The principal focus of this podcast episode is the in-depth exploration of the public relations strategies employed for Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB). Hosts Mady Dudley and Larry Aldrich delve into the intricacies of their collaboration with DAB, highlighting the significance of authentic messaging and the necessity of cultivating robust relationships with stakeholders. Throughout the discussion, they emphasize the airport's unique amenities and customer-centric initiatives that enhance the travel experience, thereby fostering a narrative that resonates with potential passengers. The episode also sheds light on the importance of targeted communication strategies that align with the specific goals of the airport, ensuring that their story is effectively conveyed across various media outlets. By sharing their experiences and insights, the hosts aim to inspire marketers and public relations professionals to adopt similar approaches in their own practices.

IN THIS EPISODE:

1. 00:07 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
2. 03:42 - Public Relations Strategy for Daytona Beach International Airport
3. 09:26 - Understanding PR and Authentic Messaging
4. 13:52 - Impact of Unique Communications on Daytona Beach International Airport
5. 16:52 - Transitioning Strategies in Public Relations

TAKEAWAYS:

1. In the realm of marketing, establishing authentic relationships with clients significantly enhances the effectiveness of public relations strategies.
2. Daytona Beach International Airport exemplifies exceptional customer service through innovative programs that prioritize passenger experience and satisfaction.
3. The collaboration among multiple visitor bureaus in Volusia County exemplifies the power of unity in marketing efforts to promote regional tourism effectively.
4. Effective public relations necessitates a thorough understanding of the product being marketed to ensure a coherent and persuasive narrative is presented to the public.
5. The integration of storytelling in public relations is vital, as it allows brands to communicate the human experience behind their services, fostering deeper connections with audiences.
6. Continuous communication with airport leadership and stakeholders is crucial for aligning messaging and enhancing the overall public relations strategy.

Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.

Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Mady Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.

Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Hi and welcome back to AquaTalks, the podcast for marketers. Whether you're just getting started within the industry or you are a pro already in the industry, my name is Mady.

I'm the PR director of Aqua and this is a podcast sponsored by Brensys Technology. I am joined as always by my co host, Larry Aldrich.

Hello, I'm Larry Aldrich, President CEO of Breadsys Technology and Aqua Marketing Communications. Today we're going to talk about some of our case studies.

In particular one, we're going to do a case study episode and this case study is going to be with Daytona Beach International Airport, also known as dab.

Yep, we've been working with DAB for quite some time and we love the client, have done a lot of really cool stuff. So I'm excited to dive into what we've done for their PR specifically.

As usual, we jump into trends before we go into, you know, really talk about our episodes. So what you got going on this month? Anything interesting?

Yes. Next week I'm going to New York, although this will be coming out after the fact.

I'm going to New York City to go to International Media Marketplace put on by TRAV Media. We have been part of the TRAV Media family or subscribing to them or part of the membership with them for quite some time now, about two years.

And we love their team.

They put on a fantastic event and I'm going to have like eight hours to just sit down and speak to all of these different kinds of journalists within the industry and I'm really, really looking forward to it going on behalf of our client, Panna Gorda, Inglewood Beach. But fantastic networking opportunity and to share their story.

Sounds pretty interesting.

You get really involved from a public relations standpoint, out meeting a lot of different journalists, media personalities, media altogether I would assume, and really networking that back into the organization. So pretty proud of you for that. You do a great job.

Thank you.

And also it helps that I'll be in New York City so I will get to go see the revival of Phantom of the Opera, which is a very big reason for my travels.

And staying through the weekend is Andrew Lloyd Webber's play was taken off of Broadway a couple years ago and now there's a revival that's like immersive and you get to go around the theater. And I'm trying not to know too much about it before I go, but that is something that I'm also really excited about.

Speaking of New York, we'll be there coming up soon for three campaign awards that we'll be getting at a presentation at the Marriott Marquee. So that. But pretty interesting. Great news for us also.

Yes, the Adrian Awards, right? Hsmai.

Yes.

Okay, cool. That'll be amazing. Well, maybe you can see Phantom of the Opera while you're there too.

I might look into. So let's dive into DAB Daytona Beach International Airport. Can you briefly describe your role and the work from a public relations perspective?

Absolutely. So I work alongside our main contact, Joanne Magley. Shout out to her. She does such a fantastic job.

She is the director of customer service and air service with the airport. So really, honestly, a big part of my job is executing on the strategy and wonderful ideas that Joanne has. Hi, Joanne. Thank you.

Hello, Joanne.

If you're watching. But yeah, so a lot of our, A lot of our job is to execute on that. And I say our.

