It’s late and I’m polishing my running diary for tonight’s Los Angeles Kings game against the Arizona Coyotes. It’s been a struggle this season in my first year as a moonlighting sportswriter. The Kings are really bad and coach is worse. How bad is he? He’s so bad that I penned letters to him and then to his boss, general manager Rob Blake. That one took a lot for me because I would never want anyone complaining to my bosses. As far as I know, no one has ever complained about me in writing. Hopefully that streak continues.

Also, I am still waiting for Dr. Peter Lam, Chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, or their executive director Anthony Lau, to call me to sort out the disaster that is their “Treasures of the Heart” tourism commercial.

Inspired by the awfulness of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, I’ve unearthed a handful of truly horrendous tourism campaigns…

Barcelona

This ancient Barcelona video showcases every fountain in the land. And here you though they were only known for their food, beaches, Gaudi architecture, and pickpockets.

Canada

Once upon a time a photobombing squirrel made big news in the Great White North. So, of course the marketing folks at Banff Lake Louise Tourism rushed a commercial to air touting its national park. Needless to say this didn’t age well. Now, or then.

Latvia

Here, the inability of Latvians to communicate without a huge supply of napkins and tomato ketchup is showcased. Also showcased is awkward couple flirts, the cheap beer, and bad waiter haircuts.

Miami Beach

In 1970, Miami Beach jumped into the colorful advertising gimmick game first launched by Mary Wells Lawrence for Braniff.

I’m red, I love…
I’m yellow, I groove…
I’m blue, I appreciate…
There’s one place where colors and people best come together – Miami Beach!

This is opening of the original meandering infomercial type (13+ minutes long) featuring a shameless number of good looking, eyebrow raising women in front of roaring fires and reclining beds.

Massachusetts

In the 1980s, Massachusetts dreamed up this classic showcasing New Englanders living in harmony. However bad the spot is, it features maybe the best tourism jingle ever:

This spot was so bad good that it was lampooned by Family Guy:

The post The Five Worst Tourism Campaigns I Could Find on YouTube appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

I’m phone watching once again, half-heatedly expecting Dr. Peter Lam, Chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, or their executive director Anthony Lau, to call me to sort out this mess created by their sexist and creepy “Treasures of the Heart” tourism commercial.

Before I go on my whimsical rant about how the watchful eyes of the Media Guy could have saved Hong Kong millions of dollars in bad publicity, let’s go to the tape to view this tone-deaf advertisement.

My eyes tell me this is more an ad about human trafficking. Showcasing the controlling relationship one has over the other is a lesson in manipulation.

I understand that “Treasures”, directed by Chan Chi-fat, endeavors to showcase an spontaneous starry-eyed escapade but rapidly degenerated into a 1:45-minute movie trailer that can best be played out as a Halloween thriller. This is more Taken 5 than Love Actually. All we need is Liam Neeson talking about his special skills and this poor young lady being loaded into a shipping container and we’re all set.

How do you make a girl follow your manipulative directions and do anything you say? Well, that’s an easy one: take her passport.

Dr. Lam and Mr. Lau, did you watch this before greenlighting this to air? If you sent this to me as your media consultant, after a single viewing I would have penned you this email:

“It’s utterly criminal to take somebody’s passport to impede them from traveling. In fact, this is a textbook maneuver favored by sex traffickers in the Far East to trap girls and women. Please see attached a revised script where you can save most of your footage and eliminate the ominous undertones of this spot.”

During the flashbacks in the spot, we gain insights on the their relationship including where they fell in love and where they argued and where her camera was obliterated. The make good at the end where he gives her a new camera and instructs her to “Don’t forget to put my photo up on your dorm door…” is also textbook male sociopath behavior.

The core messaging of the boyfriend’s negative influence on the girl—one who is on a journey to better her own life—wasn’t lost on me as my head spun around on its axis while watching it.

It left me murmuring to Dr. Lam, Mr. Lau, and the entire Hong Kong Tourism Board: “What were you thinking?” This spot does little else than to embolden emotional abuse in relationships while dressing it up as “romance” and “love.” After watching this, Hong Kong has zippo appeal and would never encourage sane people to visit. As Vivian Ward would say, “Big mistake. Big. Huge”

Also, I must admonish the headline writers for the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Really, is this the type of thing that gets people booking airline bundles on Expedia?

