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Posted on 09/13/2008 7:26:57 PM PDT by mombyprofession
Michigan (Detroit Free Press) - The music starts. The hazy images appear. A pond. A sunrise. A porch. A windmill. A sailboat. Then the wistful voice begins: "Twenty-five thousand mornings, give or take, is all we humans get."
This TV ad has been playing all summer in select cities across the Midwest, enticing visitors from Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit to vacation in "Pure Michigan."
The $17.5-million campaign - all heart and naked emotion - is designed to appeal to our secret longing for simplicity, thus drawing big bucks and new tourists. Starting next month, the state will spend an additional $30 million in the tourism campaign.
Last year, in its first summer, Pure Michigan - created by the McCann Erickson ad agency - was credited with bringing in about 1.5 million new out-of-state tourist visits, mainly from Illinois and Ohio. The gain, however, was offset by a 10% decline in tourism by cash-strapped Michigan residents, and overall visits plummeted by 6.3 million.
This year's results won't be released until Jan. 1.
Supporters say the state needs to look at things this way: The Pure Michigan campaign may be preventing the tourism situation from being worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at wzzm13.com ...
Forget Detroit, visit Benton Harbor. It’s in far worse shape than Detoilet.
Even 25 years ago it looked like a bombed out city.
“Twenty-five thousand mornings, give or take, is all we humans get.” ...unless you visit Detroit!
The Dort Highway and Pierson Road tours. Always an adventure.
Downtown Detroit actually isn’t that bad. It’s the areas away from downtown that are worth avoiding.
Is this a sequel to “RobcCop”? I thought that was the original Detroit tourist commercial.
Take her Up North in the fall. That’s always a nice area, and a whole different “state” than the people’s republic of Ann Arbor where I live.
Michigan is really a beautiful state. I drive through there from my Canadian road trips and going through Port Huron and taking 75 North to the UP is pure tranquility.
I love how so many people think Detroit IS Michigan. NOT. We spent the last week of August near Grayling. Spent most of my time sitting by the Manistee River watching the water roll by. We made a side trip up to Mackinac Island. The weather was gorgeous. Don’t miss a trip to our beautiful state because you think it’s all like Detroit.
Late spring and early autumn have always been on my list. The latter unfortunately coincides with my heaviest business travel season. But there are places I want her to see, and some of them familiar to other expat Michiganders we know here.
Michigan. Land of 10,000 taxes.
When I still lived there I would fish for salmon on the pier at Oscoda.
We would start fishing in the darkness and watch the sun rise on Lake Huron. That sight and the sound of the waves has never been equaled any where I have been in the world.
I wish I could go back but Michigan is such a political and financial mess. Communism writ small.
Idiots. Pay the McCain campaign a third of that to have Sarah Palin drop by twice a month for a couple of years. They’ll get all the traffic they can deal with!
At least they know enough now not to waste their money trying to attract BUSINESSES to Michigan! Thanks Union bosses!
I am from Michigan, as far away as I can get! NM is still too close. That is why I am going to move back to NW AZ when I retire.
“The $17.5-million campaign - all heart and naked emotion - is designed to appeal to our secret longing for simplicity, thus drawing big bucks and new tourists. Starting next month, the state will spend an additional $30 million in the tourism campaign.”
Yep, she’s right. I am BLOWN away!
The ad campaign seems oblivious to the fact that the millions, if not billions of people who’ve already had the pleasureable experience described/portrayed might-would come back again without having to be wooed by state-sponsored commercial ‘invitations’. Word of mouth stories, vacation pictures, travel journals...hundreds of years worth of art, written-word history, photography and films...What the hell? Who doesn’t already know what Michigan has to offer as a travel and leisure destination? People may even begin to wonder...”What’s wrong with Michigan? Why the overtures all the sudden? What’s the problem over there and why do they seem so desperate for our money?”. I think it will turn more people off to coming to Michigan. Like a clingy old girlfriend who pandering to some guy and his family who really wish they’d never met her. What a waste. I predict, within a year, that she will be taking credit for any jump in tourism. She’ll call it money well-spent and “See, I told you so...”, etc. Note to Governor Granholm (D): Stop sucking up!
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Now THAT is funny. Or down town Detroit. Go and see all the once beautiful homes that are in ruin. It will make you sick. So it is fall and they are running tourism adds? Kind of missed summer there politicians. With gas prices so hight no one can afford to go UP NORTH anymore.
Yes I remember both places well. My dad used to work for AC Spark Plug. The Colonials is gone and so is Flint.
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