Grand Opportunities Pending

Like Lewis, Dady understands that positive PR for the Twin Cities will derive largely from how well local convention planners handle the blocking and tackling of putting on a seamless event. On any given day in recent months, she could be found relaying communications between the taciturn Secret Service and the local contacts they’ll be dealing with, debunking rumors about convention arrangements that circulate among St. Paul businesses, or conducting interviews with protester groups—“stakeholders,” she calls them—that need city permits.

But Dady is also mindful of advice she heard from leaders in past convention cities, to look beyond the details of the event and focus on the longer-range marketing opportunities—that idea of “dreaming big enough.”

Following the 2000 Republican convention in his city, Philadelphia Mayor John Street told the Philadelphia Inquierer that 19,000 print articles had mentioned his city in coverage.

To that end, she helped persuade the City of St. Paul to underwrite a $40,000 strategic marketing plan in conjunction with the convention, but designed to promote the city and the metro region. Goff and Howard, a St. Paul public relations firm, was hired to develop it.

A full look at the plan wasn’t available yet in mid-February, and a key figure in rolling it out was just hired. Teresa McFarland of McFarland Cahill Communications in Prior Lake was named director of communications and marketing for the convention host committee. Her professional experience combines politics and retail marketing. McFarland worked in the communications shops of governors Rudy Perpich and Jesse Ventura, and in the Washington, D.C., office of Congressman Tim Penny. She also spent five years as head of public relations at the Mall of America.