How A Full-Baked Idea Turned Into Sweet Success
Good media relations can build a village. of gingerbread houses, that is.
What started out as a humble quest to relieve a worker from overtime turned into a cherished community event hallmarked by coverage in USA Today, Southern Living, CNN and in many more magazines and local newspapers.
Meanwhile it won an Honorable Mention PR NEWS Platinum PR Award and a Gold Key Public Relations Award for Best Ongoing Special Event in the process.
Today the annual Grove Park Inn Gingerbread Contest houses more than 100 sweet entries, judged by renowned chefs and gourmet specialty writers across the country. But until 1993, the gingerbread village was a one-man effort.
Each year, the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., had displayed a gingerbread village during the holidays. The village took hundreds of hours to build and occupied too much time of the Inn's pastry chef's already busy schedule.
So in 1993, a contest was started for the locals - promoted by a couple of ads in the community paper and $1,000 in prizes - and rallied 12 participants.
That's when Dave Tomsky stepped in. The Inn hired Tomsky in 1994 as a full-time media relations worker. His job: to boost the programs at the 86-year-old hotel to ultimately increase hotel business.
Since the hotel is a four-star grand resort located in the midst of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he had some initial advantages, but a budget of only $5,000. The contest idea was put into effect the previous year; so he already had his initial problem solved.
"It went from a functional goal - replacing dozens of hours by our own pastry chef - to a media relations goal," Tomsky says. So Tomsky set his own goals for the campaign.
And just as it takes time and patience to build a gingerbread house, it took patience to build a good campaign. Tomsky only had help from one other person: the hotel's director of special events, Maggie Schlubach, who did some administrative work for the event.
In the campaign's second year, the Inn maintained the prize money but sweetened the pot with a free gingerbread workshop by the Executive Pastry Chef for entrants. The original dozen returned, and 14 newcomers stepped up.
The Campaign Ahead
Building the campaign was just like building a gingerbread house: start slowly with a general outline, and build higher and grander on a solid foundation.
In 1995, the workshop and mail solicitations continued, and the prize value increased to $2,500 (seven prizes total.) This is when publicity began. Tomsky sent photographs of the houses to Southern Living Presents Home For the Holidays, and got the competition featured in the October 1995 edition. With 41 entries, the competition managed to attract culinary experts to be judges.
The Inn received 72 entries.
In 1997, the prize increased to $3,000 and Tomsky pitched local schools to encourage youth category entries. CNN and "Good Morning America" covered the event. Entries grew to 88.
In 1998, the prize increased to $3,600. USA Today ran a full-page feature of the event. Entries grew to 123. And in 1999, the event will be covered by Home and Garden Television on a program called "Christmas Across America" and CNN's "Travel Now" with Carolyn O'Neil.
What the Results Mean
Tomsky attributes the increase in occupancy in the last seven years to the Gingerbread House Competition, the hotel's biggest event, in which all houses are on display between Nov. 17 and Jan. 3 of a given year.
"It caught on because the idea of gingerbread and baking gingerbread houses is popular now - the smell of gingerbread, the process of putting it together - it's something the family can do," Tomsky says.
"It's something I do all year long. As soon as the competition ends, I start thinking immediately of how to make it bigger."
The good thing about having a gingerbread contest in a town like Asheville with a population of 70,000 (250,000 within a 50-mile radius) instead of a metropolitan area is that competition for media coverage is nearly non-existent. Gingerbread houses are fragile structures that take sometimes 100 hours to make, so a road bump could destroy a week's labor.
That's why most competitors come from a 50-mile radius of the Grove Park Inn. Of course it helps that the competition is held in the only four-star resort in western North Carolina.
"If [CNN or USA Today] are gonna cover any competition, they're only gonna cover one and this is the third consecutive year Good Morning America is coming back," Tomsky says.
Whether you're promoting a gingerbread competition or a company, there are a few things to keep in mind, Tomsky says.
- Recognize when you're looking at something that has PR value.
- Recognize success is a progressive thing. There are no overnight results. You build on your successes to help you.
- Competitions are great if you can build participation. Media flows from good competitions and "in order to get good judges, you've got to have good media."
- Never rest, never be satisfied. Look for what you've done and ways to make it better. (Tomsky, 800/438-0050, ext. 5007; http://www.groveparkinn.com)
Goals of Campaign
- to increase the number and quality of entries annually, adding to the decorative ambiance of the Grove Park Inn's Christmas;
- to use the Gingerbread House Competition to promote the Inn and the Grove Park Inn Christmas through placement in targeted media;
- to position the competition as the premier event in the country.