Ads aim to draw young professionals to San Antonio workforce
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Images from a marketing campaign run by greater:SATX that aims to attract young professionals to San Antonio. Images: Courtesy of greater:SATX
Young professionals from Los Angeles to Miami are finding advertisements for San Antonio as they scroll through Instagram.
What's happening: The region's economic development nonprofit, greater:SATX, is running a marketing campaign aimed at persuading more young people to move here and fill jobs.
- Those people are seeing images of Pearl, the skyline, the River Walk, the Tobin Land Bridge at Phil Hardberger Park and more as they check social media or search Google.
Why it matters: While San Antonio's population is on the rise, we still don't have enough people to match jobs, according to Cecilia García Redmond, chief brand and communications officer at greater:SATX.
- The region will add 100,000 new jobs between now and 2025, per greater:SATX estimates.
- San Antonio employment increased by 4.3% from December to April, per the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
What they're saying: San Antonio is competing with other major cities for young workers, García Redmond tells Axios.
- "San Antonio has a very special soul. It's more than Fiesta. It's more than tacos," García Redmond says. "It's really the community of people and how they gather to support newbies."
Details: The campaign is targeting people aged 25 to 50 in Atlanta; Chicago; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Kansas City; Los Angeles; Miami; Nashville, Tennessee; Sacramento, California; San Diego; Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.
- It's aimed at reaching people who work in industries with job openings in San Antonio or that are expected to grow and add more jobs in the future.
- Those industries include bioscience, cybersecurity, technology, aerospace and engineering.
- The campaign launched in February and will run through September.
By the numbers: In testing, exposure to the campaign resulted in a 26% increase in people who would consider San Antonio as a place to live and work, per greater:SATX.
Zoom in: The No. 1 reason people are attracted to San Antonio is a lower cost of living and housing, García Redmond says,
- Access to food and dining, and the weather, are also draws for people.
- But the weather is a drawback for others, depending on their preferences.
Zoom out: This is the first time greater:SATX has run such an advertising campaign. But it's common for other cities to market themselves elsewhere. Organizations in Wichita, Kansas, and Northwest Arkansas have run similar campaigns.
Of note: It would be difficult to measure whether or how many people actually move to San Antonio as a result of the advertising, García Redmond says. The group's main goal is to make people more aware of San Antonio as an option.