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Picks of Six - Top Road Show City #4: San Francisco, CA

I'm surprised at SF's ranking on this list, and I bet you are too - but not for the same reasons. Every single road show I've ever been associated with in interactive advertising and media has always started with the 'big 3' of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. So, why, you may wonder, is SF showing up here as #4?

Well, here's what surprises me: For almost all of those road shows I've taken across the country, the stop in San Francisco was routinely below expectations. Attrition is higher than other cities, client turnout is a smaller percentage of total audience, and the energy and enthusiasm of the industry has dramatically flagged over the past few years. I'm surprised SF showed up on this list as high as it did.

To be sure, there's a cadre of well-known agencies in SF - including AKQA, Butler Shine & Stern, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Mediasmith, SF Interactive, Venables Bell & Partners, Y&R and others, as well as a small army of boutique and niche shops (I include SEMs as 'niche' - debate me on that if you wish). But to better gauge the life of the industry in SF, you need to put your thumb on the client pulse. Here it's Tech heavy, with some retail and finance.

Mix these particular verticals with the distended boom and amplified bust that SF went through a few years back, and you get an unwavering cry for accountability in advertising. On the one hand, this has given launch to some innovative new agencies and concepts (check out Gregory Wilson's Red Ball Tiger, for example). But more commonly accountability drives risk aversion and dampens creativity. You get the sense at some SF shows of a quiet, nostalgic despair.

So why go to SF at all? It is a major media market and you will fill a room, though with a little more effort than most of your other stops. But I also continue to go because SF remains poised for idea-greatness. I'll take a city glum on Creativity Lost over one where it was never the lifeblood of an industry, as it once was in SF. A road show on Creativity I produced there last summer showed me some of SF's old fire, and I believe also the influence of MacWorld Expo (with all its innovation in design) every year at the Moscone Center helps kindle the city's passion for innovation in marketing, product design and - now - media strategy.

The SF Bay Area Internet Group (SFBig) is the local regional association to work with out there. They hold a monthly event for their membership and are usually very keen on getting their (impressive) board of directors involved in visiting shows.

Strengths: Venue Availability, Media Market Size
Weaknesses: Appetite for Events, Creative Vibrancy, Operational Affordability
Overall Score (0-100): 68

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Picks of Six - Road Show

Picks of Six - Top Road Show City #5: Dallas, TX

I must really like Dallas. I've been through there for Road Shows twice - once in July and once in August. In July it was a warm 99 degrees. The August trip was downright hot. When I arrived both times, I feared I made a mistake and should have scheduled a southern swing for October or November, half expecting the entire town to stay indoors. But it turns out I was the only one deterred by the heat, and Dallas' denizens turned out en masse for all the shows I have produced there.

There are some strong retail clients in Dallas, including JcPenney, Mary Kay, Dell Computer, Fossil, Verizon, Zales, Radio Shack and Southwest Airlines, making the town a strong choice for Search or Analytics content. There are also some sizable agencies, most notably TM (formerly Temerlin-McClain), The Richards Group, Dieste Harmel and Winnercomm, including some standout interactive shops such as t:m interactive, Tribal DDB and Click Here.

Dallas has hit the radar of Road Show organizers, and is normally at the top of the Tier 2 cities (the Tier 1 are NYC, SF, LA and Chi), so it has seen a fair number of shows come through. Still, the industry there remains warm and receptive, and eager for education and networking.

The folks at DFWIMA (Dallas-Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association) are downright indispensible when entering the Dallas market. DFWIMA is one of the best organized -IMAs in the country. Pete Lerma of Click Here was our main contact last time we went through. According to the organization's web site, James Hering of t:m is now President, with Pete relieved of his helmsman's duties and transferred (promoted?) to the Chair of the Golf Tournament. If you go to Dallas, get in touch with these folks - and do it early. They produce their own events and work with many of the shows coming through, and can help you schedule around conflicts you might not know about yet.

Because of the heavy retail client influence, the town plays well to Search, Analytics and E-mail. That's not to say that Creative or Rich Media or Branding content won't fly there. It may, but don't expect it to soar in the way that Direct Response programming will.

Strengths: Strength of Regional Association, Media Market Size
Weaknesses: Venue Availability
Overall Score (0-100): 62

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Picks of Six - Road Show

Picks of Six - Top Road Show City #6: Seattle, WA

Out of the 13 cities I evaluated for the Picks of Six Road Show ranking, Seattle, WA comes in at #6. That's good news indeed for the folks at Aquantive (Avenue A | Razorfish, DRIVEpm, Atlas), WongDoody, answerthink, Tattoo Media, and the dozens of other Seattle-based agencies who are starved for advertising road shows.

Seattle is also home to some of the country's most interactively-progressive clients, inlcuding Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Amazon.com, RealNetworks, Washington Mutual, and tons more, especially in technology, business-to-business, and transportation verticals.

Yet few advertising road shows visit the Silicon Rainforest. Why? Same reason the music industry didn't venture up there in the 80s and 90s - it's seen by outsiders as very much like San Francisco but with fewer people and worse weather. Two decades ago, this myopia almost caused the music industry to miss out on the vibrant grunge movement. Seattle is hotly creative, and road shows that overlook it today are squandering a receptive audience, far freer of the industry distractions common to SF, LA, Chicago and New York.

