Q & A Meet Art Del Barrio, Pasadena ISD

Star Awards Platinum Winners Pasadena ISD

by Art Del Barrio Director of Communication and Printing Pasadena ISD

How did you come up with the concept for your piece and why did you produce it?

Every year, Pasadena Independent School District hosts the McDonald's Texas Invitational Basketball Tournament, which is the largest and most prestigious one in the state. The tournament boasts the slogan, "The road to state starts here,"as many of the contenders end up in the state tournament at the end of the season.

Our title sponsor for many, many years has been McDonald's, which always makes a very generous donation. McDonald's hired a new marketing agency, which wanted proof that they were getting their money's worth from the $25,000 title sponsor donation to the tournament. This was the first time we were asked for analytics. We set out to develop a plan to track all advertising and marketing analytics.

Following the Research, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation (RPIE) method, we were already working on evaluation methods for our (the communication department's) role in the tournament and had already begun to track the data the year before. So, when McDonald's made their request, we felt like we were already ahead.

How long did the process take from A to Z?

The good thing was that we had begun several improvements to a technology-challenged tournament in 2018. We introduced an app for tournament schedules, brackets, scores and maps to game locations. We introduced live streaming of about 160 of our 196 games. We began a social media challenge to harness engagement. For the first time in the tournament history, we monitored our analytics. We had the data to build on once McDonald's began to ask for data. We were able to attempt to surpass our numbers for 2018 and give McDonald's their analytics.

There were many key factors that helped us implement our approach.

We knew that the most important thing to McDonald's was their brand recognition. We also had the Texas Invitational brand that needed to be showcased.

When we decided to stream 160 games, we ensured the McDonald's and invitational logos were always seen during each broadcast. That gave us a large sum of minutes with the logo displayed. Further, we inserted a 30-second McDonald's commercial during quarters and time-outs. All games were streamed with real-time, hands-on

experience for the students at each high school's TV production classes.

The app also showcased the logos and was downloaded hundreds of times. With each download and each use of the app, the McDonald's logo was prominently visible.

There was signage all over town. There were banners down busy streets that displayed the tournament logo. We pulled traffic data to reflect the amount of visibility each sign received and used that in our analytics package.

Finally, we created a social media team and response team by utilizing the journalism classes from each high school. Their job was to take pictures and post realtime updates on Facebook and Twitter. To enhance our reach, we looked for the hashtags of all the school districts and schools that were participating in the tournament. Further, we also looked for the cities and chambers of commerce for those school districts as well. In addition, we searched for the Twitter handles of college and professional athletes that had played in the tournament during their high school years and tagged them when their high school was playing. The response team continued engagement with those who commented to keep the conversation going.

As a bonus, we tagged all the TV stations in each region to spark engagement and reach. The results were off the charts. We ended up with over 1,000,000 Twitter impressions in 2019, shattering our 2018 numbers by almost 3 times.

After we announced some of our analytics, we had two other large food franchises contact the tournament and inquire about sponsoring in the future.

Who else was a part of your team?

In addition to myself, there was Bruce Stone, Reesha Brown, Rob Smith, Kadey Hedrich, Lori Grande, Maria Mata, Eduardo Verastegui and Rebeca Lazo. In addition, we had the high school journalism students from five schools and the student-run video production teams from seven schools.

Why did you decide to enter the platinum category?

Every summer, we have a team meeting and try to separate our best work for the year and strategically place it. This year, we felt that our collaborative work on this project was a perfect example of a wellexecuted plan, especially because we had two years of measurable data and were able to see the incredible amount of growth in engagement we had achieved for the tournament.

What does it mean to you to have won the Platinum Award?

To me, the Platinum Award is like winning the State Championship of School Public Relations. It validates that our team understands, applies and evaluates the concepts to run an exemplary public relations and marketing plan.

What tips do you have for other districts that want to produce a similar piece?

Be innovative, be creative, be unique, be a team. Our team has diverse skillsets, and we capitalized on each other's strengths. Everyone had input in the plan. This was not an individual plan; this was a Pasadena ISD communication team plan. We each understood the big picture, and everyone understood their role. When it was all said and done, we made some spectacular things happen.

Is there anything else you would like for us to know about your piece or about entering the TSPRA Star Awards?

The growth isn't over. We still have lots to do to continue to grow the exposure for the tournament and to modernize the experience. No idea is ever shunned – we consider everything and are not afraid to push the envelope. Our goal in November is to beat these numbers!

Kadey Heidrich, Art Del Barrio, Lori Grande, Bruce Stone, Maria Mata, Rob Smith and Reesha Brown. Not pictured: Interns Rebeca Lazo and Eduardo Verastegui