Showing posts with label tourism ads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tourism ads. Show all posts

Monday, April 22, 2013

Tourism game-changer for South Florida travelers & Fort Lauderdale-area businesses -but only if they're smart and start planning now. Ruminations on the upcoming Norwegian.com flights b/w Ft. Lauderdale and Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen, and the need for Broward's hospitality industry to take full-advantage of the opportunity; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden, @copenhagen, @denmark



Above, the State of Florida's classic 1970's national TV tourism ad that I've posted on the blog many times before. This spot ad was hugely-popular and successful, especially in the Midwest and East Coast, and was by far THE best tourism TV ad the state has ever produced. To this day, it still makes people smile when they see it or hear that catchy jingle, "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good."

But in a much-more competitive travel marketplace than existed over thirty years ago, with so many disparate consumer markets, and different ways of reaching out to  prospective travelers, it seems to me that we need to see the state come up with something new that's just as compelling as this was. http://www.youtube.com/embed/OxB0kjqO6SI

Today I wanted to follow-up with some specificity on my blog post of this past Saturday, April 20th, which had some great news that some of you readers of the blog might want to take full-advantage of in the near-future -just like me- regarding a game-changing marketing move 

A move that will simultaneously make travel to a dynamic part of the world more convenient and cheaper, while also offering local Broward County-area hotels, restaurants and hospitality-related businesses an entrée to an affluent English-speaking tourism market -esp. families- that they have barely even begun to scratch: Scandinavia
Scandinavian Delight! Starting November 30th, fly nonstop between Ft Lauderdale and Oslo on Norwegian.com for as low as $238, or fly from FLL to Stockholm Arlanda for only $269, plus taxes and luggage charges; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden

A comparable round-trip flight on SAS to Oslo or Stockholm, even in Economy and made weeks in advance, is well over $1,000, as I know from experience in January.
Compare that to what Norwegian.com will offer starting in late November, with a direct flight to Oslo from FLL.

And coming back this way, with these flights, Broward is now much-cheaper airfare-wise, than flying from Stockholm or Oslo to The Maldives, a very popular vacation spot for Swedish families that's heavily-promoted, along with, of course, Thailand.
The latter is a holiday travel location that many Swedish families have been to so many times before that at least some of their kids are actually blah towards going there again. (Really.)

And since I neglected to mention it in Saturday's post, or so far today, you should know that Norwegian.com is the fastest-growing airline in Europe and has already placed orders for 200 new airplanes.

More at:
Norwegian airline prepares for global expansion
By Jorn Madslien, Business reporter, BBC News
1 April 2013 Last updated at 20:24 ET

Here are two photos from my blog of some travel-related advertising I snapped while I in Stockholm in January, and trust me, these display ads are everywhere you look. 
You literally can not escape them.
And that's in part because they work so well.
Especially when it's 17 degrees Fahrenheit and sundown is at 3:45 p.m.


"SOLREA - SVERIGES BÄSTA RESESÖK"
The colder and snowier it got in Stockholm, the more this simple ad seemed like genius. Sometimes, you don't have to reinvent the advertising wheel. When you're a travel agency and it's cold and snowing, make your target audience think of summers and traveling to an inviting warm beach. Above, one of the many Sistaminuten.se display ads I saw on the side of pay phones throughout Stockholm. This one was located on Ringvägen, across the street from the Åhléns Dept. store (with the Hemköp grocery store in the basement that I visited frequently) west of busy Götgatan and the Skanstull T-bana, the southern commercial heart of trendy and fun Södermalm. January 11, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
*There was recently a controversy with this ad campaign that I will be blogging about quite soon.  


Pictured: A Mom and her two kids sitting on the beach staring out at the waves. Only two blocks from the B&B I stayed at in the Södermalm area of Stockholm on my recent trip, the #1 B&B in the city, also located on Ringvägen were two other display ads promoting travel. The one in the distance is for SAS, which I flew on to Stockholm, and the one in the foreground, on a public telephone booth, is the "Holiday is where the Heart is" ad campaign for VING which started the week before Christmas. January 12, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. 
Here's VING's very-popular "Holiday is where the heart is" TV spot: http://www.dagensmedia.se/webbtv/reklamfilm/article3607242.ece
Not surprisingly, this ad was in heavy rotation during morning TV news shows, so much so that I started hearing this jingle in my head by my 3rd day in Stockholm.

Here's more of VING's smart and attractive display ads: http://www.dagensmedia.se/taggar/?tag=Ving

As a friend who's a travel professional in Sweden explained to me, since I didn't know myself, flights from Oslo or Stockholm to The Maldives or to FLL are roughly the same time-wise.
But if you compare the costs of airfare using Norwegian.comNOW flying to FLL from Scandinavia is a ridiculous bargain, by hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and is a bargain that is multiplied by each person who flies here.

