Join us on the Paid Media Playbook podcast as we sit down with Amy Wallsmith, the Marketing Director of the iconic Pike Place Market. In this insightful episode, Amy shares her remarkable career journey, from discovering her passion for marketing to spearheading innovative strategies for new markets in her previous roles, and now, steering through the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic at Pike Place Market.

Amy delves into the intricacies of building effective marketing campaigns, drawing from her experiences and discussing her favorite types of media and marketing techniques. From the power of social media to the importance of adapting strategies in a changing landscape, Amy provides valuable insights for marketers and entrepreneurs alike.

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Moreover, Amy sheds light on the profound impact of COVID-19 on Pike Place Market, revealing the strategies employed to navigate these unprecedented times while preserving the market's rich legacy. Tune in as we explore Amy's journey, her passion for marketing, and her dedication to building a lasting legacy for one of Seattle's most beloved landmarks.

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Chapters:

• Introduction and Career Journey (0:00 - 05:00): Introduce Amy Wallsmith and delve into her journey of discovering her passion for marketing and finding her career path.
• Marketing Strategies for New Markets (05:00 - 10:00): Explore Amy's experiences in developing marketing strategies for new markets in her past roles, highlighting key approaches and challenges encountered.
• Adapting to COVID-19 Challenges (10:00 - 15:00): Discuss the impact of COVID-19 on Pike Place Market and the strategies Amy implemented to navigate the challenges posed by the pandemic.
• Favorite Media and Marketing Techniques (15:00 - 20:00): Explore Amy's preferred media and marketing techniques, discussing their effectiveness and relevance in today's digital landscape.
• Building a Lasting Legacy for Pike Place Market (20:00 - 30:00): Dive into Amy's vision for building a lasting legacy for Pike Place Market, considering its historical significance and future direction.

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Links and Resources:

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• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

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Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Paid Media Playbook? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and Spotify and leave us a review!

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Best Regards,

Laura Szczes

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P.S. Ready to unlock the full potential of paid ads for your business? Double Z Media is offering a free paid ads strategy session for your company. Limited slots available.

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Click here to claim your free strategy session

Transcription:
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I'm Laura. And I'm Lisa. And this is the Paid Media Playbook, where we talk to marketing professionals about their challenges, tactics, and triumphs. Join us here at ZZ Media for weekly conversations about media strategies for marketing leaders.

So we have Amy Marketing Director of Pike Place Market. Now Amy, correct me if I'm wrong, is Pike Place Market the most visited attraction in Seattle? It is. Yes, I would say, , us and the Space Needle.

Great. Job's done. Everyone knows about it. Everyone goes there. Yay! Yay. Good job, team. Yay! Now, Amy, I'm going to Tell us a little about when you got started in marketing because marketing director is kind of a big job for the Pike Place market. So what kind of led you there? Oh, Let's see, so when I was in college, we're gonna go way back, when I was in college, I , with studying communications and I thought that I wanted to be on TV or something with television is where I thought the direction I was going to go with my career and, , I did an internship with Altel Communications.

And I was in the marketing department, and one of the first things that I did was kind of influencer marketing back in the day. I call it early influencer marketing. Yeah, it does play a lot because I was exposed to I'll tell communications had a sports sponsorship with Tampa Bay lightning at the time.

And when I came on board as their intern, I learned all about that partnership and how it integrated into marketing the different advertising that we did with not only the Tampa Bay lightning but what we did with other college schools, because I'll tell communications, it was a wireless company telephone they had sponsorships with a bunch of Colleges are, so I was one of the first things I did was I had to call up all the mascots and do photo shoots and, and line them up for, you know, for filmings.

And I just loved the variety in marketing. I felt like I wasn't going to get bored and sure enough, years later, I'm definitely not bored. That is true. I mean, I know enough about you, Amy, to know that that was in Florida. You worked for Hawaiian Tropic. I did. So that was a different kind of advertising as well.

Like, I guess you could say there, we definitely had influencers. They were just model influencers with the pageants and yeah. So, we did a ton of print ad back then, a lot of print ads, and now we do a lot of digital here. So, very different. Yes. Yes. You can't change print. Once it's done, it's done. That's true.