Because we work very closely with the social media team to post on Daytona Beach International Airports. Social media. But also we've been working on a campaign for airlift within the community with all three CVVs within the county.

So in Volusia county, which I think it may be the only county within Florida that has three separate visitors and conventions bureau, and they have all been working together on this project with us to try to get more traffic from outside side of the state to come in and visit and enjoy because believe it or not, reporters don't want to just fly into an airport, experience the airport and we're like, look how great this airport is. And then they go home. So we always have to fly people in, have them experience the airport, of course, and have them meet our representatives.

But we also want to show them around the destination. So there's that added value to it.

With those three CVB's working together, as you just mentioned, I believe you were a part of putting that together.

Well, okay, another shout out to Fran. Fran. Fran is a big part of that too.

But yeah, this is our second year working with those three CBBs and it's just been wonderful collaborating across the board.

I mean, it takes a lot of organization in terms of making sure everybody's schedules are aligned and making sure everyone's languages are the same, and there's this through line, and we're really just able to showcase the best of the best of the airport and the destinations. But I like to think I had the tiniest part in it. Okay.

And Fran Vaccaro is Aqua's senior vice president of account management, who works very closely with Maddie and our social media team on the DAB account.

Yes. Well, I guess if we're doing shout out, shout out. Lexi, Ali, Madison, you know everybody at Aqua.

Yes, everyone at Aqua.

You're doing great.

When you first got involved with dab, what stood out to you about the airport community and the staff there at dab?

I love that question, because this is one of the clients that truly, truly, truly makes our jobs so much easier because they have such a fantastic product.

I literally was just on a phone call earlier today with the social NPR team, and Lexi was saying this, and I just echoed her sentiments about the airport, which is that it is a fantastic airport. It's newly renovated. They have really special amenities within the airport that make it a VIP experience for all travelers.

So those include a free library. They partnered with the Volusia County Library so that people can take books with them and literally just take a book and go on their plane.

They have free audiobooks, free ebooks as well, So I love that. And we got them featured in Matador Network about that. So great PR when there. They also have a private mother's room.

So with people who are traveling with young children, they're able to go into this room that is filled with children's books and toys and is just able to be this sanctuary amongst all of the chaos of travel or traveling with a young child, which I have not had to go through yet. But I've heard it's insane.

I've seen a lot of it. Yeah, it looked insane.

I hear them on the plane looked.

More than I would be able to deal with.

Yeah.

So Dab also has really cool programs like their mailback program, which is if you're going through TSA and you have something, say, like your grandmother's or grandfather's pocket knife, and you've totally forgot about it and you're getting screening and they pull your bag, they're not going to just throw it away. They do put it in packaging, they pay for the postage, and they ship it back to your house.

Like, I have chills when I talk about it because it's such a fantastic, hospitable thing to do for people traveling. And I think they say everyone's a VIP at dab and really their money is where their mouth is. Also, like TSA security lines are like 10 minutes long.

It's great.

That's a pretty cool program. I travel a lot and I put my protein powder and my creatine in my carry on one time and they called the bomb squad.

So I had to go over and stand up against a wall for a little bit.

Oh, he's just trying to stay healthy. Yeah, nothing dangerous.

So from a PR standpoint, what's important to understand in messaging before messaging and outreach even happens?

Well, essentially what I just said is PR isn't supposed to be this thing where you make up something or pretend that there's something that's not there. You really have to have this authentic quality. We are just an extension or mouthpieces of on behalf of existing brands.

And I can't do my job correctly, which is tell authentic good stories about brands and destinations and airports. I can't do that without the follow up of a reporter actually being able to experience it.

Me experiencing it myself, that's a really big part of it too, is discovery and knowing that I actually have something valuable because I'm able to experience it firsthand. So really, you have to have a fabulous product.

If you're someone who is really thinking through your product or offerings or services, I would say hold off on public relations because you want to really have a unified message and you want internally, your team to all be on the same page before you go externally with your message. And that's part of PR too, is being able to circle up some, circle up internally, decide that, and then express that to the public.

Yeah, so I've done like mission, vision, values presentations and helping companies decide rebranding and that kind of thing. It all cycles into it, but most, first and foremost, we just have to make sure that it's a good product.

As the PR director, how important do you see it being able to maintain a relationship and talk to airport, dab, airport leadership and stakeholders?

Oh, extremely important.

Something I do with all clients across the board, no matter the industry, is that I sit down with each individual person who is supposed to be a spokesperson on behalf of the brand, airport or destination, and I ensure that they, they have something to speak to and that they're prepared and that we have a good standing relationship. Because I liken media relations to learning an entirely different language.

