CJRW and MMGY Team Up for Tourism

A Google Street View image of CJRW's office in downtown Little Rock (© Google)

Most Arkansans were yet unborn when the Woods Brothers Agency won the state’s lucrative parks and tourism advertising contract in 1979.

The firm merged with Cranford Robinson Johnson Associates in 1990 to form CJRW, and it has handled the state’s destination marketing ever since.

The firm is proud of the 45 years of work, and rising tourism tax proceeds back up that pride.

Arkansas awarded four separate contracts for parks and tourism work to CJRW again this summer, with final approval coming June 21. The deals are worth about $26 million a year.

Despite grumbling from some state lawmakers and inevitable dismay among rival marketing firms, Arkansas Secretary of Parks, Heritage & Tourism Shea Lewis is excited to have experienced hands at the wheel.

Lewis, who headed a panel that picked CJRW over rivals for all four contracts — including a Florida firm that scored higher in the state’s procurement process — spoke with Arkansas Business about CJRW’s winning pitch, and its new ally on the account.

Tourism is a vital $9 billion industry in the state, and Lewis explained why CJRW was the best choice to keep it strong.

“The key part of their presentation was the relationship that they have forged with the international company MMGY,” Lewis said. CJRW Chief Executive Officer Darin Gray, President Jill Joslin and Senior Vice President Mark Raines participated in the marketing and PR pitches, Lewis said.

MMGY Global of Overland Park, Kansas, will subcontract for CJRW on the account. MMGY sells itself as “the world’s leading integrated marketing company specializing in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry.”

Lewis said the CJRW-MMGY combination will enhance the state’s PR messaging, broaden its geographic reach and offer the state better, research-backed marketing tactics.

“We want to continue doing the good things we’re doing like marketing inside the state and the states immediately around us that we’re already a strong draw for,” Lewis said. “We want those people to come to us again and again. But the second part is to start really reaching into new markets.”

MMGY Global’s 600 employees work in 14 offices around the world, representing Visit California, Pure Michigan, Costa Rica Tourism and Brand USA, which promotes the United States to foreign travelers.

Lewis said MMGY’s scope and reach will bring “a real value” to Arkansas.

“They have working relationships and partnerships to get [advertising] placements out there, whether earned or paid,” he said. “We’re able to see the connections they provide.”

Lewis said CJRW, not the state, developed the idea of bringing in MMGY. “It was in their written proposal, and then we saw it firsthand in the presentations,” he said.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and First Gentleman Brian Sanders played no role in the decision to engage CJRW or MMGY, Lewis said. The governor and first gentleman have made tourism — and particularly outdoors tourism like biking, hiking and water sports — a priority during the last year and a half.

A recent MMGY acquisition fits into that part of the picture. It acquired Origin, a digitally driven content and branding agency based in Whistler, Canada, in 2022. Origin’s clients have included Destination Canada; L.L. Bean; Vail Resorts; Taos Ski Valley; Park City, Utah; and Lululemon.

Origin’s brands “cater to skiers, cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts, and inspire people to get outside,” MMGY said in a news release.

Now MMGY Origin, the company’s outdoor sports expertise jibes with Arkansas’ marketing ambitions, Lewis said. “Their specialty is directly related to promotion of outdoor recreation and the outdoor industry,” he said.

Going forward, Arkansas will devote 97% of its paid advertising budget to digital marketing. “That will include placements in streaming television services,” Lewis said.

‘Being Innovative’

CJRW, which did not respond to requests for comment for this article, displayed innovation in its proposals, Lewis said. “They brought the best of both worlds,” he said. “As a company, they are familiar with the state of Arkansas and with the work that we do as an agency. Through this process, they were looking for ways to be competitive, and we specifically saw that in their presentations.”

CJRW faced stiff competition from inside the state and out, he said, particularly from Miles Partnership of Florida, which outscored CJRW in the procurement process on three of the four contracts — creative advertising, media buying and website design, and management.

CJRW was first in the PR competition, and a very close second in the others.

“The partnership with MMGY really showed us that they’re being innovative and bringing new things to this contract,” Lewis said.

Submitting the lowest bid isn’t the only factor in winning state work, Lewis said. He and the other members of the contract review committee, Chief of Communications Leah DiPietro and Visit Bentonville CEO Kalene Griffith, picked CJRW as the most qualified firm.

State Sens. Mark Johnson and Missy Irvin criticized the decision, saying that procurement scoring is a vain undertaking if departments disregard the scores.

But Lewis said the procurement process was worthwhile. “I felt like my job was to provide a fair process and then for us to obtain a result that was most advantageous to the state of Arkansas,” he said.

“When you’ve had a contractor in place for seven years, it’s good to have an opportunity to reset the relationship. It also creates an opportunity to test the market, to see what other contractors are out there. … It turned out that the best fit for the state of Arkansas was to enter into a contract with CJRW.”

A former CJRW executive, Dalaney Thomas, took over as Arkansas’ director of tourism in November, but she played no role in the procurement, Lewis said. “From the beginning, Dalaney was kept separate and excluded from the process,” he said.

Tax Numbers Sound

Revenue from Arkansas’ tourism tax on lodging and certain attractions support the state’s destination marketing. Revenue levels also provide a concrete measure of how marketing efforts are succeeding, Lewis said.

The sales tax generated a record $25.4 million in 2023, up from $24 million in 2022 and $20.54 million in 2021.

Tourism Tax Collection

Source: Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism

“The 2% tourism tax is sort of our consistent measuring tool for understanding the effect of marketing,” Lewis said. “But there are a lot of different things that factor into measuring effectiveness, and that’s another thing we’ll get from the association with MMGY.”

MMGY has advanced tools “associated with the effectiveness of placements,” Lewis said. “We just recently had a winter campaign that went into new markets in Colorado, South Dakota and some other states.” That campaign offered data points that will help Arkansas make decisions on future ad placements, he said.

“Our goal is to make others aware of the brand of Arkansas, who we are, what we offer,” Lewis said. “And we want to invite them here, and keep them coming back.”