And you cannot change it, you cannot adjust, you cannot pivot, is one of the favorite words these days. And nimble, it's not very nimble. No, it's not nimble. Very true. We used to cut it out. You can't measure it either. It's true. No, you couldn't. No, by the, back then it was all about the big numbers, you know, like reach.

It was all about reach. It was about the eyeballs that you could get, but there was nothing that you could track it back to. So a sale of a sunscreen, you couldn't track it back to any advertising. Unless you did, which we then did transfer into in store promotions, which I did for Hawaiian Tropic. I worked and did, which I guess is kind of leads me to where I'm at now.

It's interesting. I did a lot of in store promotions, so contests BOGOs, buy one, get one to where you would, you know, you get this big bottle and this little thing that came with it as like a free gift. Yep. So I was in charge of all the big accounts, you know, the Walmarts, the targets with the sales reps.

And I would come up with the promos, the packaging, the packaging of it all together, the contest that we would run where we would send, Oh, let's see. For years, we sent, they sent about 25 winners to Hawaii every year. And they gave them, we threw a party there. They were at the pageant.

So that's contest and, you know, packaging and events that kind of came into play. And then you were at I'm skipping ahead here. Cause I met you when you were at wild wave theme park.

And that was another like huge variety client. I mean, for me, but a huge job. There was so much we were having to do there from the. You know, awareness, , we opened that whole market with Spanish speaking people that we had never talked to before. And that was our Cinco de Mayo event was, Oh, that was like the first, and I just remember the first one and it was thousands of people and it was just a party and it was so fun, a very long day, but so fun.

I know. Yeah, that was, That was a good time. Now that one was a different place than where I'm at now in the sense that I had a ticket that I could tie advertising back to, so we could actually do a true ROI which was fun. But yeah, back then we did a lot of radio promotions. We did a lot of TV and digital.

Yeah. Do you, do you remember also the first cyber sale that we did? Yes. Oh, that was fun. And when I came to you and I was like, Hey, I want to do a cyber sale. Everybody else does this like black Friday, cyber Monday sale, cyber Monday. Yeah. I was like, let's do it, Laura. Yeah. And you're like, okay, Amy. Do you remember how to convince my bosses?

I was like, just trust me. And I was like, just trust. And they're like, I don't know, Amy. And now look, everybody does the Cyber Monday sale. You're always on top of the trends, though. You really, you know what? Sometimes the big brands do things. And I know. I'm not always at the big brand.

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You can always take a big idea and a big concept that the big brands do and whittle it down to fit for your small business or your organization. Exactly. It's a lot of times where I get a lot of the inspiration that I come up with, with like a different, a campaign or direction that we're going to go or A, a digital campaign idea.

Sometimes I see what the big brands are doing and I go, okay, well, I like what they've done. It doesn't quite work for the direction that we need to go, or I don't have the money that they have. That's really what it boils down to, but I can take pieces and portions of it to make it make sense for where I'm currently at or the organization that I'm at.

Do you have an example of a big brand idea that you sort of tweaked for the Pike Place market? So I would say our latest TV spots I'm not going to say who I got the idea from, but I will say that you can get inspiration everywhere you go. And I got the idea. I was on a plane to Italy with my family and I was just watching In, you know, the in seat entertainment and I think it was, we were like getting ready to land and I had like 30 minutes and so I couldn't turn on a movie.

I couldn't turn on really a show. So I was just kind of flipping through and some commercials came up. this bigger brand kind of caught my eye and I was like, oh, I like that storytelling they're doing. I was like, that's really fascinating. Now, these were longer pieces. They were not 30 seconds for commercial.

They were long form videos, so they were about two minutes, somewhere a little bit shorter, but it got my creative brain kind of Circulating and I was like, Oh, how do I flip this to, and I've, you guys have known this. I've been wanting to do storytelling at the market for years now, but during COVID, it wasn't the time to do storytelling.

