Who You Gonna Call? Betsy Johnson Gets It Done for Oregon

Back in 2006, my colleague and I, editor and publisher respectively of BrainstormNW magazine (and currently editors of this newsletter), were wondering if our regional monthly "conservative" magazine could continue to financially pencil out in the very liberal Northwest.

Everything, except the quality of the magazine, seemed against us. The local ad agencies hated us, the internet was systematically and quickly destroying print publications all across the globe, and, worst of all, the magazine was written at higher than a fourth grade newspaper level. We were in serious violation of H.L. Mencken’s maxim that nobody ever went broke underestimating the tastes of the American public. So if we weren't desperate, we were very anxious.

We needed to discover some real flexibility, and fast.

It wasn’t enough that BrainstormNW published Dave Lister’s wisdom on city politics, or Rob Kremer’s brilliance on education reform, or nationally syndicated John Callahan’s cartoons on political correctness or what we now refer to as “wokeness,” or even Mychal Thompson’s trenchant and sometimes irreverent ideas about life and sports, or Lars Larson’s attacks on government bureaucrats harassing Oregon small business owners – the ad agencies still hated us.

Although eventually the Oregonian did borrow Dave Lister, and the LA Lakers decided they needed Mychal for their radio broadcasts, and Rob Kremer eventually left us for a well-deserved national platform in education reform. The ad agencies still hated us.

So, we broadened our revenue stream by producing special promotional sections for important Oregon projects, including the Oregon Historical Society’s centennial celebration, the guide to the opening of the Portland Art Museum’s Mark Building, and special sections on sporting events, such as the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the LPGA’s Safeway Classic and the PGA’s Jeld-Wen Tradition. We celebrated 100 years of flight and the opening of the McMinnville Air Museum. We became quite good at these issues and developed a broad and wealthy readership. But the ad agencies still hated us – them being liberal and us being conservative. So the revenue stream still needed stretching.

That’s when we discovered that Oregon was going to be on live TV for 16 nights in late July and August of 2006 – all on the international cable network the Golf Channel. Somehow, without anybody realizing it or coordinating it, the State of Oregon had hit the jackpot for international competitive golf. It was an amazing stroke of coincidence and luck.

Four tournaments had been randomly scheduled in Oregon for that summer of 2006: the USGA’s Curtis Cup at Pacific Dunes, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort; the USGA’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club; the LPGA’s Safeway Classic at Columbia Edgewater; and the PGA’s Jeld-Wen Tradition at The Reserve in Hillsboro.

Four international golf tournaments in Oregon in a row in August 2006. For a whopping 16 nights, Oregon would be showcased on national and international television. What made it especially interesting was the locations of those events: the Oregon Coast, Oregon Wine Country and the Columbia River. The whole month seemed as if it has been designed by Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism agency, to showcase the amazing place we live.

But it hadn't been. It was just dumb luck.

Then we got to thinking – it only made sense to advertise Oregon tourism and Oregon golf around those events. This especially made sense for the Oregon Coast, where Mike Keiser had recently built the world's number one golf resort in Bandon. The world's number one golf resort built in Oregon. That’s not something you would expect from development-phobic Oregon.

We did a little research. Wieden+Kennedy had the account for Travel Oregon to advertise the state’s tourism across the country. But we discovered that the agency had never advised Oregon to a national television audience. Advertising had been limited to print publications. Never mind that many other states, much less beautiful than Oregon, had aggressive television advertising campaigns. We weren't following Gov. Tom McCall's dictum to tourists "visit, but don't stay." We weren't even asking them to visit, at least not on television.

A serious TV ad buy seemed obvious for this summer of golf. Why hadn't anybody thought of this? But Travel Oregon and Wieden+Kennedy were busy designing pretty print ads that pleased their bosses and went into mostly dying print magazines around the nation. We ought to know; we had a regional dying magazine at the time. But their very PC, very sustainable ads pleased the state bureaucratic bosses.

Old habits don't change, unless people are forced to be innovative. Which was us. So, we set off to change the direction of the state’s tourism ad approach.

For us to put together the first TV advertising campaign for Oregon tourism – now that would take some stretching. We asked the Golf Channel the price to create and run television ads about the state’s golf industry that would run as shoulder ads during commercial breaks in the tournaments. The Golf Channel put the price for the 16 nights at roughly $500,000. To sweeten the deal, the Golf Channel also threw in a real estate show about Oregon golf, called "Golf with Style," that was filmed at Eagle Crest, The Running Y Ranch and Bandon Dunes.

Where would we get the money to pull off the campaign? As publishers, having spent a decade swimming the wrong direction in Oregon politics, we had few friends in state government. Make that no friends. In any normal state, funding would have come from state government. But not in Oregon. So we went looking for private funding.

Jeld-Wen, with their emphasis in golf resorts, was generous, offering more than half of what we needed. Bandon Dunes allowed the Golf Channel to film on their property, which was rarely allowed and greatly appreciated. And a couple Oregon wineries stepped up for the campaign. As the funding came together, more people began asking why the state wasn’t involved, since the campaign was essentially an Oregon tourism campaign. We didn’t have a good answer to that. Except that it wasn't Travel Oregon’s idea, or Wieden+Kennedy's idea, and we didn’t have friends in state government. We recklessly marched on, but we were $150,000 short from “go.” What to do? We had to know someone in state government.

In truth, there was only one name in the entire legislature that we could call for help, and that was Democrat State Sen. Betsy Johnson.

There are several things that stand out about dealing with Betsy Johnson.

First, you get direct access to her. She picks up her own phone. No gatekeepers. The brightest people in business and, once in a while, even in government, don't like gatekeepers and prefer to get ideas pitched to them directly. These people want to keep learning; they're confident in their own judgment, not afraid to make mistakes.

Second, when you talk to Betsy, you know immediately that you’re dealing with a highly intelligent, fearlessly independent person. Her mental clarity and force jump out at you fast. You know you are talking to a rare mind, especially in this day and age, when so much of corporate America, media and government is dominated by brainless, gutless “group” think.

When you pitch an idea at Betsy, she's not waiting to talk it over with staff members or lobbyists. She makes up her own mind. If she likes your idea, she’ll usually tell you immediately, and if she doesn't like your idea, she’ll most likely hang up on you. Yes, a strong cup of coffee, but she doesn’t waste your time. Completely direct. No passive aggressive stuff going on there. Leave your feelings at the door.

Third, when she makes up her mind, Betsy moves fast. She liked the idea, and she agreed to help. It made sense for Oregon. Pure. Simple. But how long would it take for state government to okay $150,000 for the campaign? Within a week, Betsy had found the money from two different sources: $100,000 from Travel Oregon and $50,000 from the Oregon Economic Development Department. Betsy had done it in breathtaking speed.

So in August 2006 for 16 nights, Oregon tourism commercials ran for the first time on national and international television. Viewers across the world, golfers and families planning vacations, luxuriated in the breathtaking beauty of Oregon, from the high desert of Central Oregon to wine country to the Coast.

Betsy brokered a fabulous deal for Oregon. As a state senator, Betsy made the campaign happen in a nanosecond. It was obvious then and still is now that Betsy is both highly respected and feared by state bureaucrats. That’s probably not a terrible quality if you want to be governor in 2023.