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InsIde Track?
By
S t e v e v ock rod t
Marketing f irm meets Streetcar Authority: a love story.
I
t’s just before noon on Halloween, and Tom Trabon wants to hurry the Kansas City Streetcar Authority along. The group overseeing the development of Kansas City’s 2-mile streetcar line is about halfway through its agenda, 50 minutes after the meetMore ing started. Trabon wants to get it wrapped up in the next 10 minutes so t a ine Onl .com that the media and other pitch members of the public can be booted from this conference room at the Port Authority’s River Market offices. The closed-session part of the meeting promises to be lengthier and more detailed. “Then they shouldn’t have spent 30 minutes on conflicts of interest,” Kansas City Star City Hall reporter Lynn Horsley says to no one in particular, with a laugh. There’s a good reason that the Streetcar Authority has spent the opening half-hour of this October 31 meeting reviewing its conflict-of-interest policy, though no one names it plainly. One of the authority’s members recently took a job with a marketing company — a firm that plans to bid on branding opportunities for the tax-funded, $100 million–plus transit project. Matt Staub has been an outspoken advocate for the streetcar system, enough so that he landed a spot on the Streetcar Authority when it was formed, more than a year ago. At that time, he worked for H&R Block as a social-media manager. But he recently took a job as a partner with Graphicmachine, an agency in the River Market. That job switch by itself isn’t the sort of thing that should trigger conspiracy theories from rational people. But a statement put out by the marketing firm following Staub’s move there seemed to wink at the competition. An October 9 blog item on Graphicmachine’s website talks up the company’s advocacy for the streetcar project, touts Staub’s move to the Graphicmachine, then announces the company’s ambition to cash the Streetcar Authority’s marketing checks. “Does Graphicmachine plan to bid on these opportunities? Absolutely, as we know others that have been involved will as well,” writes Patience Jones, one of the agency’s partners. It’s a disclosure odd enough to leave streetcar critics wondering if Graphicmachine might have an inside track on bids for a forthcoming contract for streetcar marketing services. Graphicmachine hasn’t done any paid services for the streetcar so far.
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5399 Martway Mission, KS • 913.432.7000 Pairs well with Hitching a ride The Streetcar Authority has a marketing committee, charged with looking over bids from agencies and making a recommendation to the full board. When Staub took the position at Graphicmachine, he became the third marketing-committee member from that agency. Patience Jones and Brian Jones have served on the committee; Brian Jones has since stepped down from it. The Streetcar Authority has been looking in earnest for marketing agencies, sending out a solicitation for potential vendors. Graphicmachine was one of a dozen agencies that initially responded but, following questions about its conspicuous insider presence, it has withdrawn its application to handle marketing for the streetcar project. The Streetcar Authority’s existing conflictof-interest policy would already have precluded Staub from discussing or voting on a marketing contract if Graphicmachine had planned to bid on the project. Teri Rogers, owner of the Crossroads District marketing agency Take 2 Studios and chairwoman of the streetcar marketing committee, tells The Pitch that Graphicmachine probably wouldn’t have been asked to bid on the streetcar regardless. “It is doubtful they would have been asked to respond to the [request for proposals] anyway, due to their lack of branding experience, as it compared to the other respondents,” Rogers tells The Pitch via e-mail. Graphicmachine’s love for the Streetcar Authority turns out to be a bit on the unrequited side.
C ATC H I N G U P
Friends gather and the room fills with laughter. Nothing fits these moments better than a bottle of Chambourcin. After all, inside each bottle is a story, written by Missouri winemakers for anyone with a little Missouri in their hearts. Learn more about Chambourcin and other varietals at missouriwine.org.
E-mail steve.vockrodt@pitch.com
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