It truly was just about getting the message open that the market was open. These small businesses were open, you know, you're safe. Come down here. These are, you know, the. Just come down. It was very much that, that, that, but I felt like this year we actually had a chance to kind of switch it and go for the storytelling and I kind of got the idea, sitting on a plane on my way to Italy,

so, we talked about challenges. We talked about things you're most proud of. Do, we want to talk more about media, . Like, what's your favorite media? Well, I think you guys are going to know what my favorite media is. Well, I because I've known you for a long time.

We've always kind of had this joke about radio, meaning like you secretly love it and nobody wants to admit it, but there you secretly love radio. I do, but my favorite is going to be social. Well yes, of course. I do. I do love true authentic. promotions, but not your everyday run of the mill radio promotions.

I love to get, I, and I miss this about the market that I can't do now. I truly do miss The really fun, creative radio promotions that we did at Wild Waves. Yeah. Like we had like personalities on the roller coaster, like a day of, you know, experiences that people could, that you would watch and the energy would just like.

It was, it was so fun, you know, but radio has changed. Yeah. You know, radio has changed. I mean, you look at I relate back to cars now. I mean, look at the new cars that are out and how people are consuming advertising and You know, think about yourself when you're in your car. My phone automatically connects and it plays my iTunes.

They're just, they're stretched like everybody else. It's totally stretched. And so they're like, they can't, they don't have the staff. Like some radio stations we've worked with. You know, it's like, you feel like it, like they're like, it used to be that only the guys out in the, like, , in the middle of nowhere where, you know, They're the DJ.

They're the salesperson. They're the now it's like the Seattle stations are practically like that. Yeah, I'm on the air, but I'm actually selling to plus, do you want to buy some digital? Oh, I got 1 for you because you know how much I love radio. Guess who just started a tick tock? Oh Delilah. Oh, yay.

Came Delilah. She came Delilah after dark. Yes. She came across my tiktoks and I was like, , oh my God, this is amazing. This is awesome. I was like, yes. This like is awesome. I'm, this is my radio. Happy to hear that. And my social media dreams coming together. I'm like, yes. They're just meeting right there.

But my, I think my ultimate favorite, though, is still social media. Yeah. And digital advertising. You know, it's fun because you can change the messaging easily, you can measure via clicks, you can see what's not getting attention, you can have a little bit of fun depending on your budget.

A little goes a long way. Like it's like a focus group, right? Right. So you can really test things and say, hey, yeah that creative. Nobody's watching it. I loved it or my boss loved it, but nobody's watching it. Nobody wants to see that. So you learn. You can change up your audiences, which Lisa likes to remind me a lot of.

The people who are serving it to don't want to watch it. Maybe someone else does. Let's find out. That's true. Yeah. It makes You know, you can, you can target certain people. So if I want to send a message just to moms or, you know we can target just them. , it's a nice platform.

And I say platform because I think of digital as one big piece. That you can target on multiple different areas. Yes. And ways, right? Yeah. And when we do digital out of home, which is similar to, you know, but you can be on big billboards with the same software that we're using to buy in screens in a grocery store or on a coin star.

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And so I just think that's cool that we could kind of be everywhere nowadays. And even if that is just. Impressions still, it's still a lot more places and it's like zip code targeted. That is just unheard of. And the fact that TV, broadcast television, is like still so, like, I'm sorry, but like Backwoods with ratings that I mean, I'm dealing with 3, the 3 television stations here.

And 1 of them uses comscore and the other 2 or 3, sorry, the other 3 all use Nielsen and no, we can't, there's no. There's no apples to apples. It's they're selling on different data. It's. It's, and it's unnecessary if people would just, if it was, I mean, we're buying, we're selling streaming too. And it's like, well, that's zip code targeted, but it's not live, you know?

So anyway, that's, what's hard is, you know, how many people actually have cable, you know, how many people actually still have cable? Most people now have at least. Three streaming platforms, and I'm saying three and it's gonna keep going up because of now you have to have Paramount Plus to watch this you have to have Apple to watch this you have to have YouTube TV to watch this you have to have this I mean a Hulu to watch this so yeah You have to stretch yourselves God forbid you like you know, Norwegian crime procedurals.

I have like four, like, I have Acorn, Masterpiece. It's bad. It's a bad. They did that to football this year too. If you just want to watch all the football games, you have to have three or four different streaming services. Yup. Yes, I know. And that's a challenge. I was talking to a friend, he's like, I, he watches, he always watches like the Mariners, for example.

