Jan. 6—Red Sage Communications' contract for the "Positively Decatur" campaign has been renewed for a second year at a reduced cost while the city continues to adjust how it manages its public relations.

The Decatur City Council voted 2-1 at this week's meeting to approve the new contract that reduces how much the city pays the local public relations firm by $41,060 to $121,440 annually.

Council President Jacob Ladner and Councilman Kyle Pike voted for the new contract while Councilman Billy Jackson voted against it. Councilmen Hunter Pepper and Carlton McMasters were absent from Monday's meeting.

The Positively Decatur campaign's focus is on increasing awareness of the positive aspects of Decatur by posting stories and photos of events and people.

Red Sage President and Creative Director Ellen Didier said she believes the campaign has been a success based on a couple of measures.

Didier said the first good sign is that Positively Decatur didn't get the negative reaction that Big Communication's "A Little Different" proposed campaign got from the Decatur community in 2019 or the failed marketing campaign that resembled "F!" tried in Florence last year.

"We didn't get the blowback that the 'A Little Different' did or like the Florence branding that flopped," Didier said. "While there's no data on this, the mayor and council said they didn't get one negative comment (about Positively Decatur). That fact alone tells me it's been a success."

Didier said the other indication of its effectiveness is that the Positively Decatur website (positivelydecatur.com) got 5,000 followers with rough 45,000 engagements and 1.9 million impressions from April through December.

Mayor Tab Bowling said the Positively Decatur campaign was "met favorably by residents after the (Big produced) first go-around didn't go so well. This has been a positive for the city, and I appreciate that we have a local vendor willing to do it."

Ladner said the renewed agreement is for a reduced price because Red Sage is moving past the setup costs, which included creating the branding and a new website, that were required in the first year of the Positively Decatur campaign.

Didier said the first year of the campaign focused on the citizens of Decatur and developing civic pride.

She said the plan for the second year is to continue to tell the city's stories and create more videos that can be posted online. They're planning to do more advertising in north Alabama and in other areas from which people frequently relocate to north Alabama, she said.

Didier said that Big, as part of its research prior to unveiling the Little Different campaign, hired a firm to do a survey of north Alabama to measure perceptions. She said the perception of Decatur was more negative than the perceptions of other north Alabama cities.

"That perception to me is baffling because I live here and I see the things that we have," Didier said. "My hope is that we can really change external perceptions by showing people the things we have like the cranes and the hiking trails. There's a great huge need to get our story out."

Bowling said Red Sage will be increasing the number of online posts and producing more videos this year.

Pike said he thinks Didier and Red Sage "have done a good job with the positive publicity" of Decatur. He said he enjoyed the few videos Red Sage did in 2022 and he would like to see more, along with targeted advertising.

"Some of the videos were great," Pike said. "I got a lot of good comments from people. The first year was about growing civic pride. The second year is going outside of the city, and that was always the plan. I have ads pop all of the time on my phone promoting other cities, and I'd like see that incorporated in this year's plan."

For example, Ladner said he often saw a video advertising Huntsville at Rocket City Trash Pandas' baseball games in Madison.

"That's great advertising for the city of Huntsville," Ladner said.

Jackson disagreed with the mayor and his fellow councilmen on the effectiveness of the Red Sage campaign. He said the money should be spent on taking care of the city's needs like trash pickup, paving and flooding issues.

"The Red Sage deal is reminiscent of the Big Communications deal that the mayor convinced the previous council to enact," Jackson said. "I am not willing to pay nearly $130,000 for a promotional campaign when we are not taking care of our city's basic needs."

Ladner and Pike said they think the city can do both — improve and take care of its basic needs while hiring Red Sage to promote the positive aspects of Decatur.

"We continue to increase the amount of money needed for paving and cleanup," Pike said. "I don't think this is a rebranding. It's taking the stories from within the city and sharing them."

Bowling said management of the Positively Decatur website will change along with how the city deals with any public relations or marketing efforts.

The city tried having Irene Cardenas-Martinez handle the city's public relations in addition to her duties as public liaison for the Police Department after the former public relations employee Emily Stewart left early last year. However, Bowling said Cardenas-Martinez will focus now only on her Police Department duties.

"It was just too much for her (to do both jobs)," Bowling said.

Bowling said the city is preparing a request for proposals from outside public relations/marketing firms. They are looking for firms interested in taking care of the city and Positively Decatur social media posts and managing the Positively Decatur website while keeping some of the PR duties in-house.

— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432. Twitter @DD_BayneHughes.