a very goal-oriented, goal-focused. I've always been like, how many rooms did I book? And what was the ADR? It has taken me a really long time to kind of retrain my brain on my thinking because aspirational goals are just as important as actual, you know, room nights and numbers.
I think that we, I always call us influencers and not the kind of influencers that you see like on Instagram. But we are a travel influencer and we are, you can't measure a feeling and we are creating an emotional impact on people. We are making somebody feel something and that you cannot measure. But it is incredibly important.
Adam Stoker: [00:34:07] Yeah. I love it, Rachel about from Radical Origins, is there anything else that you want to highlight from this project?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:34:15] One thing is I, as you know, people have said, oh, I watched the films, I watched the films. There is a podcast element to it. And I don't just love the podcast because I'm the host of it, but I love it because I feel like it does a deeper dive into the stories and it's, they're a little bit longer than the film itself. And podcasts are just a great way to hear a story while you're maybe doing other things.
So you can listen to it while you're, you know, answering maybe some emails or you're driving on your commute. And I just, I am hoping that you can get that messaging out more, that there is a podcast associated with it.
Adam Stoker: [00:34:55] Okay. Yeah. So the films are getting all the attention,
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:35:02] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:35:03] But the audio is the deep dive and maybe where people have a little more flexibility in consuming it. So go listen to the podcast.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:35:07] Yes. Yeah, and you'll hear my voice. And at one point, I talk about archaeology and I sound extremely intelligent.
Adam Stoker: [00:35:18] That’s the highlight.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:35:19] I even surprised myself. I was like, wow.
Adam Stoker: [00:35:24] Oh, that's awesome. What else are you working on Rachel? I know that we spent a lot of time on this From Radical Origins project. But I know that this is one piece of many, many things that you're working on. What are some of the other highlights that, that you or initiatives that you're working on in Laguna Beach?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:35:41] Yeah. So we actually today just launched our brand new tourism website,
Adam Stoker: [00:35:46] Oh congratulations.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:35:48] Visitlagunabeach.com. And it is so beautiful. I am so pleased with it. We worked with Madden and they were wonderful to work with. I mean, we were right on time. Like we said, we were going to launch it today and we did and it. I could not be happier.
It looks great. It's easy to navigate. The whole team was involved with the process. We all gave our input. We all had tweaks that we felt were necessary, and I just felt like when you look at it, it's really you can tell everybody was part of this.
Adam Stoker: [00:36:25] It's great. Congratulations. That is no small undertaking by any means.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:36:30] We are very, very, very pleased.
Adam Stoker: [00:36:33] And it looks great. And I can see you've integrated this major initiative with From Radical Origins. You've integrated that into your site where it's featured prominently on the home page, and yeah, I think you guys have done a nice job putting that together.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:36:47] Wonderful. I'm glad that you were able to take a peek at it and super excited. We're also working on, we have some fun like social media campaigns that Alex is working on. One that is kind of cool. I don't want to give too much away, but I think I can give some of it away.
Adam Stoker: [00:37:03] Sure.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:37:04] So we are one of the only destinations that you can surf and ski in the same day.
Adam Stoker: [00:37:09] Oh okay.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:37:11] Yeah, so she created a cool little storyline and you may be seeing a little activation where surf and ski happened in one day.
Adam Stoker: [00:37:24] Oh, I'm excited to see that. That's great.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:37:26] Yeah, super fun. It was kind of, she came up with it. And it was really, it was one of the one of those things just like I went to the board really excited about this project. She came to me really excited about this.
And so it was kind of fun to be on the other side, you know, ask those questions, how it was going to happen. How? And my big thing to her with everything is ok. Well, how are you going to tie in hotel rooms? How does this relate to an overnight stay? And the big thing is, is before they surf, they're waking up in one of our hotel rooms. And we're showing the hotel that they are waking up at, after they stayed here overnight.
Adam Stoker: [00:38:05] That's going to be fun. That's going to be really fun.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:38:07] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:38:08] I’m excited for that.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:38:09] So, I'm excited to see it.
Adam Stoker: [00:38:10] Well, Rachel, you know, there's a lot of people that are going through similar things that you're going through. There are a lot of people who might be tempted to start a project like what you've done here with from Radical Origins, along with your website and this new activation that I'm excited to see if you could boil it down to a kind of a core piece of advice that you would give to other destination marketing professionals. What would you say?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:38:35] It's okay to not play it safe. Even if you play it safe, you're going to have feedback. So why not do the thing that's a little risky? You're going to have feedback either way. So do something a little different and take a little bit of a risk. Like what's the worst that's going to happen?
