By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Only one agency submitted an application to be Jacksonville’s marketing and advertising firm, and the city has decided to award that agency the contract.
Sells/Clark, which has offices in Little Rock and Fayetteville, will have an initial contract of three years and must, according to Jacksonville advertising and promotion commission’s requirements, “develop an image campaign that will allow the commission to promote Jacksonville as a destination for visitors, business travelers, sports events as well as a site for meeting and convention groups.”
Sells/Clark’s president Brian Clark is very familiar with Jacksonville and Little Rock Air Force Base.
“My dad was a C-130 pilot out at the base for years, and that’s what brought our family to the area, and we loved it and stayed,” he said.
“We are excited about representing a city in central Arkansas with so much potential. It’s a huge opportunity,” he added.
The city’s advertising and promotion commission made the decision to hire Sells/Clark at a special meeting Thursday afternoon. “We are now negotiating the fees with the company,” said Paul Mushrush, the city’s finance director.
The commission had initially budgeted about $170,000 this year from the two-cent hamburger tax to pay for a professional marketing campaign.
“A real campaign will run hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Mayor Tommy Swaim has said at previous commission meetings.
According to their promotional packet, Sells/Clark has managed and supervised accounts in the travel and tourism industry over the years in Arkansas and Louisiana with budgets ranging from $50,000 to $8 million.
The company has done promotional work for the city of Fayetteville, Riverfest, Arvest Bank, J.B. Hunt, Acxiom and Mercy Health Systems of Northwest Arkansas.
Clark said that his company was recently recognized by the financial rater Dun and Bradstreet as being in the top 5 percent of credit worthiness in the advertising agency category.
“With advertising agencies coming and going these days for various reasons, the Jacksonville Advertising and Promotion Com-mission can rest assured we will manage your business as we manage our own,” Clark said.
Mushrush said it would take the company about six months to develop a marketing campaign for Jacksonville.
The advertising agency will give an update at the next commission meeting, set for 7 p.m. May 19.