After being over there and getting a small sense of how things are done, my own opinion is that the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) needs to really increase their advertising and marketing dollars in Scandinavia and start working on some compelling co-op advertising with Norwegian.com that they can start running this Fall, before the twice-weekly flights start.  http://www.sunny.org/

It seems to me that we need to do this to make sure that the airline's strategy (gamble) works to everyone's satisfaction, and then at some point, they can increase the number of flights or days they fly between FLL and Oslo, whose still-new-looking airport is, in a word, sweet.

Since HB's beach is so woefully unattractive and poorly-maintained, the local postcards that I gave to some business people I met -and the new friends that I made- in Stockholm were entirely of Hollywood Beach and The Broadwalk.

Trust me, people I spoke to there in all sort sof places around Stockholm were very intrigued by what I told them about the area, esp. after hearing them relate some of the daily hassles they deal with when they go to Thailand and other tropical places.
They're looking for new places to visit, so why not our part of the world?

Savvy and enterprising individuals, companies and firms from South Florida to Sweden can now finally reach the affluent, well-informed and influential decision-makers in South Florida and beyond who regularly read Hallandale Beach Blog and its Twitter feed for the facts, nuanced insight and original analysis they can't get elsewhere, and do so via VERY REASONABLE advertising on the blog, at prices starting at just $85 a month. 
Contact me today for more details at hallandalebeachblog@gmail.com

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Newt Gingrich's delicious win in South Carolina will soon flood Florida with Beltway reporters who will ask hard questions about state's Romney-loving GOP Establishment -unlike FL's own MSM


Winning Our Future video: Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins: Mitt Romney Wasn't Conservative Until He Ran For President. January 21, 2012.
http://youtu.be/qvM64Wl5yNo


Being a Newt Gingrich supporter who expected last night's result- and who predicted as much to many of you weeks ago in emails- and feeling and thinking as I do, I can hardly wait until we start seeing something that's been strangely missing from campaign coverage in Florida.


What's been MIA are fact-filled articles and columns in Florida newspapers, segments on evening network TV newscasts, and pithy posts on knowing nationally-read blogs, on what Florida's GOP Establishment of elected officials and pooh-bahs who endorsed John Huntsman and Rick Perry for president -or desperately wished for Jeb Bush!- are going to be doing over the next ten days to try to rehabilitate their greatly-damaged reputation and image within the state, given how badly that has  worked out for some of them. 


Especially some of the unctuous ones I, well, personally dislike, many of whom have that whole Silver Spoon thing going on that makes them seem even more phony and detached from reality than you-know-who.


Will they now suck-up to and salute the GOP Beltway/Northeast Establishment and now support Mitt Romney?
Well, what do you think?!!!


And speaking of Silver Spoons, or more factually, Sons of Silver Spoons, when are we going to start seeing some in-depth newspaper articles and columns in the Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Tallahassee Democrat, Orlando Sentinel -i.e. the Florida Mainstream Media that creates the state's Conventional Wisdom out of froth that's so often wrong- on what Mitt Romney supporters like Lighter-than-Lite Connie Mack the Quatro are going to ACTUALLY DO to turn around Romney's slumping prospects here?


No, not what his father, the former Florida Senator with the same name will strongly suggest, what will the young U.S. Senate wannabe Quatro himself DO?


You know, something concrete and tangible to prove that they are not all just well-known drones in the state's not-too-bright and all-too self-serving political hype machine that is also Home Sweet Home along the I-4 Corridor?
Something besides just recommending that he spend more money on ads?
Hmm-m...


(I mean, if Mack's really that formidable a candidate, and those polls numbers we've seen for weeks aren't just name ID numbers, as I've always argued they were, we ought to start seeing something from him right away, right? 
And not just in the usual places?!
Me, well, as you know from my past posts, I think Mack has a glass jaw and I will NOT vote for him. I greatly prefer Adam Hasner hands down.)


Some of us will be watching very, very carefully.


The state's journos better figure it out damn quick, because with a few exceptions I can name, it's crystal clear that the vast majority of Florida-based TV and print reporters WONT suddenly develop a spine and become responsible.


WON'T be forthright enough to question the previously-swallowed Conventional Wisdom of the Romney "Inevitability" argument," or write articles that dare to ask in their headlines "Can Connie Mack IV actually help deliver Florida for Romney, or will he fail?," there is a veritable army of print and TV reporters based in the Beltway and the Northeast U.S. that are about to start invading the Sunshine State on Monday morning to do just that, and ask questions the state's journos have largely refused to ask, despite the fact that it's low-hanging fruit indeed.