I'm learning how to speak French and sometimes media relations feels that way. It's very much, this is how we do it in the real world. And this is how we do it with media.

Current context of the media and the news cycle is that it's very volatile. A lot of people are getting fired or laid off. Publications are closing all the time and not writing anymore.

So it's this ever changing industry and then it's the same with. It can be the same with thought leaders of the airport. Like those are our people, those are people are so important to speak on behalf of the brand.

I like to humanize things a little bit more too.

And actually Daytona Beach International Airport is very good at humanizing because they, they use case studies specifically of these very beautiful human experiences to speak to how they treat their passengers like VIPs.

A good example I have is recently we secured coverage in the Daytona Beach News Journal because these two little girls left their stuffed animals at the airport and they were bringing them back home and they were so upset and the mom reached back out to the airport and someone had who worked with DAB found these stuffed animals and took them on a journey throughout the airport taking pictures on the concourse. They were watching the planes, they were eating at the airport's restaurants.

So these little girls, once they got their animals back, it wasn't just the send back program, it was that they also had these stuffed animals come to life and share this story in this lovely airport because of the employees there.

That's a great story. Yeah, it's a great story.

Yeah, I love it.

Touching.

Yes.

So you and the rest of the team at Aqua put a lot of work into, you know, what we do with DAB from your perspective. Let's talk outcomes. Outcomes and impact.

So from your perspective, what impact shift on what have you perceived or impacts have you perceived out of when starting the dab since we started, Some of the outcomes, some of the impacts.

Oh, okay.

So a big part of unique communications is like any communications program, you need to realize the priority of do you want national coverage, do we want regional, do we want local? A big part of what we're doing is that we really want to inspire more passengers to come through Daytona Beach International Airport.

So that's letting people know about the amenities that they're offering.

It's about having brand awareness in these different states that were not necessarily top of mind for, for the destinations and the airport and just knowing like look how you can go to these three amazing destinations just by flying into this small VIP airport. Outcomes. Oh gosh, I'm proud of so much honestly has been so much fun.

We recently, I know for the social team specifically I can speak to and Give kudos to Lexi for just the virality that they have had working with.

Whether it's the canines that work at the airport or just posting photos of a celebrity spotted at the airport, they do a really good job with engagement and interaction.

And then for public relations specifically, like I said, that story we just came out with, we find these little nuggets that are really treasures to then have a story about that really conveys.

What.

DAB is all about.

I attended one of the events where we had some new routes come in.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. And I believe there were a few. I couldn't attend to all of them, but I believe there were a few new routes that were coming through DAB Direct.

Yep. JetBlue just launched. They're back at the airport. JetBlue just launched. Breeze launched. We celebrated two years with Avello this year as well.

It's been a fantastic past couple of years.

Actually, Chip sent me an email from Visit Florida, and the email was saying that it's one of the most traveled through airports in Florida, like one of the fastest growing this year.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. So let's just do a personal takeaway. If you were explaining DAB experience to another PR leader, what lessons would you highlight?

I don't know. I feel like I covered that. Right?

Yeah, you hit it a lot of times. So you hit a lot of lessons. You hit a lot of highlights. If you were. Let me. I guess. Let me rephrase that question. What would you brag about?

Oh, yeah, well, okay, to go back to what I was saying, because I feel as though I didn't answer your question fully before. Specifically, when it comes to setting measures of success for clients, it's not about every client may say they want to be.

I'm not saying Daytona beach did this, but every client may want to be in Forbes or they may want to be in these really large publications. You have to really narrow in on the exact precise industry that they want to speak to.

That's the biggest part of public relations strategy, is narrowing in on who do we want to impact with our brand awareness and the stories that we're wanting to convey.

So with dab, we have airport trade publications because we want to raise our profiles within those industries, a lot of consumer outlets, so we can have potential passengers see the amazing quality of Daytona Beach International Airport through these stories and then want to then choose it as their airport over any other local ones.

That was pretty good. Thank you. That was really good insight on a great case study. One of our clients that we really enjoy working with.

I hear you speak highly of them and Fran and Lexi and the rest of the team. And we really enjoy working with Dab and continue to look forward to doing a lot more with Dab.

Yes. Yeah. And just Joanne, keep on doing a fantastic job.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

If you are interested in learning more about Aquatox or Daytona Beach International Airport, please go to aquatacs.com and we will have information on Dab within there. As always, I'm Maddie with Larry and we will see you next time.

Thank you.

Thanks.

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