On Monday, the California Senate approved bill AB1778 by a margin of 24-12. The bill mandates that state funded television commercials promoting California tourism and agriculture be filmed exclusively within California. 

Happy Cows California

AB1778, better known as the Happy Cow Bill, was introduced by Assemblyman Ted Lieu. The California Assembly has already approved the bill back in May, so it has now been sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his signature.

In a statement, Assemblyman Lieu says that “Filming official state promotional commercials in another state or country makes absolutely no sense. California is the birthplace of film and when our public funds finance the production of TV commercials, that money should be spent in California, employing California workers.”

The whole kerfuffle began last year in November with a flaky argument over happy cows. The California Milk Advisory Board was planning on an ad campaign with 10 commericals showing how happy California cows were. Only problem was that the ads would be filmed in Auckland, New Zealand.

The reasoning behind CMAB’s decision to film happy California cows in New Zealand apparently had nothing to do with cows. It was a purely financial decision related to the cost of film production in California. CMAB is funded by dairy farmers and not the state, so they do have to work on a budget and answer to their members.

Also, every cow explicitly named in the ads as a California cow is actually a California cow. The CMAB also claimed that “They were not actually shooting Happy California Cows commercials in New Zealand. They were shooting unhappy cows from all over the world auditioning to become California cows.”

Be that as it may, the end result of  this rather silly debate has been to brand California cows as being less happy than the cows in New Zealand, and California as being too costly for film production. As a result, AB1778 gained support and as soon as Gov. Schwarzenegger signs the bill, the cows of California will be given back their right to be happy on TV.

Happy Cow Commercials: www.realcaliforniamilk.com/happycowstv; Read summary of AB 1778

An online winter ski commercial from the Nevada Commission on Tourism (NCOT) is being used by Google as a case study to show how advertisers are finding success with Google’s TV and In-Stream Video ads.

Nevada Tourism ad as Google case study

NCOT launched the in-stream video ad (see it on youtube) in Nov 2009 on YouTube and video partners on Google Display Network.

Geo-targeted audience: Male (25-54; high household incomes) winter enthusiasts in 7 key DMAs – Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, and Phoenix.

Results: Generated 8 million impressions with a clickthrough rate of over 1%. 45% of viewers watched the entire 30-second commercial.

Viewers who saw the ad were 33 percent more likely to consider Nevada as a vacation destination than those who saw other NCOT online ads that did not use Google’s technology.

NCOT Director Dann Lewis said that “We have advertised Nevada’s tourism attractions in many ways, including traditional television, outdoor advertising, online display ads and mobile ads, and we found the exposure and maneuverability of Google’s in-stream video really got results.”

So they followed up on the verbal praise for the 2009 winter campaign by launching a 2010 spring/summer campaign with Google’s TV and in-stream video ads. NCOT also plans to make it an integral part of their marketing efforts in future.

NCOT Case Study – www.google.com/adwords/tvads/success/nevada-commission.html

Tourism Australia has come up with a new tagline and campaign - “There’s Nothing Like Australia” which aims to showcase all the things that make Australia unlike anywhere else.

"There's Nothing like" Australia Tourism tagline

And this time they made sure there would be no Lara Bingle raising bloody hell. Actually, in addition to staying away from controversy, the two-phase campaign has been smartly designed to capitalize on user generated content and social networking.

Starting today, Australians are being invited to start taking photos of their favourite place or experience in Australia and come up with a description in 20 words or less on what makes it uniquely Australian.

A sample for Queensland is shown in the picture to the left, with the suggestive tagline – “There’s Nothing Like… Queensland.”

Andrew McEvoy, Managing Director, Tourism Australia, explains that “Australians are the experts on what is unique and special about their country and we want to share this with potential travellers in a way that will make them want to come and visit our country.”

So for Phase I, Tourism Australia is spending $4 million to create an interactive map of Australia, made up of all the things Australians think are special about their country.

From 15 April to May 12, Australians will have the chance to upload their entries to the campaign website www.nothinglikeaustralia.com. 

The data will then be used to create the interactive map, which will be searchable by experience type, location, and by 1,000 keywords. The map will be available on both australia.com and nothinglikeaustralia.com.

The Phase II global launch will be in May 2010, with the campaign website and map being made public, accompanied by a television commercial.

Some of the submitted entries will be used in print and online advertising globally. Tourism Australia will also create videos of suggested locations, to be used in ads on TV and in online video ads. They plan to spend $150 million on the campaign over the next three years.

Hyatt Hotels Corp. has launched a new series of video ads on the Funny or Die website to push its meetings business. The ads show all kinds of things going horribly wrong at meetings, and end with the premise that these things do not happen at Hyatt properties.

Hyatt Meetings Video ad 'Ultra Lounge' on Funny or Die

The first video, titled ‘Ultra-Lounge’ begins with a meeting about to begin and the meetings planner who put it together bragging to his boss about the hip lounge next door which they can hit after the meeting.

As the presentation begins, the slide falls over and then the music begins to throb and no one can hear anything else.

To make things worse, a young couple crashes in from the lounge next door and starts making out on the conference table.

The video ends with the boss shouting to the planner that he’s fired, and then the Hyatt tag line “Bad meetings happen. Just not here.”

Hyatt Meetings Video ad 'Benihana' on Funny or Die

The second video titled ‘Benihana’ is just as enjoyable. Starts with a boss mad at the planner because everyone is busy enjoying the chef’s antics, and a 15 minute snack break got turned into a 2 hour fun fest.

There’s only 7 minutes of scheduled meeting time left. The fun loving planner reluctantly clears the table and just as the boss starts talking about fourth quarter profits, a mime tiptoes into the room and the meeting again comes to a halt. Cue the tag line.

The deal with Funny or Die was put together for Hyatt by its media agency PHD, and Hyatt ended up paying less than $300,000 for the entire project – including production and advertising.

Original thinking by Hyatt’s ad guys, and given how bitingly funny the videos are, safe to say that Hyatt is going to get a huge ROI on its $300,000 investment on this campaign.

The Hyatt Meetings videos debut on Funny or Die (http://www.funnyordie.com) on Thursday. Meanwhile, you can see the videos here and here.