Can Old Pasadena Handle Halloween? And Howl!

Yes, this year Old Pasadena is not just out to celebrate Halloween, but to make this year’s Halloween celebration the best ever. For kids of course, that’s a simple task indeed. It’s one of the highest of the high holy days in kid-dom: The day of candyCandyCANDYCANDY CANDY! But for parents, especially in this economy, it can be a bit of a trial. Especially this year when Halloween falls on a weekend. How do you handle keeping the kids entertained, for two days, on a budget? That’s where Old Pasadena comes in. First create an event that makes both days really special, then let everyone know about it – with an advertising budget that is tiny at best.

Old Pasadena Home Page featuring the Halloween Celebration

First, and most important, to make any event work you have to make it special.

Kershona Mayo, our Director of Event Marketing & Production, worked hard to organize a district wide, Halloween celebration filled with treats on both Saturday and Sunday. And it’s Free! The focus is on fun and safe, with the emphasis on fun, encompassing activities throughout Old Pasadena.

On Saturday, October 30, Old Pasadena takes over Central Park, 260 S. Raymond Avenue. There’ll be Free caramel apples for the first 200 people to arrive, then a pumpkin hunt (little pumpkins filled with candy) from 1:00-2:00 pm, and from 1:00-5:00– There’s a Halloween moon bounce accompanied by live “ghoulish” music. At the Armory Center for the Arts, just a few blocks north, they’re holding a Halloween crafts center from 1:00-5:00 pm complete with a scary animal-and-bug show and tell.

The Old Town Haunt joins in the fun with a little kid-friendly tour.

On Sunday, October 31, Old Pasadena partners with One Colorado for free store-to-store trick-or-treating along with a special Meet-and-Greet with favorite Halloween characters from 4:00-9:00 pm.  There will be free haunted photos of the kids and free screenings of Halloween cartoons in the Courtyard from 5:00-9:00. And to make even the littlest kids feel big, there will be a special youngster-friendly tour of the popular Old Town Haunt, with all the lights on and no scary screaming from12:00-4:00pm.
Pretty impressive, huh? But now that the event is in place, how do you promote it?

First of all, it’s newsworthy. So Kershona, even with limited print and absolutely no broadcast budget whatsoever, can generate millions of dollars in free airtime on TV and radio. She also fully exploits an array of social network sites from Twitter and Facebook to Yelp to generate buzz. Partnerships with our local Pasadena City College radio station KPCC, an NPR affiliate, further magnify the reach to parents.

Every participating merchant received a poster and matching postcards to hand out to customers.

Add to that select local newspaper advertising, posters all over town and free postcards for our merchants to hand out, and you have a powerful campaign indeed. Reinforcing that effort is the OPMD website. Janet Schwartz, OMPD’s Director of PR & Destination Marketing, has put not only the Old Pasadena website to work, she follows up with regular email blasts to merchants, visitors and friends of Old Pasadena. Last year, the Halloween celebration marketing effort resulted in an additional 2000 page views in the days leading up to the event.

So that’s the secret. A great event. Enthusiastic social marketing promotion. Partnerships with merchants and media outlets. And an audience of parents hungry for fun, free and safe entertainment, and of course, kids just hungry for candyCandyCANDYCANDY CANDY!

Happy Halloween everyone.

Success doesn’t take a miracle in Old Pasadena.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit I am biased. I am a Pasadena Advertising owner and the chairman of the Old Pasadena Marketing District (OPMD). However, I’ve heard more than my share of comments about Old Pasadena leading a charmed life, and I think it’s time for a little reality check.
Times are hard, and doing business anywhere is a challenge, but as far as Old Pasadena is concerned, the rumors of the economy getting better seem to be true. Like anywhere else, to take full advantage of that, you not only have to work harder, you have to work smarter, and in Old Pas, we also work together. Cooperation is what gave Old Pasadena its start in the late ‘80s, and it’s what is keeping us ahead of the curve today.
This was a very good Holiday season for our 22-block district. Even though we don’t have all the figures in from all the stores, we can see that our garages were consistently at full capacity, unique visitors to our web site nearly doubled from last year, and merchants have come to us with thanks and stories.

