Thanks to Kelms2 for sending this in:
\nRoswell, NM was featured in a three page, five article feature intitled
\n“Os Davis Invades Roswell” in Weekly Alibi(Albuquerque, NM) for the week of July 13 – 19, 2000. The web address of the Weekly Alibi is Alibi.com. The
\nlead article (The Selling of Roswell: Keeping the Phenomenon Fresh ) is on
\nhow Roswell, NM sales itself to the rest of the world(The Tv show Roswell is mention twice in the article). You can read all five articles online now.<\/p>\n
Fanforum SN: richardken1<\/p>\n
\nThe Selling of Roswell
\nKeeping the phenomenon fresh by Os Davis<\/p>\nSo there you are in Atlantic City, representing an obscure New Mexican
\ntown
\nof some 50,000 residents. Hordes of travel writers from the Americas, from
\nEuropean nations as small as Estonia, from far-flung locales like Singapore,<\/p>\nsee your hamlet as mystery mecca. You find yourself one of the most
\ninterviewed people at the con vention, a weird aura preceding you.
\nJournalists and Joisey residents alike have a single question for you,
\nhanging on the answer.
\nIt happens if the town you represent is Roswell, a burg with a worldwide
\nreputation out of proportion to its population. The question, natch, is
\n“what
\nreally happened there in 1947?”
\nTom Garrity, a center of attention at the annual International Travel
\nWriters’ Convention in Atlantic City last month, doesn’t know the answer; he<\/p>\nsure loves being asked, though. Garrity is director of The Garrity Group, a
\npublic relations firm recently handed what he terms a “great opportunity”:
\nthe opportunity to publicize Roswell, “a town more people have heard about
\nthan almost anywhere in the Southwest” The Garrity Group began the project
\nwith a budget of $110,000–an amount too small to build a campaign based
\nmerely on traditional advertising, thus necessitating a different strategy.
\nThat amount of money, says Garrity, “will get you a couple ofads. We’d
\nrather
\nshape a message that’s more credible and at the same time will get more
\nresults.”
\nThe result is thus not so much an advertising campaign as an “awareness
\ncampaign” with the goal to increase awareness about Roswell through mass
\nmedia channels. Roswell Mayor Bill Owen heartily endorses Garrity’s appeal
\nto
\nthe world of journalism: “The press carries a big stick,” he says. “They’ve
\ngot more ink in their rollers than we’ve got. When you can get them talking
\nabout us and working with us, it gets lots of people’s attention. We want to<\/p>\npromote Roswell in as many ways as possible.” Luckily, with current hype at
\na
\npeak, Garrity says that “Roswell is selling itself right now.”
\nThat peak is the potential problem facing Roswell’s tourism industry an
\nindustry that, Owen explains, “for all practical purposes, didn’t exist in
\nRoswell 15 years ago.” It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when this town
\nattained its current pop cultural name-dropping status-some cite the 1993
\nepisode of “Unsolved Mysteries” that led to a senate inquiry or The
\nIncident’s key function in the plotline of i996 box office smash
\nIndependence
\nDay. Since the 50th anniversary has come and gone, however, an obvious
\nconclusion would be that Roswell’s fame is ultimately as fleeting as that of<\/p>\nmany once-cherished icons. “Roswell” televison program or no, might not the
\ntown’s 15 minutes be up?
\nThis is precisely what makes Garrity ideal for Roswell. Julie Hewes,
\nPublic
\nRelations Officer for the city of Roswell, says, “I think the thing Garrity
\nGroup has brought to the campaign is continuity. You had such an influx of
\npeople and enthusiasm in 1997 with the 50th anniversary; the entire
\ncommunity
\nwas involved. What Garrity Group did was bring all those people to the
\ntable
\nand keep everyone together.” And Garrity feels that if he can keep this
\nnucleus of Roswellians together, promotional opportunity should last much
\nlonger. “Lots of places in the U.S. wish they had the kind of talk appeal
\nof
\nRoswell,” he says. For example, how many towns of Roswellian size have even
\nhad a TV program named after them? (Truth or Consequences doesn’t count-the
\ngame show came first.) Garrity feels confident in Roswell’s small-town charm<\/p>\nand convenient location in a region rife with tourist draws. The early PR
\nhurdle of recognizability thus passed, the next barrier for Carrity and
\ncompany to deal with is a question that could dog the town as persistently
\nas
\nthe one about UFOs and ETs: “Once we get past the Roswell incident, what is
\nthere to talk about?” Owen, too, realizes his town’s uniqueness makes for a
\nstumbling block: “There’s not another city that we know of that we can use
\nas
\na model. Every year we’re looking at new ways to present Roswell to the
\nworld.”
\nGarrity was able to test his ideas fiar Roswell’s image circa 2000 while
\nat
\nthis year’s All-American City Competition in Louisville, Ky., in May. As one<\/p>\nof 30 finalists, Roswell was represented with a display featuring-what
\nelse?-the ubiquitous humanoid aliens with hollow eyes and over sized
\ncranium.
\nOnlookers gaped at this arresting exhibit plunked in the midst of
\nold-fashioned Americana. “It’s not about aliens,” insists Garrity, “but we
\nuse the aliens as a hook.” Most Louisville visitors swallowed the bait:
\nAfter
\nan initial reaction akin to “Aliens, huh?” Garrity and company were able to
\ndeftly expand the picture of Roswell to include tales of historical
\nrelevance, the New Mexico Military Institute, and state parks. The PR firm
\nwas also in a unique position to promote outlying areas in southeastern New
\nMexico, as The Garrity Group was also awarded the account for so-called
\n“Region No.3,” an area comprising eight counties from Otero to Lincoln, by
\nthe state tourism division.
\nThe All-American City Competition in Lousville, Ky., coindded nicely with
\nan exhibit running at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Entitled
\n“Roswell and the Alien Invasion II,” the familiar alien figure drew crowds
\nusually reserved ler feature exhibits. Called one of the Space Center’s
\n“most
\npopular displays ever,” NASA organizers brought the $30,000 display to
\nRoswell to stand as part of the town’s recent week-long “Trek Roswell 2000”
\nfestivities. As west Texas is one of Garrity Group’s focus market, the
\npopularity of the exhibit provides a positive boost to Garrity’s strategy.
\nWhen asked what would indicate the success of Garrity’s campaign, Owen
\nsays, “I’d like to see more conversations like this take place.” Garrity
\nechoes the sentiments almost to the letter. He likes simply “that people are<\/p>\ntalking about Roswell.” Though too early to tell, Garrity is extremely
\nconfident that the town’s continued success is inevitable: “The results
\n[Garrity Group campaigns] have had in southeast New Mexico lead us to
\nbelieve
\nthat Roswell will be successful.”
\nAn incident that showed Garrity immediate results in a business where
\nresults are often untraceable proved to be telling indeed. Having problems
\nreturning a rental car while attempting to depart Atlantic City, Garrity met<\/p>\nwith the acerbic attitude of a New Yorker who’d attended the conference.
\nImpa
\ntiently waiting for Garrity’s problem to be solved, she complained, “Ah, you<\/p>\nRoswell people. That’s all I’m hearing about is Roswell this and Roswell
\nthat.” Garrity, despite himself, was pleased.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to Kelms2 for sending this in: Roswell, NM was featured in a three page, five article feature intitled “Os<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[43,2457],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell","tag-mentioning","tag-roswell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}