The legislative crisis in Wisconsin has forced the state’s Democratic senators to hideout in neighboring Illinois, where the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (RACVB) has launched a “Hideaway in Rockford” campaign to seize this opportunity to market itself.

Hideaway in Rockford, Ill.

When they first decided to go on the lam, the Wisconsin senators headed straight for Rockford, Ill., 15 minutes south of the Wisconsin border, and holed up in the Best Western Clock Tower Resort and Conference Center.

The RACVB asked its advertising agency GrahamSpencer to quickly cut a video on the topic within 48 hours and launched a website and marketing campaign to make the most of the city’s time in the limelight.

The video features everyone from the mayor of Rockford Lawrence J. Morrissey and RACVB president and CEO John Groh to local Rick Nielsen, guitarist for Cheap Trick. It has scored 60,892 views as of the time of publishing.

The video begins with a series of people being asked whether they’re a Wisconsin state senator. Then it shows the mayor exiting city hall and being asked the same question, followed in turn by a few more people and, even, a sock puppet.

When the RACVB’s Groh is in front of the camera, he denies he’s one of the senators hiding out in Rockford and instead turns on his sales charm to explain why the legislators from Wisconsin and Indiana have been hiding out in Illinois—and in particular Rockford—touting his city’s micro-breweries, restaurants, nightclubs, sports venues and other attractions.

“We want people to come here and hideaway from whatever they’re trying to get away from,” says Groh. “We want folks to come to Rockford for their own legislation vacation. Rockford is full of opportunities for folks to do some collective bargaining at our locally owned stores and shops.”

Escape to Illinois

If you see the video, you’ll realize how smoothly it segues from making fun of the fugitive senators into a marketing pitch targeting visitors. Rick Nielsen wraps it up with a celebrity pitch about why he’s been hiding out in Rockford for more than 40 years.

To whip up some more media attention, the RACVB published a statement that tells visitors they can come to Rockford to explore “hideaway hotspots,” take advantage of “runaway rates” at local hotels and lists a bevy of activities they can indulge in while hiding out.

In related matters, an Illinois legislator has introduced a bill to tax the out-of-state legislators hiding out in the state. Illinois governor Pat Quinn does not see it that way, and says the Senators are not hiding out but simply visiting and that Illinois is happy to have them over for the visit.

Photo credits – RACVB

For more information, visit hideawayinrockford.com and gorockford.com.

If you think your tourism logo designer didn’t live up to your expectations, take comfort in the fact that your designer’s creativity didn’t land you in a soup like the ones listed below.

Exhibit 1 – France is the most visited nation in the world. 79.3 million people visited France in 2008, with the United States a distant second at 58 million and Spain in third place at 57.3 million.

Even so, Maison de la France (The French National Tourist Office, now known as Atout France), decided that they needed a rebranding, and so in Jan 2008, a new campaign named Rendezvous en France was unveiled, aimed at rebranding France as a tourism destination.

The new logo featured Marianne, an iconic symbol of the French Revolution. But something had gone wrong, and within a few months, they were forced to scrap the new logo and put out a modified one. What happened? Well, see for yourself…

Old Marianne (left) & New Marianne (right)

The popular upswell that forced Marianne to cover up is best expressed by Chris Dickman, who says ”There she is, in all her tragic former glory, an empty echo of the once-proud symbol of the French Republic, of those who fought and died for principles they held dear, which many still hold dear. Reduced to a bare-breasted come-on, a sleazy nod and a wink, worthy of some dubious vendor of dirty postcards in Pigalle.”

Exhibit 2 - The Tourism Federation of Wisconsin (TFW) was, until recently, known as the Wisconsin Tourism Federation (WTF). They switched over after being made aware by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that bloggers were making fun of the acronym.

Tourism Federation of Wisconsin logo - Old (left) & New (right)

The only problem – the coverup was worse than the crime, and the name and logo switch went viral on the internet – nearly a million results now on google for ‘wtf wisconsin.’

Exhibit 3 - Oak Park, Illinois, wanted a new tourism logo and a marketing campaign which highlighted their association with Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway.  But the logo designers stepped way out of line when they came up with this one. It was meant to be hip and edgy, and stir up a little bit of controversy. It did that very well.

Oak Park, Illinois Tourism logo

 Don McEachern, CEO of North Star Destination Strategies, which designed the logo for Oak Park, says the criticism of the logo being phallic shaped is a ‘little sophomoric.’

Paul Marobella, an Oak Park resident and Managing Director of Wirestone/Chicago - a digital marketing solutions agency, responds to McEachern.  Marobella says that “in my professional opinion the work is ‘sophomoric’…They didn’t get to the core essence of what Oak Park is about and why people would want to visit…In addition, the people responsible for the campaign are ignoring the feedback they are getting about the campaign.”

Exhibit 4 - Ilfracombe, Devon is a town in the UK that recently rebranded itself with a logo and campaign meant to target big spenders.

Ilfracombe logo

According to Tessa Martin of Fresh Bread Marketing, which came up with the campaign and logo, it was meant to shift Ilfracombe’s focus from budget visitors to high spending groups. The swirl above the ‘i’ was supposed to reflect the twists and turns of the landscape and conjure up visions of coastal charm - seaside resorts, ice-cream, the harbour and fish.

They ended up with this headline in The Mirror – “Teen pregnancy hotspot Ilfracombe’s new logo looks like a human sperm.”

Officials in Minnesota are undecided whether they like the new word in our lexicon these days: staycation, today’s art of turning your backyard into yesterday’s vacation. It means festivals and campgrounds made out like bandits — hotels and airlines are left sucking wind.

Up in Minnesota, where tourism is an $11 billion industry and employs 248,000 people, the ends of this spectrum are really showing. In an end-of-the-summer survey by Explore Minnesota Tourism, the state’s tourism promotion office, half of more than 300 reporting accommodations noted that both occupancy and revenue were down this summer. On the other hand, one out of four reported that business was up.

“Minnesota still hosted plenty of travelers this summer, but the way they are traveling has really changed,” says John Edman, director of Explore Minnesota Tourism. That’s an understatement.

Businesses that did well in our Land of 10,000 Lakes state offered affordable rates, special deals, or packages that included activities, free breakfasts or other extras. Campgrounds did especially well, with close to half reporting an increase in revenues. Fishing, hiking, festivals, amateur sporting events and other low-cost activities were a hit,  and state parks saw an increase in visitors.

Many resorts reported that bookings for their traditional housekeeping cabins, where guests cook their own meals, remained up there this summer, and that these accommodations draw loyal, return customers who often book for the next year during their stay. The bad news: Large resorts saw a downturn in bookings by corporate groups and conferences, and occupancy and revenue were down at the majority of hotels, especially in the Twin Cities area.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Wilderness

Nevertheless, a little more than half — 52 percent to be exact –  of the accommodation businesses that responded to the recent Explore Minnesota Tourism survey reported “stable, but positive” financial health, Another 14 percent indicated that their financial health was “growing.” Overall, businesses expect the summer’s travel trends to continue into the fall.

Which explains why the state teamed up with neighbor Wisconsin to run radio ads inviting folks travel to both the Minnesota and Wisconsin sides of the St. Croix River and the Mississippi River to view fall colors. More than 70 stations in Minnesota will run the radio spot through September 13, and Wisconsin will return the favor next spring when a different palette of colors takes over.

The real question is do they anticipate staycations will carry over into summer 2010? One season of down sales makes headlines. Two seasons mean a sea change in how an industry does business altogether because doing well in an activity that costs less can still mean fewer dollars on the bottom line in the bigger picture.

Photography: Savannah (Flicker.com)