(Credit: Courtesy Hood Communications, 2023)
When Warren County’s Director of Tourism Alfred Snow IV, left the job after just nine weeks in November 2022, throwing verbal hand grenades over his shoulder as he left, he took particular aim at a few projects that he said were boondoggles, projects that used significant money from the county’s occupancy tax fund but that would not put “heads in beds,” a requirement of the spending.
The occupancy tax — or bed tax — is collected by the county from hotels, motels and short-term rentals. The money is used to promote tourism outside the region. The aim of the spending is to draw overnight guests to the area.
Among the projects was $274,800 in annual spending for Hood Communications and Lake George TV, a project that had won funding from the Occupancy Tax committee and then the county government in October 2022.
[Read about Snow’s departure here. Read about his letter of resignation here.]
Jesse Hood Jackson, owner of Hood Communications/Lake George TV and Look Media, said in a couple recent interviews that Snow fundamentally misunderstood what Lake George TV was and that his company would help put “heads in beds.”
LakeGeorgeTV.com, which Jackson is developing with the help of Ed Larkin, a long-time digital advertising professional, and others, is a video streaming service, much like Netflix, Hulu, or Disney+.
In fact, Jackson was streaming TV himself when he came up with the idea.
What if, instead of categories such as Drama, Comedy or Action, the streaming app had the categories of Hotel/Motel, Restaurant or Location.
Larkin and Jackson offered a sneak peek to FoothillsBusinessDaily.com.
The tag line on the front page of the app “What will you discover?” is intended to draw the viewer in, to find those places, the attractions and venues, Jackson said. It is also a challenge to the development team to make sure people who come to the app will have something to discover.
Eventually, hundreds of videos will fill the app, and viewers will be able to sort videos by where they are thinking of visiting, by the type of activity they want to do or the place they want to stay. Videos will be cross-listed so that all the videos about Bolton Landing are on one page, but a Bolton Landing restaurant is also found on the restaurants page, or if the restaurant has a special event, it could be found by event or date. As with other streaming services, related videos run along the bottom of many pages.
Technologically, the site is largely ready to launch, Larkin and Jackson said during an interview Jan. 23.
“Right now, we’re trying to break it,” Larkin said, meaning they are testing it hard enough to make sure it can withstand high-volume use.
It works across multiple devices including smart phone apps and smart TVs, contains performance metrics, and it is free both to the potential visitor and to the hotels, motels, restaurants and many other businesses that want to take advantage of the service.
Most businesses related to tourism in Warren County will be allowed to upload videos free. They will also get free help with video production if needed. The idea is to keep a level playing field, to let small motels have the same access as the large hotels in the area.
As they near a public launch, they have been talking to county tourism and chamber members in the area, Jackson said, adding that business owners do not realize it is free, paid for by the occupancy tax.
"Most everybody is a qualified advertiser," Jackson said. "You want to invite them in, let them know they can do it."
Before it can launch, the site needs more videos, the pair said, about 100 of them total. Larkin added that he hoped to have enough videos for a launch on April 1. With just 10 in the queue now, Jackson was a bit less sure.
Each video has QR codes and links that will allow a person to find more information about the hotel, event or restaurant. They will be able to tell where people are viewing from, which videos are viewed the most, which get the most clicks.
“We’re not satisfied with just knowing traffic and clicks,” Larkin said.
The proposal says that Lake George TV will work with some key advertisers to determine how views turn into rooms booked, and will therefore allow the county to extrapolate the "heads in beds" figure. Demographics such as age, sex and income will be tracked as much as possible, and the app will track who is a frequent vacation traveler and who travels on business.
The costs the occupancy tax covers are myriad, Jackson said. Development of the site, paying the staff, paying for video storage, paying for staff to help the mom-n-pop motel create their own video, that’s all factored into the price he said.
Putting all of it together under one roof was time and labor consuming — the start-up process has been two years and counting and did not include funding from the county, Jackson said — and he has been trying to protect the trade secrets he and his team have developed. The proposal that passed through the county's occupancy tax committee is 34 pages and heavily redacted.
Hood Communications is working with Interactive Media Consulting LLC of Saratoga Springs and Empire City Media LLC for some of the development and analytics work.
Jackson and the proposal say that setting up a YouTube channel under which to collect videos is not nearly as effective.
YouTube determines which video comes up next in the queue, so a video about Lake George might lead to a vacation in Cape Cod, he said. Plus, the data about views and visits is all collected by the app and allows the county to see who is visiting and which advertisements and videos are working best, he said.
The county approved $22,900 monthly, or $3,000 for producers, $6,400 for production services such as editing and uploading, $4,000 for account management, $3,000 for administrative fees, $3,000 for platform programming, and $3,500 for platform hosting, according to the proposal.
Jackson and his team are talking to area chambers and businesses now, finding videos and working with people to fill the site. Companies will be allowed to upload new videos, one per month through an interactive portal on the website. Staff will check the video for basic quality levels, decency standards and other markers before posting.