Visit Florida, the official tourism marketing corporation for the state of Florida, has launched a new marketing campaign – Your Florida Side – that aims to portray the visual imagery of Florida as a side of your life which you can identify with, and go back to.

Your Florida Side

Florida also gets a new tourism slogan – “Your Florida Side is Calling.” The new $6.1 million campaign, created by DDB Miami, includes dozens of executions in various media featuring more than fifty still images, each encouraging consumers to “embrace,” “unleash,” “awaken,” and “release” their Florida side.

They’re specifically targeting recession-weary consumers who have previously visited Florida, putting the imagery in front of them, and telling them this is one side of you, so put that other side with all the worries behind you, and give in to your Florida side.

“We all have a Florida side,” says Susannah Costello, Brand Director for Visit Florida. “It’s the part of us that longs for sandy beaches, romantic sunsets, and time in the sun with people we care about.”

Will Seccombe, Chief Marketing Officer for Visit Florida, added that “The goal of this campaign is to unlock the power of the memories and experiences that are generated by nearly 100 million vacations taken in Florida each year. We know that 94 percent of our visitors have been to the state before and that Florida enjoys tremendous brand loyalty, so our job is to simply awaken the emotions from past visits to the Sunshine State.”

The slogan “Your Florida Side is Calling” isn’t as catchy as the iconic ones used by Vegas or Virginia, but the campaign’s premise and execution is, and it does manage to stand a cut above the rest and make you want to ‘Give in to your Florida side.’

Aside from the fact that one of the pictures, of a man sailing a boat in open waters, wasn’t taken in Florida waters, a job well done by DDB Miami.

More details and media here – www.visitflorida.com/your-florida-side

If it isn’t just like Michigan to take their biggest cash cow and screw it up so bad that it becomes a bankrupt national joke. No, we’re not talking about Detroit auto. This is about the destruction of Pure Michigan, the state’s hit tourism ad campaign, which is now getting more coverage for its funding problems than for its effectiveness.

Pure Michigan Billboard, Times Square

Background – Pure Michigan radio ads with actor Tim Allen’s voice were first aired in 2006, and went on national cable tv last year, thanks to a $30 million tourism promotion budget.

$10 million was spent on national cable ad buys in 2009, with 7,900 airings across 15 cable channels seen by 60 million people.

A study showed that each dollar spent by Michigan on out-of-state advertising generated more than $40 of spending at Michigan businesses and $2.86 in new state tax collections.

According to the latest figures from the Michigan Economic Development Corp., Michigan clocked around $18.1 billion in annual travel spending supporting 193,000 jobs and generating $874 million in state taxes. Forbes listed Pure Michigan as one of the 10 best travel ad campaigns of all time.

And now fast-forward to February 2010 – where Travel Michigan, the State of Michigan’s official agency for the promotion of tourism, is facing a deadline of a matter of days, if it wants to run Pure Michigan ads again on national cable TV this year. The only problem is that they don’t have any money because the state slashed its budget from $30m to $5.4m.

Late last year, after a lot of negative publicity over the axing of Pure Michigan’s national campaign, the state legislature decided to try and revive it by setting up a permanent funding mechanism for Travel Michigan, as a percentage of tourism tax revenue.

But they’re still waffling over the 3-bill package (HB 5018, HB 5088, and HB 5089) which would appropriate upto a maximum $40 million every year in funding for travel marketing from tourism taxes.

Without this new funding, Michigan would fall from 6th to 42nd in the list of state tourism budgets. The currently allocated $5.4m would ensure that Michigan would not be able to air on national cable, and would end up depending on in-state tourism.

This in a state with a 14.3% unemployment rate (projected to reach 15.8% in 2010) and a fiscal deficit of $1.6 billion, which ranks 4th amongst the states with highest foreclosure rates. Not to mention that GM and Chrysler went bankrupt and had to be bailed out.

If they get the new funding, Travel Michigan plans to increase the national ad buy from $10m to $12.5m, which would enable them to extend the ads all the way to September, and attract more out-of-state visitors. If they don’t get the funding, you can expect Michigan to fall off the tourism map.