And if you think the Beltway/Northeast MSM won't take advantage of the chance to get away from cold weather for a week, forget it...



Excerpt from the iconic early 1980's Florida Dept. of Tourism TV ad - "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good"
Old-style tourism ad rules!!


This was by far the most-successful tourism campaign for the state ever.
When I was attending IU, there wasn't anyone I knew there who didn't know this ad and who couldn't sing or hum the jingle.


Which, naturally enough, leads to this classic that was marketing genius... 
every week.



CBS-TV's The Jackie Gleason Show -open (color, late 1960's)
http://youtu.be/E4b_-iwJwic
Yes, back when South Florida seemed magical and sophisticated to 7-year old me living in Memphis!

Monday, November 14, 2011

My life of late: another brush with the good side of America's healthcare system, plus the consistent downside of Adobe Flash & Google Chrome -Crash!

Looking northwest from N. Johnson & N. 35th Avenue in Hollywood at part of the main campus of Memorial Regional Hospital, the flagship facility of Memorial Healthcare System's far-flung Broward healthcare empire. Now if only there was a place where I could get some TLC for my mis-behaving desktop computer that's been driving me crazy the past month. November 1, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

My life of late: another brush with the good side of America's healthcare system, plus the consistent downside of Adobe Flash & Google Chrome -Crash!

Though you well-informed readers out there in the blogosphere are blithely unaware of it wherever you are reading this now, which could be anywhere in the world or from one of South Florida's many feudal duchies or banana republics, the past three weeks have been quite difficult around my little media empire.

First, my father, who suffered a stroke exactly one year ago -while watching a Dolphins game!-and whom since May has been confined to a wheelchair at the nearby ALF in Hollywood where he lives, has been sick and eventually needed an operation late last week at Memorial, above.

My father received excellent care there from everyone from beginning to discharge, and best of all, it was very efficient -no long waits for anything, unlike Aventura Hospital.

(Plus, I was able to become reacquainted with the surgical lobby reception area and memorize yet another code of cable TV numbers during one particular nine-hour stretch on a sofa there. More useless numbers in my head!)

Consequently, I've had to spend even more time than usual with him during the day and night, wearing my hats of chauffeur, walking medical history and medical paperwork expert.
As it affects things here at Blog Central, I've been getting home later and much more exhausted and frazzled, with the result that my post-midnight dispatches from my corner of South Florida have been far and few between.

I've even had to miss a few Hallandale Beach and Hollywood City Commission/CRA meetings that I'd usually have been at and participated in via a pointed question or two.

It's not exactly a secret that I definitely could use a break for about a week from everything and everyone in South Florida to unwind.
And as I've been pondering the solution to that, what is more the opposite of South Florida right now than our old friend, Reykjavik, Iceland?


Icelandair video: Unique Iceland: What to do in Reykjavik?
Icelandic actress Þóra Karítas Árnadóttir -a.k.a. Thora Karitas - explains a few things about the fascinating and awesome island known as Ísland.

http://youtu.be/Rkr1O6mvHUc

(More on that possible trip soon.)


Second, I have been having bad problems with the computer, ones that have NEVER been worse than they have been the past two weeks, which explains why I have so many blog posts still frozen in Draft form that I thought would've long since been posted here.

I seemingly can't go two hours without something happening with Google Chrome or Adobe that causes me to get up and walk away from the computer in anger.
As if my ridiculously slow Internet speed from AT&T U-verse wasn't frustrating enough.

Why in November of 2011 are the Google geniuses in Mountain View, CA unable to fix Google Chrome so that everything isn't crashing all the time?

This recent avalanche of Chrome crashes is literally making me re-think my fateful decision to axe Mozilla Firefox a few months ago and go back to Chrome after their I initially exiled them during the Browser War Crimes Tribunals of 2008 and 2009.

So, in conclusion, that's why I have not been posting as much as I'd like -Google Chrome and Adobe laying a minefield for me every time I turn the computer on- so some of my next few posts, those unfrozen drafts, may seem a day or two -or three weeks- old.
To me.

But they'll be new to you.

-----




A Web Developer Speaks: Flash Player is Dead. HTML5 isn't ready. Long live AIR!
By Jason Perlow | November 11, 2011, 10:14am PST


Mobile Flash: So long and thanks for all the crash.
By Ken Hess | November 9, 2011, 3:05pm PST

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=2974f4989350aa38&hl=en