"When has Cleveland ever backed down from a challenge?" asked Emily Lauer, senior director of public relations and communications for the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee. With a limited number of people and a short time frame, "we had to be really strategic about who we went after."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When Cleveland won the bid to host the 2016 Republican National Convention two years ago, some said the city had bitten off more than it could chew. Some predicted that this GOP convention would be the most violent and unpredictable ever held, and some media outlets sent their reporters to Cleveland with gas masks and flak jackets.
But Cleveland defied those prophesies of doom and gloom, rolling out an ambitious and strategic public relations plan and a multifaceted citywide welcome to tens of thousands of first-time visitors.
And in doing so, a Press Club of Cleveland panel told a sold-out lunchtime crowd on Wednesday, they changed the national conversation about Cleveland.
"It came off spectacularly well," said David Hertz, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning editor for the Akron Beacon-Journal and now managing director of Dix & Eaton, a Cleveland communications and public relations consultancy. "The party's not over; the party's just beginning."
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Russ Mitchell, left, anchor and managing editor, WKYC-TV, and Eileen Korey, media relations manager, Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, at the Press Club of Cleveland. Russ Mitchell, anchor and managing editor of WKYC-TV, told the rapt audience at the Music Box Supper Club that Cleveland's RNC was his 11th national political convention. And compared to the others, "Cleveland was a slam dunk," he said. "The city, the people of this city, everyone involved did a fantastic job. Congratulations to all of you for making this happen."
"I think the attitude in Cleveland and around Cleveland was: 'What can we do for you?' The attitude [at the Democratic National Convention] in Philadelphia was, 'What do you want? And 'No.'"
"I think Cleveland was hungrier," he said. Philadelphia had just hosted the Pope last year and had already hosted a national convention. "We hadn't hosted a convention since 1936."
Hertz read from a July 29 letter that David Gilbert, president and CEO of the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, wrote to The Plain Dealer saying that Cleveland not only hosted the RNC, "we knocked it out of the park."
"The convention pumped an estimated $200 million into our economy and accelerated important civic projects," Gilbert wrote. "More important, it elevated how we are viewed by the world and how we view ourselves.
"The hundreds of positive stories written about our city were beyond all expectations. Not only did we hear universal praise from media, delegates and other guests, but we have logged amazing stories of people who plan to visit, relocate or invest in our community as a result of their convention experiences."
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Eileen Korey, media relations manager, Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, center. For Eileen Korey, media relations manager for the nonpartisan Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, the RNC was the highlight of a career spent building relationships with PR people and media people.
She helped compile what began as 50 to 75 story ideas into a media guide called "Stories Worth Telling," for journalists who came to Cleveland for the RNC, pitching stories about Cleveland that would resonate on a national level.
From neighborhood redevelopment to immigration to refugees, "we reflected a lot of the issues that were part of the [Republican] platform. We have a robust refugee resettlement community here. Who would've known?" Korey added. "We let Cleveland speak for itself."
When Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream said it was developing limited-edition flavors to commemorate the RNC, she told them "Do it now, because this [media guide]'s gotta go to press. And that story went all over the place."
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Emily Lauer, right, senior director of PR/communications, Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, and Rick Batyko, SVP, marketing, communications & development, at the Press Club of Cleveland. Emily Lauer, senior director of public relations and communications for both the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee and Destination Cleveland, the region's rebranded convention and visitors bureau, said they identified some of the challenges Cleveland faces as a major city, but also spotlighted efforts to address those problems, led by people like Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams.
"When has Cleveland ever backed down from a challenge?" Lauer asked. With a limited number of people and a short time frame, "we had to be really strategic about who we went after. We were positioning stories in the way the media wanted to hear about them."
"If there was a superstar who emerged on the nation's radar, it was Calvin Williams," Mitchell agreed.
Rick Batyko, senior vice president of marketing, communications and development for Team NEO, an economic development organization focused on bringing jobs to Northeast Ohio, said that even before Cleveland won the convention, he and others started courting influential media companies in New York and Washington, D.C., to begin building relationships and anticipating what they would need. "We had 14 people around the table" both the Wall Street Journal and at The New York Times.
Team NEO and Destination Cleveland suggested story ideas that would capture Cleveland's rebirth and economic revitalization without ignoring its shortcomings, as well as contacts for the institutions or organizations that were working on those challenges.