Adam Stoker: [00:38:54] This is a very risk-averse industry. So I'm really happy to hear you say that Rachel because I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's the only way we're going to make progress as an industry is if we're willing to try something new, even if that means that we could fail, because we'll learn what we need to learn of what works, what doesn't and make progress. So I think that's excellent, excellent advice.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:39:16] Yeah, my board vice chair, actually, when I interviewed, he was the chair at the time, Kurt, he was like, let's do some weird things this year. And I was like, yeah. And like, I think you got to get a little weird and you got to do things that are just kind of a little different, and it’s okay. And it will all work out the way that it's supposed to and not everybody is going to be happy.
Like, that's just the way that it is. Even if you don't do anything weird, if you do things just like subpar, you're still going to have those naysayers. So I think maybe I'm from Radical Origins. Maybe I'm a little radical and it's kind of fun to be that way.
Adam Stoker: [00:39:55] Yeah, you're in the right place. That's for sure. I would say though that even doing this, if you're going to be criticized, no matter what, do what you believe in.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:40:05] Yeah. 100%. I wholeheartedly agree because you can't, if I learned anything from this project, and I mentioned this earlier, so I'm going to just, I'm repeating myself kind of, but if I learned anything, it was from the people that told their stories. They all made a change by doing something radical. And doing something that was is outside of the box and that's what we have to do to make things happen.
Adam Stoker: [00:40:34] Well, Rachel, this has been a ton of fun. Really appreciate you coming on again. It's nice to have you back. If people want to learn more about you or from Radical Origins or Laguna Beach, what's the best way for them to do so?
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:40:46] Visitlagunabeach.com, our new website, which I hope that you go and check out today. And then please go to our Instagram at visitlaguna. It's an awesome place. Alex does a great job of showcasing what we have to offer here.
Adam Stoker: [00:41:00] Great. Well, thanks again, Rachel. I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I think it's been really insightful.
Rachel O’Neill-Cusey: [00:41:06] It's been awesome. Thank you for having me always. It's so great to catch up with you.
Adam Stoker: [00:41:10] Absolutely. And thanks everybody for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to leave us a rating or a review. It helps us continue to bring you amazing guests like Rachel. Thanks, everybody and have a great week.
You guys, we have created the coolest thing and I am so excited about it. You know, Chat GPT launched now almost a year and a half ago, and so much of the world has changed over that time. One of the things that we recognized early on is we were going to have to not only look and keep an eye on this technology, but also that we needed to get involved in some way.
And I had a good friend of mine, Shawn Kanungo who's been on the show before he launched his own custom GPT using his content. And when I saw that I was like, man, we could do that for ours too. And so we uploaded all 300 plus episodes of this podcast. We uploaded my book. We uploaded several other pieces of content.
And now we've created a GPT product called Destination Marketing Agent that if you have a Chat GPT premium account you can use. And it's like having me sitting next to you as you're working on whatever problem it is you're trying to solve and saying, hey, Adam, what would you do here? Well, you can ask Destination Marketing Agent what to do situation by situation. And you will get the response as if it was me responding.
I'm really proud of it. It turned out so cool. And I am using it now on a day-to-day basis to take stuff that would have taken me several hours to write, and instead, Destination Marketing Agent is spitting it out in my voice and ready to go. So I hope that you guys will use this. It is something that I'm not going to have anybody pay me for. You just have to have the Chat GPT premium account. And if you do, you get to have this companion to help you in your day-to-day efforts.
In addition, once we realized that we could do this for us, we then also recognized that we can create this for tourism destinations as well. We launched a pilot program to create custom GPTs within the Chat GPT framework, for five destinations.
That pilot program is going on right now. The pilot is already full. We have five destinations going through the process right now. And in the coming weeks, we will be releasing this new product to the industry where you can create a custom GPT for your destination. And you'll be able to have this type of asset available for visitors when they're planning and booking their trips using Chat GPT.
It's an incredible technology, an incredible product. If you want to be on the list of the first destinations to take advantage image of this new product when the pilot is complete, send me an email at adam@relicagency.com. Those who send me an email prior to the launch will get a discount off of what the market price is at the end of the pilot program. So if you'd like to be on that list, if you'd like to explore creating a custom GPT for your destination, let me know, adam@reliagency.com, and we will make sure that you are on the list and that you get a discount before this launches to the entire market.
I hope you guys are as excited as I am. I can't wait to show you how this works. Not only for my product but also for every individual destination that's currently going through the pilot. So make sure you send me an email at adam@relicagency.com. We'll make sure you're on the list.
[End of transcript]
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