He's like, , I don't know if I'm ever even going to be able to watch them now. Cause like, I'd have to subscribe to all these different things and, you know, You spend 150 a month just on sports programming. Oh, yeah. If you're really into sports and then you don't get anything else.

I mean, you know, I do also love outdoor advertising. I do too. I love it. But with outdoor, you have to have the right kind of product. You have to have the right imagery. You have to have the right messaging. And in my opinion, you have to have a big budget. Yeah, well, you have to have because you got to make a splash.

It depends on if you don't make a splash. I feel like it's just easily passed by. It's not going to be seen by as many as you want to see. Oh, for sure. Big splash, meaning creative or or frequency like creative or you know, like if I like to do bus, I like to take over the whole bus. Yeah. Yeah. Ultra super Kings.

That's what I mean by splash. Like you got to go big or go home. Yeah. Go big or go home. I thought I completely agree. I'm always like, you can't just dip your toe in. Mm hmm. 'cause if you dip your toe in, you're not gonna see the results. In my opinion. You're not gonna see the, the results that you wanna see.

No. So for me it's like, I, I do love outdoor if you have the right thing for outdoor, like the right product, and if you product understand. Yeah. And if you're not afraid to work with a professional Yes. For creative. Yes. Because I can't stand outdoor when it's for a product that I have to explain.

And people wanna do that in 10 sentences. Nobody's gonna read it. They're not gonna read it. you know, on the back of the bus that gets all dirty and gross anyway. You have to give me a big visual and as few words as possible to get your message across. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and something, and it helps if it's something funny, because then it makes you think about it.

Yeah. I feel like that's similar with social media, too. That is, yeah. If you make someone laugh, they're more likely to watch the whole thing. Mm hmm. Or you have a stunning visual.

Yeah, you, I mean, that is all it is. I mean, that's why I love, like, you know, find your board. If you're gonna do a couple strategic boards, find your board, find your photographer, and actually shoot for a board so that you can, you know, cars are gonna come this way. So we wanna be here with this, open for the message.

You know, it's just like where people's eyes go. And I, I would love that.

I mean, I still think of Toyota on 99. That's permanent. Yeah. It's just like, When, when you go outside of the borders, especially on outdoor, I swear, people just remember it. And especially the more they see it. I mean, I still, I'm still look at that board and I'm like, yep, Toyota. Yep. Toyota. What would the extension be for Pike Place Market? The sign sticking out of the top? Oh, yeah. I mean, you'd have to do one of our famous signs, either the clock and sign or the public market sign with the view. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You'd have to do, or. Be fun to do, like, one of our really beautiful farmer bouquets.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like that'd be fun. But I, I just don't know if I think people would just know the market signs, you know, the, the famous signs. That's what I would immediately recognize and identify with versus the other. Yeah. And it would, I mean, that would definitely be like an impression. There's the Pike Place market, but then I still feel like you'd have to have some kind of a tagline that is.

Like, you know what I mean? Really different and specific on why this is up there. Right? It's definitely challenging at the market. You know, we have so many different things here. We have so many different stories to tell. That we have to be careful that we. share the love across all the different businesses that are here.

And when you have 500 different businesses, that's a lot. And as you guys know, during COVID we made everybody an ad. Yep. That's right. Do you guys remember that? How many did we do that? Oh, we had, Oh, I think it was over like 400 pieces of creative. Yeah. We were stuck at home and we were all, Bored and stuck.

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Like, you know what I mean? Really different and specific on why this is up there. Right? It's definitely challenging at the market. You know, we have so many different things here. We have so many different stories to tell. That we have to be careful that we. share the love across all the different businesses that are here.

And when you have 500 different businesses, that's a lot. And as you guys know, during COVID we made everybody an ad. Yep. That's right. Do you guys remember that? How many did we do that? Oh, we had, Oh, I think it was over like 400 pieces of creative. Yeah. We were stuck at home and we were all, Bored and stuck.