To see the Pure Michigan ads, visit http://www.michigan.org/.

When a botched tourism promotion campaign goes viral, it’s not a pretty sight. Listed below are the top 5 roadkills, in terms of destination tourism promotion campaigns, where the media message quickly spiralled out of control once the campaign was launched.

Kalona, Iowa - Arrest a Traveler

Kalona, Iowa – Arrest a Traveler campaign – The Kalona Chamber of Commerce teamed up with the Washington County Sherriff’s office to cook up a tourism campaign (see video) where the police would wave down and ‘arrest’ an out-of-state traveler passing through on Highway 218. 

The arrested traveler would then be offered a free overnight stay in Kalona, along with free gas, t-shirts and a bucketload of other freebies contributed by local merchants. Once news about the campaign broke in the media, it quickly turned into a civil rights controversy, with allegations of abuse of power and fourth amendment violations. 

End result: Instead of positive media buzz about the surprise free stay in Kalona, the image the town has acquired now is one of police excess. Safe to say that Kalona won’t be arresting any more travelers.

VisitDenmark - 1 night stand video

VisitDenmark – One Night Stand Video - Denmark’s tourism agency put up a video on youtube, along with a website, featuring a woman with a baby begging for help, in which she says that the baby was a result of a drunken one night stand, and she doesn’t know who the father is.

The woman, called Karen in the video, is actually an actress named Ditte Arnth Jorgensen and the baby wasn’t hers.  According to VisitDenmark manager Dorte Kiilerich, the intent had been to tell “a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions.”

End result: A storm of criticism – with the media accusing VisitDenmark of portraying Danish women as having loose morals. The video has since been removed from youtube and the website no longer exists. You can still see the video here.

New Mexico - Alien ads

New Mexico – Alien Tourism Ads - New Mexico aired state sponsored 30 second ads featuring reptilian aliens talking about visiting New Mexico, apparently in a bid to position New Mexico as the ‘Best Place in the Universe.’

 The creators of the ad – M&C Saatchi (Santa Monica office), forgot to mention one thing in the ad - the Roswell UFO landing - New Mexico’s one and only connection to aliens from outer space, and the most famous UFO themed site in the US.

End result:  It appeared as if New Mexico was portraying visitors as ugly aliens. It didn’t do one bit of good for N.M. tourism, and instead ended up confusing a lot of people who saw the ads, and didn’t know about Roswell.

Australia 'Bloody Hell' ad

Australia – So Where the Bloody Hell are You? Ad Campaign – This ad, also created by M&C Saatchi (Sydney office), starts with a barkeeper saying “we’ve poured you a beer” and ends with model Lara Bingle in a bikini on the beach at Fingal Spit asking “So where the bloody hell are you?”

The U.K. banned the ad for the use of the word ‘bloody.’ The ban was revoked after a personal intervention by Australia’s tourism minister, but it was then banned from being displayed on billboards. Canada banned the ad for the unbranded alcohol in the beginning, and also for the use of the word ‘hell.’ In some countries, it was run without the words ‘bloody hell’  – Simple ‘So where are you?’

End result: An international disaster – The Bingle ad branded Australia as a land of profanity, and in countries where the profanity was removed from the ad, it just didn’t make much sense. Either way, the campaign was declared a massive failure, and pulled.

Maxim - Women of the Israeli Defense Forces

Israel – Women of the Israeli Defense Forces Maxim photo spread - In an effort to divert attention away from all the negative imagery of war and fighting, the Israeli consulate in New York and the tourism ministry combined to cook up a plan to sponsor a Maxim photog’s visit to Israel.

The photographer was put together with beautiful women who at one time or other had served in Israel’s military, and were willing to be photographed for Maxim.

End result: Outrage in Israel’s Knesset at the objectification of Israeli  servicewomen, a loss of image as the Holy Land for religious tourists, and more fuel for resentment between Israel and its neighbours.