Darren Green, Chief Sales Officer, Los Angeles Tourism

Speaker: Darren Green, Chief Sales Officer

Darren Green: I wanted to share with you a time where Digital Edge really helped us out, and especially during the pandemic when we had to reduce significant staff, um and we still need to keep our messaging and our marketing on the group's side going, especially as we were looking to reopen and Digital Edge was critical and so important to maintaining our momentum that we had created and really helping us power through a challenging time and the partnership and their understanding of our destination and our value proposition was key. So as we're recovering, I think the best is yet to come because it's really a partnership that has grown and it's stronger than ever.

Darren Green: a couple of words I used to describe digital edge, and the first would be creativity. They've got a great team, I think they really present some great suggestions and ideas on how we want to position our destination. Our hotels our venues, our value propositions, and I like the way they think outside the box, so that's definitely one of the key characteristics I think they bring to the table along with flexibility. They know when to push and when to pull. they're really understanding when we've got a quick deadline, a quick turnaround. If we're late in getting them information, they're really wonderful at working with us to say, how can we make it happen instead of why we can't. And I think the third will be trust. I've really gained a great trust and respect, starting with Mya and Shirley and Kim and Mae and the entire team. I really feel that it's a great relationship, but it really is based on trust and the confidence that we have in each other,

Darren Green: I think really the key is their understanding of the group space and really how to talk to the meeting planner, event planner, event producer. There are a lot of agencies there that work on creative but it seems to be focused on the consumer individual traveler or even corporate traveler, but if you are out there really focused on the group traveler, the meeting planner, what they're looking for and what influences their decisions. And I think that's what sets digital edge apart is the background they have especially coming from the CVB CVB CVB or or DMO world gives them I think a leg up in terms of understanding what we need, how we are nonprofit. We are membership driven organization and how we have to make sure that we are presenting all of our products out here equally, especially with a destination the size of L.A of L.A So I think what they've done is they've taken an agency but really made it more like an internal partnership and that's allowed us to I think collectively do some great things together so that's what's different. I think once again they turn around projects very quickly. And lastly I would say they give great analytics and great data and great information as a follow up to help us measure success

Darren Green: Digital Edge delivers value in many ways to the L.A Tourism board, especially on our group sales efforts. But I think one of the keys is how we've integrated our overarching messaging, really primarily focused on the individual traveler, the consumer and really making that a meetings message. So we started with the comeback campaign which was really as we were emerging and really powering through the times of Covid when we were shut down and when we opened up we were still adopting a new campaign. But then Digital Edge really presented what we call "flip the script" and that has a great tie in with Hollywood and the movie side of it. And it really helped bridge that gap. And now that we've landed on "now playing" Digital edge has done a masterful job in adapting the now playing platform to our meetings messaging. They've done that through social media, they've done that through our email blast, they've done that with our advertising and they worked hand in hand with our internal marketing team to make sure there's a synergistic approach to how we're presenting L.A overall, because after all that meeting planner is going to bring an attendee and that attendee after the event becomes a consumer. So it does make sense. Digital Edge gets that. And I think they've been able to take that and expand it as well. So outside of everything they do of value, from the website maintenance to our social posts, to our media buys really adapting our messaging and making it a synergistic effort has been key