I'm sure the folks at Ad:Tech hope I'm right. The first of their new Ad:Tech IMPACT events kicks off in Seattle on February 28th.

Strengths: Appetite for Events, Creative Vibrancy
Weaknesses: Media Market Size
Overall Score (0-100): 61

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Picks of Six - Road Show

Picks of Six - Top Road Show Cities: Morristown, NJ (Honorable Mention)

George Washington's Headquarters are in Morristown, NJ, although that wasn't some metaphorical significance behind my choice to lead a road show campaign featuring some revolutionary research on Cross-Media Advertising through the town. More central to the decision was the list of other companies headquartered in or near Morristown: Pfizer, AT&T, Cendant, BMW, Masterfoods, Reckitt Benckiser and Wyeth, as well as agencies like DVC and a dozen regional shops that cater to the big clients out there.

I took a road show through there in 2003, which also made whistle stops in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles. One of the ways I evaluated the success of each city was to measure the "Budget in the Room." I did this by totaling up the US Advertising spending of all the brand marketers' companies in attendance. The biggest ad budget city in 2003: Morristown.

The downside to a show in Morristown is that it will be a little smaller. You're not likely to rival Chicago or other major markets in sheer tonnage. But we did get a turnout of highly engaged, curious and appreciative senior marketers - a group that NYC and San Francisco sometimes find elusive, with all the competitive distractions there.

But its major shortcoming is operational - when looking for a venue I found only one that was suitable, and after actually producing the event there I concluded that even this one wasn't. Even though Morristown is only about 40 miles out of NYC, its business pace is worlds apart. Be prepared for sluggish service, little follow-up and a complete disconnect between what you may think is reasonable compared to how you're producing the same show in other cities, and what can be accommodated in a much smaller market's venue. You're better off re-organizing yourself than trying to jam a NYC show into a Morristown, NJ culture.

Still, I give Morristown an Honorable Mention because the quality of clients out there is stellar, and their turnout is strong. They're close enough to NYC to be in touch with the media market buzz, but far enough removed that they're not event-saturated or jaded. The client density in NJ is amazing, and is a real point of differentiation, especially when many other cities are very agency-heavy. (Everyone wants to hob-nob with client-side marketers - inlcuding your publisher and vendor partners, as well as your agency attendees.) It's not a 'Must-Attend' city for all shows certainly, but depending on your sponsor and content mix, it's worth including in your choice set, at least.

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Picks of Six - Road Show

Picks of Six - Top Road Show Cities

It's the end of the year, which means the same thing for interactive events producers: 2006 Calendaring. Most of the big players have scheduled their summits and expos and forums already and have them posted on their individual websites (btw - I've figured out how to handle the Industry Calendar thing and will roll it out tomorrow, so stay tuned, er, fed).

What's still 'TBA' on everyone's calendar, though, is the inevitable Road Show schedule. I've done a bunch of these myself, and in the process of criss-crossing the country, golf-bags full of pop-up displays in tow, I learned a bit about what towns are Road Show Hot, and which ones are Road Show Not. Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to share my findings with you, in the form of a list: Picks of Six - Top Road Show Cities.

Why six? Rhymes with 'Picks' and creates a passalongable mnemonic device. And also it creates some suspense through exclusivity. Nobody does a 10-city Road Show (well, almost nobody), so if I gave you a Top 10 list I wouldn't be helping anyone winnow down choices.

For the digit-heads out there, here's my methodology:
I began by compiling a list of attributes that contribute to a Road Show's success, from the perspective of marketing, operations, programming and profitability. These attributes are:

• Industry size / prominence (the size of the audience and speaker pool to draw from)
• Appetite for events (some oft-overlooked cities turn out a hungry audience; others have been sated since 2003)
• Strength of Regional Associations (these folks make great partners, particularly in a city where you don't have a strong database. They contribute to turnout and buzz)
• Media Market Size (not just how many people work in the industry, but how much money is being spent there)
• Creative Vibrancy (it is, after all, advertising we're talking about. Cities have personalities, and the clever, chatty ones host good advertising events)
• Operational Affordability (gets at profitability. marginal towns are cheap enough to nudge towards can't-afford-NOT-to)
• Client-side Presence (brand marketers in the audience make sponsors AND agencies happy)
• Venue Availability (some towns just don't have a venue suitable the tone you're aiming for in your event. in others, it's an embarrassment of riches and you can negotiate hard)

I then weighted each of these attributes, which is entirely subjective. But since I am entirely subjective I'm comfortable with it. In truth, the weighting will change based on the focus of the event - I've plugged in "interactive advertising general" presets. You can guess how weighting would shift if it were a Creative Road Show or a Media Allocation Road Show or one focused on Search or E-mail or other segments.

I then ranked each city in my list against each of these weighted attributes, and received a Quantified Total for each, arrived at through a qualified assessment of relevant attributes.

The cities in the ranking are:

• Atlanta
• Boston
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Detroit
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Minneapolis
• New York
• Portland
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Washington DC

I'll be calling out the top 6 over the next couple of weeks, for your planning perusal. Go ahead and subscribe to my feed and I'll give you a jingle each time there's a new post.

First up is Honorable Mention - an all-star city not even on the list above.

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Picks of Six - Road Show