“Girl meets boy. Girl leaves boy. Boy hides girl’s passport: A #ShamShuiPo love story.” 

I called Dr. Lam and Mr. Lau, but an entire day has passed and alas, my phone hasn’t rung, nor will I think it is going to happen. Gentlemen, my ringer is on and I’ll answer 24/7. My fees are small(ish) and will save you further humiliation on the back end on future campaigns. I can turn almost anything into gold. ICYMI, I was able to convince the New York Times that Damascus was a top 10 destination once upon a time!

Don’t say a second time, “We should have called the Media Guy!” I’ll be waiting with my special set of media skills.

This is what happens when you take a girl’s passport and Liam Neeson gets wind of it:

Previous “You Should Have Called the Media Guy” Columns:

Burger King
H&M
The American Red Cross
Pepsi
Kellogg’s
Anaheim Ducks
T-Mobile, Dove, and McDonald’s

The post Hong Kong Tourism Board: You Should Have Called the Media Guy! appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

First Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK, First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, and Father of Dragons (I made that last one up!) Kim Jong-un has outlawed sarcasm, a method of satirical wit that has long plagued the esteemed workers of the great North Korea.

He really did ban it, reportedly because he was getting sick of people agreeing with him “ironically.” The Twitterverse was aglow with this unexpected gift from our friend in Asia, my favorite being:

On a related noted, there’s apparently some truth that the paranoid leader plans to call The Simpsons to enforce his well-thought ban with this little baby:

The ban makes me wonder if this tourism ad is real or a the actual hoax that spurred Kim to consider if his people take him seriously:

Dear Kim Jong-un…you might want to click away from this column because it’s all sarcasm, all of the time from here on out as I look at some of the tourism ads I’ve stumbled across recently.

It’s a pretty sad lot. I am sure you will agree. (And to the folks at Emirates Airlines, I didn’t touch one of your ming-boggling advertisements!) So, like I did last week, let’s jump into some of the ads and see what’s game-changing and what’s not…

REACTION: It’s not so much that Mary and her little lamb have been oddly-Photoshopped into this ad with a passenger train roaring toward her that bothers me. What strikes me as as truly odd is that if children walking around the Himalayas is a thing in North India, the ad agency could have hired an actual girl for a few rupees. And what of the poorly-worded slogan? I don’t want to typo-shame anyone (goodness knows I need 10 proofreads and there are still mistakes in my writing) but “A new surprises at every step” is an automatic hall of shame inductee. Skip the five-year waiting period. You’re in!

REACTION: That’s not creepy or anything. All that’s missing is the call to the BAU Unit in Criminal Minds in the next scene. Aside from that, I really don’t know about sleeping in a room where the headboard table lamps are an inch away from the ceiling. Note to Swiss Deluxe Hotels: We don’t want creepers stowing away in our freshly cleaned rooms and ceilings lower than seven feet. Check and check.

REACTION: Why doesn’t the ad just say, “Let it burn Mr. Fireman!” Meanwhile the old guy with the dog is on fire, the little girl’s hair is on fire, and the guy in the Dodgers hat is also on fire. All I can think of is the stupidity of the people who conceived this one. If Donald Trump were evaluating this ad in The Apprentice boardroom he’d be screaming “You’re Fired!” until his face turned purple.

REACTION: I looked at this ad maybe 101 times and I have nothing. Not a word speechless. I am completely clueless on what’s going on in the Swiss Alps with a guy and his tools and a line of cows.

REACTION: Simply the most racist ad I’ve ever seen.

