The Gondola Blog: Happy Birthday Bob Millspaugh!

Mr. Mohr Goes to Washington

I was sitting at my desk when it happened.

My wife Elisa opened an e-mail across the room and said, "hey honey, here's a contest I think we should enter".

There are a few things I should explain. First, my wife has incredible intuition and she's one of the smartest people I know. Second, My wife has talked me into a lot of great ideas, but this was one of the best.

The contest was entitled "Flights. Camera. Action." and was geared towards small businesses.

The contest guidelines were fairly simple:
Make a video that tells about how air travel with American Airlines can help your small business, and keep in at or under a minute in length.

In fifteen minutes we'd written a script and printed it out in huge letters, and I started thinking about the best way to shoot the video.

The next day I climbed onto the back of one of my gondolas with the big-letter script taped to the back of the seat where I could see it. As it happens, one of my gondoliers, Steve Elkins, has quite a lot of experience with a camera, so I had him shoot the video.

We rowed out onto Newport Harbor, and I delivered the script while rowing.

My hope was that we might benefit from the simple fact that a guy in a striped shirt rowing a gondola is more interesting than someone sitting at a desk.

After fifteen takes, and lots of struggle to keep the wind away from the camera's microphone, we had something we thought would work.

A few trimming edits later, and my wife submitted our entry.
I had no idea if we would even make the first cut.

Hundreds of entries were submitted, and only fifty were chosen for the semifinal round, but we made the cut.
We were excited.

The next step was an online voting period of about six weeks. We told everyone we knew, e-mailed all our friends, relatives, clients, and anyone else we could think of, and encouraged them to vote for the video as many times as the guidelines would allow.
We had no idea how we would do, but we made the top five.

This was amazing. We were thrilled.

Next we would go to Washington DC and attend a gala event to find out which of the five was the winner.

All through the process we were in contact with American Airlines staff, and found them to be warm, professional, and just great to work with.

Boarding an American Airlines jet in Los Angeles, to attend the event in DC was unreal - I felt like I was only imagining it.

We checked into the Marriott in Washington, a couple hundred yards from the White House, and tried to sleep.

The next day I picked up my tux (the gala was serious business), and then Elisa and I did an on camera interview with some of the American Airlines staff. The interview was fun, and like everything else, we were well taken care of.
They blew us away with their hospitality.

We learned a lot about American Airlines; one thing we realized was that the company has a new focus on earning the loyalty of small and midsized businesses.
Great to see such a thing when it's usually the Fortune 500 companies getting all the perks.

On the night of the gala, we spent some time getting to know the owners of Hope Force International - they were such great people, and have such an important cause.
We sat next to them during the ceremony.
When the winner was announced, it was not Gondola Adventures, it was Hope Force.
Sure, we were a little sad, after all, we'd gone to win, but we were thrilled for Hope Force, and we know that they will put the prize to very good use - helping people in crisis.

We didn't win, but the folks at American made us feel like we had.
This really changed our view of large businesses.
It was a contest that eventually awarded a grand prize to one entrant, but along the way, a great number of small businesses who entered, reaped benefits by being involved. We weren't the only company who rallied together anyone we could, and worked to get some press coverage. In the end, we saw increases in our social media attention, and our phones rang more too.

It was a great experience, and I'm glad my wife talked me into it.

Eighteen years ago, I talked her into marrying me...while sitting in a gondola on the same waters where the video was shot.

The Gondola Blog

Monday, February 20, 2012

Happy Birthday Bob Millspaugh!

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