Marci Christianson, proprietor of LulaMae, an award-winning Old Pasadena gift boutique saw a dramatic increase in profits over last year. She is not only a smart merchant but also an active marketer. Since OPMD research had predicted that virtually all our customers would be spending less, she changed her product line to take full advantage the situation. To attract more customers, she participated in all our holiday events beginning with the Halloween, Trick’’n’’Treat weekend. To maximize her visibility with limited ad funds, she developed a web site as fun and quirky as her store. She linked it to the OPMD site, offered on-line coupons from both sites, then gave the coupon discount to all her customers, whether they knew about them or not. “I see the look in their eyes when they get the added discount. I know they’ll visit my site now, and they’ll come back to the store.”

Andrea Auman, owner of Crowned Studio salon not only experienced a 35% increase in business, she did it overcoming an additional challenge. In the middle of the worst recession in anyone’s memory, she decided to move and start up her business all over again. “It was the best possiblee timing as far as I was concerned, “she remarks, “I knew my best customers would follow me, and with Pasadena rents at an all time low, I knew I could find a great place in a great city." Andrea not only took full advantage of the OPMD web connections and events to bring in customers, she started up networking and cross-promotional events of her own. To maximize her electronic presence Andrea links to her partners and fellow merchants from her home page and maintains Facebook and Twitter accounts and a blog.
As diverse, and sometimes eccentric, as the merchants of Old Pasadena are, all of our success stories share this aspect of working harder, working smarter and working together. No magic potions (that we know of), no lucky Leprechauns, and no behind-the-scenes buyouts or bailouts have been employed to give us the upper hand. Just Good research, good marketing and good business. The Old Pasadena Management District is proud to be the hub of this activity, and is working hard to keep giving our merchants and business owners ahead of the game.

How Old Pasadena scares up customers in hard times

FREE candy!

Well, that about covers it. G’night folks. I’ll be here all week.

O wait. Free candy isn’t enough. Not in this economy. Lemme ‘splain.

On Halloween night, our Old Pasadena merchants will continue their long-standing tradition of opening their doors to kids for the district’s Store-to-Store, Safe Trick-or-Treat Night. Every year, hundreds of handfuls of free candy are doled out to the costumed kids of Pasadena. However this year, the Old Pas marketing committee suggested that the merchants add a little twist. The scope of the Halloween festivities will be expanded to include a full month of specials leading up to Halloween, and on Halloween Day, our merchants will be adding special treats for the long-suffering, too-long ignored Trick-or-Treaters’ moms and dads.

This year, select Old Pasadena stores and restaurants will be treating Grown-ups to hundreds of dollars in savings. Plus, the streets and alleyways will be filled with wandering spooks, a free, haunted photo booth, and more. On October 31, participating merchants will beckon visitors with Trick-Or-Treat signs in store windows. A photographer will take free haunted pictures of the kids in costumes among hundreds of pumpkins in the One Colorado Courtyard. Throughout the celebration, guests will also enjoy a unique opportunity to meet and greet with various popular (and non-threatening) Halloween costumed characters.

Of course, this expansion of the traditional Old Pasadena Halloween festivities is a rather naked attempt to get the parents of those cute little characters to come back and shop here. Oddly, this is the first year that the Old Pas merchants have taken advantage of their Trick-or-Treat Night candy give-aways to promote themselves. Perhaps the abysmal economy has something to do with this epiphany, but ironically, today the MediaPost “Engage:Gen Y” blog advised marketers “Don't Be Afraid To Embrace The Potential Of Halloween.”

Blog author Jason Bakker, inspired by a memorable, late Halloween night “visit” of some unruly teen candy addicts, wrote, “The more I looked into it, the more I realized how much fun there is to be had out there. Youth marketers should know that Halloween for college students is always a bull market, and for a very small amount of time each year, they need look no further than the local haunts if they want to reach this demographic.”

Of course, his target audience is not the same one that the merchant’s of Old Pas are trying to attract. However, the fact remains that Halloween, along with being a high holy day of pre-teens and their dentists, has a substantial potential to bring returning traffic back to eager store owners and restaurateurs. If the spike in hits on the Old Pasadena web site is any indication, that potential is working its Halloween magic.

To the Old Pasadena Marketing District staff and my clever marketing committee members, allow me to say, BOO!