REACTION: I thought sexist airline ads were a thing of the past. Last year when Nikki Minaj took my seat in business class, I covered a bunch of misogynistic ads from days past. It seems that one of those Mad Men can muster up some SMH ad concepts when this one hit the travel magazine pages. Based on what I see, the Firefly flight attendant’s derrière is half off. Is that before you land or after? Needless to say, I’m not the only one who was offended. Facing mounting pressure, Firefly deleted the ads from its Facebook page and made a public apology:

The post Intolerable Sarcasm featuring Stupid Tourism Ads appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Not really sure how long this morning’s column will end up being. I’m supposed to be asleep right now, since it’s three in the morning and I’m in a hotel room in Miami, where I’m getting up to go on a supplier diversity conference tomorrow that will occupy my whole day. Insomnia’s got me worried that the conference is going to be a nightmare, and so I figure if I’m awake, I might as well use this time in the wee small hours to report on the latest Media Guy Struggles and we’ll see how much stuff I end up getting to.

Traveling is tough on the body…but good for the soul. You see things you wouldn’t normally see, taste food you wouldn’t normally order and meet people who are otherwise tucked into their office with their phones on perpetual “do not disturb.”

I rose to do a little workout and some yoga. After spending 18 of 27 days on the road trekking through Damascus, Rome, Washington D.C. and Miami you have to set your mood and get back on the workout trail. Butter-laden foods and heavy carbs could set you back pretty quickly. Everyone is fond of the slimmer, sleeker Media Guy so now it’s an obligation to keep going. 19 pounds to go.

Meanwhile work beckons and that means the usual suspects masquerading as experts. People always have trouble creating intelligent tourism campaigns and when there’s a committee, it is worse. So there I was kicking around tourism slogans for a country we just signed and everyone was lost in the whole socialistic “everyone gets a vote” method of copywriting. Of course my mind wandered about as if it were on a walk through the Outback of Australia on a mission to identify the worst tourism slogans.

I once visited Indonesia and saw a enormous billboard in bright lights on a rooftop: “VISIT JAKARTA”. The sign was in Jakarta, so everyone who saw it had either (a) already complied, or (b) already lived there. Well done, guys.

Another tourism faux pas was made by New Zealand. Their slogan? “100 Percent Pure New Zealand.” Couldn’t Satan use the same line?: “Hell. 100 Percent Pure Hell.”

Another hellish slogan was “Come to Bangladesh before the tourists.” That sounds like a warning, “When you get here you won’t find any other visitors and you’ll think. “Uh-oh. Why am I the only person here? What do they know that I don’t?”

Spain’s Andalucía has a slogan: “Andalucía. There’s only one.” This is short and sweet, but it what does it tell you? It could apply to virtually anywhere. Watch how it works:

“Tehachapi. There’s only one.”
“The Bronx Landfill. There’s only one.”
“My Warped Mind. There’s only one.”

Catch my drift?

Israel: Size doesn’t matter! Oh yes, watch this one. It’s a classic.

In Hong Kong, the tourism board once used “Hong Kong will take your breath away.” That was great until scientists discovered that it was true. There was so much air-pollution that residents had to go to neighboring Macau each time they wanted to take a deep breath without choking.

My Indonesia: Just a Smile Away. If only a smile was all it took to travel overseas.

Back to reality, the team is in full gear. Some good ideas and some clunkers. We engage in real life within the tourism industry, after all, places are not places. They are “destinations.” When tourism becomes important enough in an area, public and private interests team up to form a destination marketing organization and hire an ad agency, like us. We’re responsible for the entire “branding” of the destination, and the slogan is just a part of the overall marketing campaign. But it’s the key cog in the machine.

Take the U.S. The longevity of a tourism slogan is short. As a matter of fact over a 21 year period, only six of the 50 State slogans remain in use.

So, back to the brainstorming. I urge the team not to be lazy, as in “Utah Lazy.” Their idea of a good slogan is adding an exclamation point. “Utah!” was the obvious choice here. Yes, a freaking exclamation point was the height of their creativity (!!). It must be working because they’ve stuck with it for 17 years.

In British Columbia they can’t make up their minds at all. Right before the last Olympics what used to be sweet and simple, “Beautiful BC” transformed into “BC: The Best Place on Earth” . Who says Canadians are humble? At least they left out the exclamation point.

“We should have some vision,” I explained. Unlike Panama’s famous slogan, “Panama. It will never leave you” which is reminiscent of childhood trauma and STDs. Speaking of which, how about Albania’s “A New Mediterranean Love”? Sounds a bit promiscuous, no?

In the middle of my mini Prof. Media Guy lecture a slogan flew into my head much in the same manner “Hey Soul Sister” by Train camps out in your mind all day like a Cuba squatter: “Colombia – the only risk is wanting to stay.” It took 45 minutes to get that out of my head.

And with that, I need to finish this egg-white omelet, cram in a workout and take a shower before heading out to conference and network the hell out of the day.

“Conference Networking. 100 Percent Pure Hell.” Hmmmm, not bad…

The post Tourism, Socialism and Insomnia Hell appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

From the cloak of Wadi Rum serenity to the nutrient-rich mud from the Dead Sea, Jordan delivers to the heart and soul.

Why do we travel? Most of us have everything we need within a few miles of home: a place to sleep, our jobs, luxuries of life and entertainment and more. So what is it? For the majority of pleasure travelers it’s simple: the eternal unveiling of the mysteries of a dissimilar land, the search for the perfect view and clearest waters, and yearning to connect with something new and old.

Jordan’s history and places have been hinted about in popular culture. From Indiana Jones’s wild horseback ride through Petra, to Cleopatra’s thirst for the finest beauty products from the Dead Sea, to Peter O’Toole leading the Arabs through Wadi Rum, we have been teased with the beauty and mystery of a land typically known as a kind neighbor to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

“Even without the buildings carved into the side of the mountains, the vast rock formations and canyon walls are worthy of “breathtaking” status. Centuries of earthquakes and neglect have left much of Petra’s history covered in sand and silt, which makes the mystery that much more alluring.”

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has no oil and is officially a water poor nation. But it has one incredibly valuable resource in the troubled Middle East—peace. It is not an easy item to export, but people flock there when they need it, making use of a plethora of five-star resorts and hotels until it is safe to go home. Iraqi business people who can no longer function in their own war-torn country are immigrating to Jordan in droves. They have created a massive building boom. Palatial homes and modern apartment blocks are springing up everywhere.

When I traveled there this past spring, I was struck by the misconceptions the West has of the Middle East. Americans, especially, tend to think of it as a menacing place, but nothing is further from the truth, considering that Jordan enjoys a crime rate well below that of Sweden. As soon as I said I was American, I was greeted with big smiles. People were not only friendly, but well-informed about our country and its current events, and they were eager to meet Americans.

For my complete take on Heshimite Kingdom of Jordan and the beauty of it all, here’s the ALO magazine URL: http://tinyurl.com/ykdhjev

The post World Travels: Jordan, an Oasis of Peace and Beauty appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

I just returned from another trip to Damascus planning the 2011-13 Media and Communications Plan for Syria and things couldn’t have gone better.

I mean I don’t usually pat myself on the back, but here is a case where I am compelled to do so. I mean it’s not often David bests Goliath. Here’s a case where I was told something was impossible and we made it very possible.

Q: Did you ever think that Syria could get positive press in North America media?

A: Well, they are!

***Warning – Shameless Self-Promotion***

And, it’s all because of the innovative and distinctive first ever North American Delegation to Syria in October 2009 that we lead at Unique Image, Inc…

-U.S. Sanctions? No problem.

-No Twitter or Facebook access? You don’t need them with all of the turn of time attractions from Crusader Castles to Roman ruins.

-No American brands, like McDonald’s and Starbucks? Substitute with old world hospitality of the bustling restaurants with five-star food.

We have been able to overcome it all and and gain phenomenal press across the continent (8 million in circulation and counting!). I’m talking about top publications like More, San Francisco Examiner, ALO magazine, Travel Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dreamscapes, Four Seasons magazine, Long Island Pulse, Reviewit, and more.

Now comes the hard part:::keeping it going. You can bet that we can and will. The only thing that could ever stop us is conflict in the region.

We’ve launched pioneering international programs partnering with government and economic developmental agencies, trade associations and chambers of commerce. Our efforts have greatly expanded the scope of cultural, consumer and business-to-business prospects in the U.S. and the Middle East. We are the folks that guided historic sister city agreement between Los Angeles and Beirut signed into effect by the Los Angeles City Council.

Make the impossible, possible?

I love the sound of that.

The post Syria as a Viable Tourism Destination? appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.