Pure Michigan earns praise

Courtesy of the governor's office: "The award-winning Pure Michigan tourism campaign has received another accolade, this one from Forbes, naming it among the 10 all-time best travel campaigns. ... Forbes ranked the Pure Michigan campaign sixth best, saying, 'this campaign sells with its simple and universal message: that sometimes we all need to get away from life’s stresses and relax a bit.'  Clearly, the three judges agreed.  Ranking the campaigns were Peter Greenberg, travel journalist; Rudy Maxa, contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler magazine; and Tom Parsons, publisher of BestFares.com."

Congrats all around. And on the the most important point for state government: "For each dollar Michigan spent on out-of-state advertising from 2004 through 2008, new visits to Michigan stimulated by that advertising created more than $40 of spending at Michigan businesses and generated $2.86 in new state tax collections."

Comments

[JRS]

'this campaign sells with its simple and universal message: that sometimes we all need to get away from life’s stresses and relax a bit.'

Perhaps people from outside of
Michigan will buy that line,
if you live in this state I don't
know anybody who sees this place
as a vacation from life's stresses.

[Michael Motta]

Not to be a cynic, just to exercise a little critical thinking . . . What methodology was used to figure out exactly what revenues were "created" and "generated", and specifically "stimulated" by the advertising campaign? Was there a polling operation asking "have you seen the ads?", "were you stimulated by them?, "did you then go spend money in Michigan?", "if so, how much money did you spend?"

I think this is possible, so I'm not mocking it, just curious. Whenever causation (actually this was watered down to "stimulation", which is a red flag itself) enters a fray, you have to be circumspect.

By the way, here's a heavily related link: http://noise.typepad.com/john_schneider/2008/07/pure-michigan-p.html

[libertarianman]

They make it up, Michael. Have you EVER heard an evaluation of a government program that said, "For every $1 of your money we 'invested', we got back only 38 cents"?

All the money spent by the second-home-owning Chicagoans in their Lake Michigan getaways is counted. Never mind the fact that they spend the money, with or without come-and-see-us ad campaigns.

Shortly after my wife quit her job, we paid off our house. Ergo, unemployment increases home ownership.

[rukidding]

Whine, whine, whine. Why can't people accept some thing good for a change instead of always wallowing in negativity?

The "Pure Michigan" campaign is very well done and should make each of us proud when we see one of the ads. Kudos to the state on this one.

[Michael Motta]

There's a difference between being negative and examining something. I do the same thing to "bad" news. Does that mean I'm wallowing in positivity?

I don't have anything special against the campaign, I just like to examine fact-claims especially if they're hanging over the plate like that. The calculations are different from any subjective feelings about the ads anyway.