Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I am Robin Tooms, VP of Strategy at Savage Brands and my guest again is Lisa Gagnon, VP of Marketing at the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee. So Lisa, I’m so glad you’re back on Brandonomics.

Lisa: Thank you; thanks for having me.

Robin: Well first I want to say thank you, you have such a big job, it’s a big task and from a branding standpoint the host committee is communicating with so many different stakeholders – from sponsors to the community to the NFL itself – and I’m curious how you handle all that from a branding standpoint.

Lisa: Yes, we do have a lot of stakeholders. When you say the words Super Bowl there’s a lot of people involved – not surprisingly. So of course the NFL is a huge stakeholder of ours, we want them to have a fantastic experience in Houston and we really want to be on the short list for future Super Bowls so we want them to come back, you know, something less than another 13 years. Another stakeholder, obviously we have city leaders and the residents of Houston. So we all love Houston, we know what a great place it is, but there’s some people that don’t understand what a fantastic city it is. So we really see that as part of our job is to help promote Houston as the city of the future. So Super Bowl LI is being seen as the Super Bowl of the future and Houston we are talking about is the city of the future, so it’s a perfect combination from a brand perspective.

Robin: First, as a Houstonian, that makes me incredibly proud to hear you talk about that message and I guess that was very intentional to help target those of us that live here and get excited about it.

Lisa: So certainly we see residents as a huge stakeholder of ours, so obviously we will have a lot of people come in town for the NFL or for the Super Bowl, but the Houstonians and those from the drive market are a huge stakeholder of ours.

Robin: Well I love how you’ve thought of both the out of town audiences and the local audiences; I appreciate that from a branding perspective.

Lisa: Yep.

Robin: Well thank you so much.

Lisa: Thank you.

Robin: This has been another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.