They seized on the chance to tell Cleveland's story, talking about the resurgence of Downtown Cleveland and the rise of the biomedical industry, but left it up to the media what stories they pursued. "By no means was the Host Committee or Destination Cleveland a gate-keeper," Batyko said.
"What was really great about this was the way the [Cleveland 2016] Host Committee handled it," by involving people and advocates from throughout Greater Cleveland. "That's why it was so successful," he said.
In comparison to Philadelphia, "for every positive story they got about the city, we got three," he said.
Hertz agreed, adding: "We had more [news] coverage during the month of July than we've had any other single year. Incredible."
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Susan Glaser, right, travel editor of The Plain Dealer, and Emily Lauer, senior director of PR/communications, Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, at the Press Club of Cleveland. Susan Glaser, travel editor for The Plain Dealer, said she spent the week of the RNC covering stories about tourists, hospitality and hotels. She sought out first-time visitors to Cleveland, talking to them either before they arrived or as soon as they arrived, and following up with them at the end of the week.
"A lot of people talked about the river burning" or Cleveland's industrial roots. Some Texas delegates told her they hadn't realized Cleveland was on Lake Erie, or that Lake Erie was so big. "Did you take geography?" she wondered.
But by the end of their visits, "to a person, every single person I talked to" left the city impressed with both Cleveland and her people, she said. "It was very insightful."
"We all know that when anybody comes to Cleveland or Northeast Ohio and sees it for themselves," they end up changing their minds, Batyko said. "We're going to be on lists that we've never been on before."
Hertz pointed out that on July 19, New York Times' columnist Dan Barry wrote an RNC story headlined: "In Cleveland's Public Square, rights are exercised. Loudly." It was a far cry from his 2012 story on Elyria, called "At the Corner of Hope and Worry."
He said the change in tone and topic since 2012 underscores the "transformation and the progress we've made" in influencing what outsiders think of Northeast Ohio.
Two days after Cleveland won its bid to host the RNC, he and Hertz were at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria with reporter Molly Ball from The Atlantic when all the televisions in the restaurant announced that LeBron James was coming home to the Cavaliers. "It was a very good week," Batyko said.
This past spring, when it looked like it was going to be a hotly contested convention, with other Republican hopefuls challenging Trump for the candidacy, the number of media who said they were coming to Cleveland soared.
They reserved venues and hotel rooms at least a week before the convention, and even after other GOP bigwigs bowed out, those media numbers didn't drop. "We had a number of journalists who were there with time on their hands," Batyko said.
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From left, Emily Lauer, senior director of PR/communications, Cleveland 2016 Host Committee; David Hertz, managing director of Dix & Eaton; Rick Batyko, SVP marketing, communications & development, Team NEO; Eileen Korey, media relations manager, Cleveland 2016 Host Committee; Susan Glaser, travel editor for The Plain Dealer; and Russ Mitchell, anchor and managing editor, WKYC-TV, at the Press Club of Cleveland luncheon panel on Wednesday. When the Associated Press travel editor said she didn't want to visit the usual Cleveland landmarks, Lauer told her about the Millard Fillmore Presidential Library, a bar in the Waterloo neighborhood, and the Ashtabula County home of Joshua Giddings, one of the founders of the Republican Party. "I have a whole bucket list of places in Cleveland to explore now," she said.
When Hertz challenged the panelists and audience members to think of one word that captures the city's experience during the RNC, they said things like: "education," "headline-making," "exceeded," "pivotal," "pride," "Believeland," "unity," "impressive," and "welcome."
As Glaser wrote after the RNC left, it will be hard to know exactly how much it contributed to the city's travel and tourism industry. "If, three years from now, a major group books a convention in Cleveland, will it be because organizers remember the police and protesters hugging on Public Square in July 2016? Because of the new convention center? Or because hotel rates here are so much cheaper than Boston and Seattle?" she asked.
"The way we'll know if it made a difference is how many visitors come to Cleveland year after year after year," she said on Wednesday.
Mitchell added: "The Republican National Committee said that it had a wonderful experience in Cleveland. Who's to say that in four year the Democrats are not going to say, 'We want to go to Cleveland as well?'"
This is the Republican National Convention's video thank-you to Cleveland: