Cara: I actually, I went to high school for one year, so I did my senior year of high school. And if y’all I’ve ever seen mean girls were Lindsay Lohan is like eating lunch in the bathroom because she’s scared of all the mean girls in the cafeteria, that was totally me. Totally overwhelmed. But by the time I got to school at UNC, I think I was, I had gotten my feet under me and was just really stoked about all of the energy and excitement that you get on a college campus like that. 

Derek: Yeah. What high school did you go to? 

Cara: Northwood. So Northwood’s in Pittsboro, which is just growing exponentially, but I did gymnastics in Durham County off of Guess Road. So I really spent most of my time here, actually. 

Derek: Okay. You know what, it’s something funny, cause I was, I wanted to go to Carolina, undergrad, but I did early admissions and I got wait-listed and so I ended up going to UNC Charlotte because I wanted to run track. And so when you were talking about gymnastics, both being an individual and a team sport, I could definitely relate to that because track and field very, very much the same, individual and a team.

And so I find myself having those same traits that I’ve learned as a, you know, student athlete. and then as an individual, knowing that, you know, I have to focus on my race and the things that I need to do, but I also need to be supportive and have a team around me. So those are definitely great traits.

Mango: How’d you get into marketing? 

Cara: I didn’t know it was happening. I didn’t know. I went to college thinking I was going to be a psychiatrist. Yeah, I was a psychology… 

Me too, first year, 

and then I ran into the science. They expect you to take chem and dissect things. And I was like, hell to the no. this is, this is not the right path, but I, I did pick up some things in psychology that I think we all use in our personal and professional lives.

I then changed majors to be an economics major after, I took Hershey, I’m not sure he was still around an economics professor at UNC. He’s just like notorious for being the toughest. And when I got an A in that class, I was like, well, I’m good at it. So I might as well if I’m switching my majors. So I went into economic development, which is how I discovered marketing.

And the thing is that economic development and business development and sales, it’s really marketing. It’s understanding your audience, it’s figuring out your channels, what is the message, when to hit them, where to reach them. And so I fell in love with economic development first and then realized the undertone of all of that and the cohesive threads we’re marketing.

Mango: Yeah. No, that makes sense. 

Cara: What about you? 

Mango: How’d I get into marketing? Yeah as a kid, I was always, I always loved television and I always loved commercials. It was one of these things, commercials came on back in the day, you weren’t able to skip them so you had to watch them. And I always found them fascinating.

And I was like, who made that commercial? How did they make that commercial? And then I went to a small school Loyola in Baltimore and I took marketing classes. And it’s interesting where you could have become marketing through a communications or marketing through business. And I want the business, and which unfortunately I had to take accounting, which was to the day that one of the worst things I read on my own time.

Uh, and still wake up and sweat every other day thinking, oh my God, do I have to go to accounting? but when I graduated, I had a lot of internships. I interned at Mercury Records back in the day, which when they used to have like record companies, it was like Hanson, shout out to Mmm Bop. You guys remember that one? They’re were big back then, 311.

And they actually took an internship at, a finance company. So I think it was like Meryl Lynch. I remember my senior year, I was like, well, actually, when I graduated, I was like, I can go to finance or I could kind of go into that marketing, cool, like just like creative world. And I really struggled, you know, it was like, I could make money or I can kind of hopefully enjoy what I’m doing.

And, I decided to choose kind of something that I thought I was going to enjoy doing. And I remember I went to go see when they used to have like real recruiters, if you were to go in an office, they would talk to you about, what do you like, what do you want to do? And I never took, there was no advertising classes.

It was like, it was marketing 101, international marketing, sales classes, really just understanding the basics, the four p’s right. And I remember them asking me, do you like math or you like, you know, dealing with people and clients? So it’s like, I actually really like math. Like I was a math nerd.

And they put me in basically in a media department of a huge advertising agency at the desk. 

Cara: it was a lot of spreadsheets to do media buying

Mango: it was a lot of spreadsheets, but then my career went developed for, I’m still questioning, you know, at the time it was like, you know, here’s $2 million, here’s your audience go do something.

And I was like, well, wait, what’s the creative. So like, how do we do that? How do you get to the audience? So that led me down this path of being a part of kind of full service, creative agencies and being a part of the whole process. Versus like, here’s your dollars and here’s your target. So it’s always just kind of thinking creatively about, you know, what you do. Yeah. 

Cara: It’s fascinating to hear people’s stories of how they either fell in or fell into love with marketing. 

Derek: Yeah. That’s interesting, man. I was, like I said, I started off as a psychology major and then I changed it to communications. And then I ran into comms theory, did not like comms theory. So I dropped comms theory, international business, and then came the question about statistics. And so there’s two different statistics back in the day, either it was like one science-based and one for like business, and the business one was a little bit easier or better. So I ended up shifting from international business to marketing, and because I wanted to be in PR, like I back of my head, I was like, oh, I just, I like people.

I want to be in marketing. And so ended up going into marketing, did an internship, and right out of college. I was lucky enough to, and it’s funny when I came out of college, I said that was the entrepreneur right out of college because my first job was actually as a consultant, running a mobile marketing grass roots tour for a basketball tournament in Charlotte.

And so they were like, Hey, here’s the truck. Find the groups, the audiences, and you know, pretty much create this tour. what do I do? And so luckily, you know, and ended up at a full-service creative agency as well, and just love the dynamics and just having something new every day where you can learn. So, yeah. Yeah. I love that. Marketing is, is a great field to be in. 

Mango: How’s it feel of that being like at Discover Durham? You know, you were saying that your whole you’ve always lived here and now, you get to promote it. 

Cara: Yeah, for me, it’s a dream job. the idea that I get to go to work or sit in my office at home on Zoom, every day, and the thing that I’m promoting is the place that I love is the coolest thing ever. I have always felt strongly about my own personal career in marketing, I never want to just be selling toilet paper or Coca-Cola I, I, you know, the product stuff just really doesn’t interest me.

Economic development, higher education destinations, that’s, for me, something that I can really rally and get my head around and feel proud of about doing the marketing. And, you know, when we do all of these really sneaky, creepy tactics of putting cookies and things on people’s mobile devices, at least it feels altruistic when it’s a destination, right? Rather than having them do something that might be bad for them.

I think that Durham is a very good thing for us to be marketing and promoting. And that’s the coolest feeling to really know in my heart that this is where I should be, and that it’s for the better. And it’s not just, you know, kind of a selling out type of situation, yeah. 

Derek: Yeah. It’s, it’s a powerful position to be in when you have access to tools and resources to really influence and impact people on kind of what, to not necessarily what to do, but influence their decisions and what they decide to do, whether it’s products or you know, services and things of that nature. And so I think, you know, having that intention of really wanting to see impact and really wanting the betterment of, you know, not only Durham, but then people who come and have those experiences I think this is really important for anybody who’s listening that wants to be in a career, and you are in a leadership position is important too, to have those, those intentions connected to the work that you do, because it’s great to see your impact. 

Cara: And it’s, it’s really fulfilling to look around, and Durham has a lot to sell. You know, there is a lot for us to be marketing. There was a recent statistic that I heard downtown Durham; Inc. say at the Chamber’s recent event that 90% of the business’ downtown were started in North Carolina. So these are home grown, local independent and a huge amount of them are minority and women owned. And that’s something that you can, you can be really excited about promoting. 

Back in the summer of 2020, we started a crowdsource listing of all of the Black owned businesses in Durham, and it just kept getting fed with hundreds of people, emailing us and tagging us on social media and sending us DMs and saying, oh, you got, you don’t have this group listed, you don’t have this group. It is the most viewed web page on our site of all time, and I think that that speaks one to the character of our community, that they have that interest, but also to the people who come and visit here and their huge appetite for experiencing Durham’s diversity and the unique flavor that we have. And it’s not just, you know, we’re not, we’d like to say we’re not the beaches, we’re not the mountains, but we make waves. 

Mango: Love it, love it. Well, it’s interesting. Well, I’m going, I’m want to steal your line, bringing it back to Durham. So I’ve been here 13 years and first job down here was McKinney, right down the road. 

Cara: Right, and they were the first tenant over there and American Tobacco, which really revitalized downtown, yeah.

Mango: Yeah, and I came down here from New York, you know, New York’s a bubble, you know, I thought riding through, was at RDU Airport. So it’s like, that’s one place. Like there was no differentiation of the Triangle, when I came down here at 13 years ago. I remember coming to Durham, and I lived at Raleigh at the time, and half the stuff wasn’t here, right? It was, but there was a promise of, at that time it was like, we’re going to become the next Austin and we’re going to do it.

We’re going to, we’re going to build this and we’re going to do it. And you can gradually see over the years, and I was there for about five or six years, how much expanded, how much opened, the restaurant scene. I mean, there, wasn’t a huge restaurant scene, 13 years ago. It’s now having, you know, award-winning chefs everywhere.

Cara: Speaking of we have two finalists in the James Beard award that were announced today, Ricky Moore from Saltbox was on earlier and then Ally 26 for outstanding bar. So fingers crossed for some good news in June. 

Mango: So going back again to the economic development, I’ll be interested to hear, like, what was that plan, what was that like? It must’ve been like kind of daunting, build to what it is now, and in the future, I was talking to American Underground about all these high rises and hotels going up. It’s incredible. 

Cara: It’s been a really cool and humbling thing to happen to have a very small part of, um it was baby Kara at 21 who worked in the office of economic and workforce development. And giving away my age, that was 2004, when American Tobacco, I did a hard hat tour, and they still, they weren’t even open. There was one place besides McDonald’s that I could walk to get a sandwich for lunch downtown from city hall. And the DPAC, I was part of the interviews for the group that now operates the DPAC and brings the Broadway shows in.

And so like for baby Cara, that was a really cool exposure to what the future of Durham is going to be. And I remember sitting down and seeing the master plan that the city and the county had had ginned up and being like, that’s, hell no, you know, that’s not going to happen here, and it did. And it did because the community invested and they rallied behind the importance of the character of Durham coming back into the downtown.

And we also need to remind ourselves that Durham is not just downtown. There’s so many parts of our county. I live up in north Durham right now, but by the Eno and it’s been such a pleasure during COVID to be able to just pop over to west point. I call it little Mexico, cause there’s so many good Hispanic eateries and bakeries up in that area. And then you’ve got east Durham, and the Haytai corridor, which are really picking up. So we’ve seen this influx into downtown, but it’s continuing the ripple effect all over Durham. 

Derek: And so that brings me really into the conversation around, like, for people who may have heard of Discover Durham, but don’t really know what Discover Durham is and what you do.

Can you tell us a little bit more about Discover Durham? Because you’re talking about all the amazing things that there is to Discover in Durham. So just a little bit about that.

Cara: I appreciate that. So we are what you would call a convention and visitors bureau or a destination marketing organization. What we do is the tax dollars that someone pays when they stay in a hotel room are what actually funds our budget.

So there is a small percentage when anyone stays in a hotel room that is reinvested for the marketing and sales to bring more visitors to Durham. And so that’s what Discover Durham’s benefits are. And in terms of what we add to the community, there are thousands and thousands of jobs in hospitality that are supported by visitors, a huge amount of money in the tax space that offset the taxes that our residents pay. So these are, these are benefits that visitors bring to us that we don’t always see when we see someone, you know, passing by staying in a hotel. 

And what Discover Durham does is we try to tap into what makes Durham so appealing to those visitors. And they’re all kinds of visitors. We have leisure visitors. We have visitors who travel for conferences and meetings, and then you’ve got sports tourism, which is huge. In terms of both youth and pickleball is a thing, like I know my mom and step-mom had been talking about. 

Derek: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. And then festivals and just, you know, and there’s so many things to do. And I think, like you said, with so many different types of visitors, right. There is something for everyone. Like when you really think about it, just being able to either park your car and walk around and take an Uber. So many restaurants and opportunities. And so I think that’s what I love about Durham and I’m, and I’m a resident here.

I live here and there’s still so many things that I have yet to discover that I I’ve looked forward to doing everything and especially a lot of the businesses, like you said, they’ve come to town. And a lot of the minority businesses, I think Donald Thompson of the Donald Thompson podcasts, and he was on with MNF earlier today and they were talking about the wealth gap and ten to one, when you look at, you know, African-Americans compared to Caucasians, ten to one, but then if you’re a business owner that drops the three to one.

And so it’s like just that network of being a business owner and then how your network increases and expands from that perspective. The work that you all do, the list that you were talking about of all the different businesses, where people can be patrons to and what visitors are able to do when they come into town and visit and try out these locations is phenomenal.

Mango: Can you talk about how, how you guys survived, or a strategy you had in place during COVID, and have you been seeing a lot of visitations go up and conferences being booked and hopefully a bright future? 

Cara: Absolutely. Things were pretty dark for a while. You know, travel and tourism paused and Durham has been so careful, and I attribute it to, we are the city of medicine and we have some of the smartest people that, one of the strongest populations of smart people in the country and those smart people have been masked up. They’ve been staying home; they’ve been staying safe and we’re now just starting to reemerge. The mask mandate was lifted last week here.

And I totally support whatever any individual chooses in terms of that. I’m bringing up the mask mandate because it is allowing our restaurants to be more open with how they do dining and our bars. So thinking about how it affects the hospitality industry, I’m not getting into the whole mask, no mask. 

Derek: So, you know, we’re about to step into spring. So what are you most excited about for the spring here in Durham and what Discover Durham has going on?

Cara: Personally? I just went to my first EPAC show since COVID last weekend. I saw oh, Eliza comedian hilarious. And it was just so cool to be back, with my $20 drink and to eat out before the show and do that little like rush to eat, places were packed and to be at a live performance. I also have my Sylvan Esso tickets they’re doing three nights in a row in May at the old historic park that the Bulls used to play at, Bull Durham was filmed there. So those are two things for the spring, I personally am just really stoked about. 

We also have something called the Durham convention and arts complex, that’s going live later this spring. There’s a public art installation that’s going to be happening in the plaza by our convention center, and we’ll be able to use the convention center, the arts council, the Carolina Theater, and the armory spaces altogether to host larger meetings, but also to be really artistic and creative and fun.

So those are, those are a couple of things that, that we’re looking forward to for the spring and, obviously, our spring campaign where we will be talking about all these and more. 

Derek: Yes. Yeah. That’s going to be exciting. I’m excited. I think I’m more excited this spring and I guess because of the past couple of springs, I have been in the house or there’s been limitations, so I’m really excited to ‘spring’ into action. You know, there’s a little pun, I just throw that in there, but just spring it to action and get out a little bit in, yeah. 

Cara: I know one of our campaign taglines has been, you know, it’s been on pause, press play. Let’s press play hard this time, yeah. 

Derek: Awesome, awesome. Well, for our visitors, from a visitor’s perspective, what are some unique things about Durham?

I know we talked about, we’re not the beaches or the mountains. We have the big city amenities and things of that nature, but what are some other things that, from a visitor’s perspective is unique about Durham that you would like to share? 

Cara: I think you just started to answer it. You know, we have those big city amenities through the DPAC our universities, Central and Duke are wonderful, beautiful places.

And we have things like baseball, the Bulls and fireworks are coming. You know, opening days in early April. So we have all of these really big city things that you can enjoy, but with space and openness and outdoors, and a lot of public safety that’s been put into play. So we have the combination of the amenities and the safety factor that everyone’s looking for right now.

Derek: Awesome, awesome. 

Mango: I want to know one hidden gem Kara’s secret. Let’s see when the personal, not professional level place to be, somewhere to go see, you mentioned, you mentioned one year a river and never heard about, but 

Cara: Okay. My mind went right to restaurants to eat, and I went right to restaurants and bars. I love the Walking Taco at Accordion Club. If you haven’t picked it up, you should. They opened the Fritos with the cheese and the chili. Amazing and just like pair it with a PBR, go sit on their back porch and play some pool. And Pac-Man while you’re there. 

Mango: Yeah. I always say that’s my corner. Like I think I told you this when I’m, when we first started working together, I was like, even when people come into town, any age kids, no kids, dogs, but that Fullsteam, hit Motorco all of that is there.

You could spend a day just kind of hanging out and then you can’t get that, can’t get that anywhere else. I love it. I’m trying to get our agency to move to Durham for the people watching.

Derek: I wouldn’t know an object, right down the street. 

Mango: That’s how much we love it. And I’ve been coming here like once a week on American underground, which is thanks for hosting us, but hopefully in the next year, we’ll see 

Derek: all fingers crossed, toes too. Well, Kara, thank you so much. And I can’t think of a better way to finally connect in person than on a podcast, right, outside of zoom, and really able to have these kinds of conversations. So thank you again for just your time and all the work that you do and the passion behind that as well. And I think you know, people will be able to see that, you know, when they come to Durham and experience the city and everything that has to offer within it and outside. So 

Cara: it’s been cool hanging out with you, yes. 

Derek: Awesome. Well, that’s it for Talk West today. you can find us on any podcast platform. If you haven’t listened to us yet, make sure you check us out. Also, if you’re looking for marketing and branding guidance, you can visit us walkwest.com. For Mike Manganillo, I’m Derek Ross, and thank you for tuning in and we’ll see you next time.