So we just made 40 pieces. Oh, that was just crazy. I remember when I told my team, I was like, Hey, this is what I need. And they were like I go, so how long is it going to take you guys? Oh, Amy. And I was like, let's just do it in phases. Like, let's just get them out there. But we had to, you know, we have to give promotions to.

All the different businesses, and it makes it hard and difficult. So, yeah, you got to find and challenging all at the same time. Yeah, but you have a lot of, you have a lot of you know. There's, there's so many stakeholders there that is a job, like any other, like, any other job we all have, like, maybe there's a board, but I see with with yours, you have, like.

A boss, you kind of have the government, right? Like kind of, cause it's a tour. Then you have like a board and then another board that's like private. I mean, I don't know for sure, we have our council and then our executive director reports up to our council and then all the staff and there's about 100.

Staff members in the PDA that work for the executive director and then the executive director reports up to the council and then okay. So I think I'm thinking about what, mary had said, you're the executive director had said at an event. I saw her speak at, and she was talking about all the and I think she was talking also about the nonprofits as well.

And the foundation. And so that we have to. Yeah. And, and. Yeah. I'm sorry construction of the market. So it was like to get that approval With a like a landmark and then like there's so many Yeah, I mean, we're overseen by the market historic commission, right? Because the market is on historic property.

So historic. We have 5 social services here on property at the market. We have a separate organization that is our foundation and they support the 5 social services. The PDA, we own and operate the market. That's like our primary. So we are in charge of restoring and rehabilitating the buildings, the historic buildings.

We are helping all the small businesses that are here and those small businesses are people with stores with doors. So we have about 220 commercial businesses is what we call them, but there were stores with doors. And then we have our farmers Our our handmade craft market with our buskers that are here on site We have our residential team where we have About 400 residents that live here at the market.

So there's a lot of different equipment Moving pieces and parts of the market, you know, our facilities team, our security team, our parking team, our maintenance team are all constantly moving, doing very busy, very busy. Oh, I know I've seen you just like, you know, you're marketing director, but you'll walk down.

Well, you did this at wild waves to you're like, no, you can't film here permit. Well, yeah, we at the market. I mean a lot of people don't know. We are separate from the city of Seattle. So the city of Seattle will give permits to film in Seattle, but they. Specifically call out that you need a separate filming permit to film at the market.

So we get a ton of requests for filming and we evaluate them and we see if it makes sense because it's, it's, we really fall back on the charter of the market and the market. We are chartered to manage the market for the future generations. It's not just about the now. You know, so we want to keep this place going for many, many, many, many more years.

The team right now, the council has just undergone a 50 year master plan you know, to look at how do we make sure the market in 50 years is still vibrant and serving the community and helping small businesses and still standing. So, it's really important for us that, we go through that and we're not always looking at the now, we're also looking at the future as well.

So there's a lot of different pieces and parts around here and I had, you know, truthfully, I had no idea until I started at the market and working here. I had, I had no clue. You know, people just, it's just, no, I know I've worked down there for like 15 years before I started working with you, I mean, if you compare it to the market, because I spent a lot of time in that market and the fact that it's a labyrinth down there that you can absolutely get lost in sometimes, and it's really cool.

But it's, that is the structure of the market. Like, decision making there too. And, you know, that's what makes it cool, though. There's a lot of many different pieces and parts that Layers to get that people don't realize so, but that's what makes this place. So great. I mean, truthfully so authentic and yeah like nothing else really else.

I get and Amy. If locals here in the Pacific Northwest want to you know, check out the market where. Online besides PikePlaceMarket. org, can they go? Is there a social channel or something they can go check out local stuff? Oh, yeah. Well, our, we're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn TikTok. We're on all of them.

So our YouTube channel is actually pretty phenomenal too, if you want to learn more about the market. I always recommend following us on social because you can find out what's happening down here. You can discover a new business. It's a new place to eat, a new place to shop it's just a really great resource for our locals.

Yep. Yeah. I found some locals only page, but maybe that's not you guys. That is. It is. Yeah. I thought so. It's like Facebook locals only. I was like, okay. Yeah. We like to tell locals little tips and tricks that they might not know about so that they only know. Right. Just there. Yeah. That's cool. Well, thanks Amy.

Thank you.

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