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.

What a Ride!

Sunday the 22nd, offered up a beautiful morning for a bike ride.  The air was clear and crisp.  The traffic was light.  The weather, gorgeous.  It felt good to be on the road.  Not to mention that at the end of the ride, I would get to see our billboard for the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension.

The Foothill Extension, a section of light rail line bogged down in a bureaucratic morass for over six years, had finally gotten the go ahead. It had taken a lot of work and a lot of patience.  The Foothill Extension Authority, mayors, communities up and down the foothills, and their allies had put in countless hours to make this dream a reality.  Finally, the long-neglected San Gabriel Valley was about to get some relief from hours of infuriating, congestion-clogged freeways. Our agency had played a small role in those battles for relief, and had helped people in the valley make their voices heard.
Now Pasadena Advertising Marketing and Design had been chosen to make the long-awaited news public with a series of six billboards. We backed the boards up with souvenir packets of postcards featuring the artwork for each station’s billboards.

We designed one board for each of the six new locations along the route featuring architectural renderings of the site.  The first to get it’s own board was the Monrovia station.
When I got to the site, the board sat all alone at the south end of a sprawling, virtually empty parking lot.  The day before, the lot had been packed with people and politicians, reporters and dignitaries. Some were there to celebrate the prospect of relief from years of unyielding, bumper-to-bumper rush hours.  Others were there to finally claim their role in a hard fought victory over substantial odds.  Some were there to weasel out a little credit for which they had no right whatsoever. But, that’s politics.
I liked visiting the empty lot a whole lot better.
Off to the south east side of the lot, I saw the long forgotten Monrovia rail station that I had first seen over a decade ago, as it was being closed down and boarded up. Now it would have a second chance at life as a part of the new Monrovia Gold Line station complex.  That made this one little victory all that much sweeter.

I can’t wait to see it restored, and I’m sure there are more than a few long-time Monrovia residents who will rejoice to see it come back into use again. 
Every once in a while, advertising benefits people and whole communities. This is one of those times.  We in Pasadena only played a small role in this battle, but once we had been invited to join in the fight, we hung on for the whole ride.
I couldn’t be prouder of the end result.
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This is the first of two entries in my blog about a month that has been both exhausting and exhilarating. Being a part of the advertising effort in the Foothill Extension fight allowed our agency to make a lasting impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of San Gabriel Valley residents. Advertisers are rarely offered that kind of chance, but after six years of wrangling, we have finally gotten a glimpse of a future we helped create.
Advertising is widely perceived as fun, and much of the time it is.  And challenging, which it also is.  And frustrating, which it is more often than any of us would care to admit. Yet very rarely, it can be deeply meaningful and rewarding.  In the last few weeks, we have been lucky enough to have two such moments. This was only the first.

How Old Pasadena Won a Food Fight with a Bad Economy

At my day job, I create advertising at Pasadena Advertising, Marketing & Design. However, in my spare time, I’m also the Marketing Committee Chair of the Old Pasadena Management District (OPMD). We’re a small part of the economic engine that we call Old Pas… and in case you missed it, the economy sucks.
Even in Old Pasadena. The merchants are suffering, stores are closing and even donations to our local charities are drying up. It’s undeniably bad. Yet it was far worse when Old Pasadena first began its breakout from decay in the late 80’s.
That was a desperate time. Block after block of boarded up buildings, and crime defined Old Pasadena. There was no Crate and Barrel, Tiffany’s, Apple Store or Gap. The only stores on Colorado Boulevard that paid their rents on time were three pawnshops and a Sex Store. But we not only survived, we thrived. There were no government bailouts, not even from the city of Pasadena itself. Our own business people, building owners and developers took direction action, and we pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We’re an ornery lot. We saw no reason why we couldn’t do it again this time.
OPMD decided to hit the doom-and-gloom despair head on. Economic collapse. Exploding unemployment. Homelessness. Helplessness. The end of the world as we knew it. We didn’t buy it. Our businesses needed customers. Our charities needed contributions. We decided to tackle both problems at once.

We soon realized that the two problems that seemed most basic weren’t our major concern. Yes, business was down. Yes, donations were down. But the central problem was “morale” was down. No one was having any fun. There seemed to be no relief. But one of Old Pasadena's greatest assets is an array of award-winning restaurants, and, as everyone knows, “food” equals fun. And that’s how the idea of “Old Pasadena Restaurant Week” began. The concept was similar to many other restaurant events. Restaurateurs would offer reduced price, prix-fixe, three-course lunches and dinners. Pretty standard event. The only real difference would be that 10% of the proceeds would be donated to Pasadena’s Union Station Homeless Services, celebrating 35 years of helping those in need.

The response from the district was amazing. Out of our 22-block district, more than 27 of Old Pasadena's finest restaurants offered to take part. Pasadena media gave us extraordinary support including magazines, newspapers and PCC, the local Public Broadcasting station, and soon even L.A.’s mainstream media joined in. We posted the special menus online and immediately noticed that our OldPasadena.org web traffic spiked to levels we hadn’t seen since the Christmas holidays.
Restaurant Week proved so successful that instead of just one week, OPMD extended the event for another week. Some owners reported increases of up to 80%, and many of the restaurants put their restaurant week specials on their menus permanently. Many non-restaurant merchants also noted a increase in business. However the real benchmark of success of that promotion came when OPMD presented Union Station with a check for $10,000.
Of course, the reality is that the economy still sucks. Business is still down. There are businesses that are still in trouble. But we’re not going away. Old Pasadena revived itself once, and we haven’t forgotten what we learned then. We‘ve found our bootstraps right where we left them. Now we’re just starting to pull.