STEVE SMITH -- What’s Up

Newport Beach has an attitude problem -- the one the rest of the

county despises, the one that has caused communities far from the effects

of a big, noisy, smelly airport to vote against it.

The attitude is that those in power in Newport-Mesa are going to force

the El Toro airport down the rest of the county’s collective throats

regardless of how much money it takes, which Washington, D.C., strings

have to be pulled or how much sense it really makes.

The county already has spent more than $34 million trying to get El

Toro to fly and is going to spend another $10.4 million during the next

four months. And now we’re being told that Orange County supervisors will

spend another $5 million during the next 15 months just on a public

information campaign to promote the airport plan.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little tired of watching

amateurs handle public relations for the proposed airport. So on behalf

of all the taxpayers who would like to get their money’s worth out of all

this taxing and spending and as a favor to my friends in Newport-Mesa who

really want to see the airport fly, here are my suggestions for the ad

campaign, based on my years of experience in advertising and marketing:

1. Change the name. Really, folks, how do you expect to build an

airport at El Toro when your competition’s plan is called a “Great Park”?

Think of a catchy name for the airport, and think of it fast. I like “Sky

Harbor,” but Phoenix grabbed that years ago. I also like “The Money Pit,”

but that was a bad movie from a while back. Perhaps we can name it after

a famous cowboy -- that worked once. How about “Woody” from the movie

“Toy Story”? “Woody Airport” has a nice ring to it.

2. Get rid of the infrastructure arguments and the charts and graphs.

Oh, please, do you really expect these silly scare tactics to work?

The average county resident is too busy to plan dinner for tomorrow

night (yours truly included), let alone the air transportation needs for

the county in 20 years. So when you tell them, “We’ve got to have this or

we’re doomed,” you lose your audience.

Fear works when you’re selling insurance, not big, noisy, smelly

airports. Try something warm and fuzzy, such as airplanes with those big

smiles painted on them that Pacific Southwest Airlines had 25 years ago.

Those were cute and everyone would love to have one of them in their

backyard.

3. Free flights. You read it correctly: Free flights. Any promotion

has to answer the one question in the back of every consumer’s mind:

“What’s in it for me?”

Instead of trying to promote the airport using the aforementioned

scare tactics, try some giveaways. I suggest one free round-trip flight

to anywhere in the country -- including Hawaii -- for every county

resident during the first year of operation.

Now before you blow a gasket, do the math. First of all, we’ve only

got 2.8 million people in the county. With an expected first-year

passenger estimate of more than 20 million, our additional passenger

traffic would be a drop in the bucket.

Second, not everyone would use the free flight (ask anyone who

promotes their product using rebates how well this works).

Third, with almost $50 million being spent by the middle of 2002, we

could have bought the tickets for all of us anyway.

4. Find a spokesman, some regular Joe, not a slick celebrity. This

works like a charm. Surely there has to be one resident somewhere in

Irvine who has a vitamin deficiency and thinks the airport would be a

good idea for all of us.

Find her and hire her to tout the airport and keep everyone else out

of the spotlight. The rule here is: If you wear a tie, you can’t speak in

support of the airport. Those speaking for the proposed Great Park are

wearing bicycle helmets and pants with grass stains. There’s your model

to follow.

So that’s my marketing plan for my Newport-Mesa friends. No charge for

this session, just remember me when you push the free-flight idea. I’m

going to need to get far away from my anti-airport buddies if Woody

Airport ever gets off the ground.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.