Pure Michigan Campaign Wins Top Awards Named Best State Tourism Radio and Best State Tourism Niche Marketing in America

KirstenBorgstrom
(517) 335-1871 or [email protected]

Lansing, Michigan - The US Travel Association honored Travel Michigan with a Mercury Award for the Best State Tourism Radio Advertising for its Pure Michigan campaign. In addition, Travel Michigan also won a Mercury Award for the Best State Tourism Niche Marketing for the Pure Michigan golf and hunting campaigns.

"We are thrilled to again receive this industry recognition for the Pure Michigan campaign," said George Zimmermann, Vice President of Travel Michigan, a business unit of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. "This recognition comes on the heels of Forbes naming Pure Michigan one of the ten best tourism promotion campaigns of all time."

These two awards join the other Mercury Awards the campaign has already received including Best State Tourism Advertising Campaign (2007), Best State Tourism Television Commercials (2007), and Best State Tourism Radio Campaign (2008).

The Pure Michigan tourism campaign went national for the first time this year and ran through June on 15 cable channels: Golf Channel, Travel Channel, A&E, Bravo, Style, Fine Living, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, E!, DIY Network, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and Fox News.

"There are millions of Americans who know little or nothing about the vibrancy, heritage, culture, arts and entertainment in our great cities, our sandy beaches and stunning overlooks along America's longest fresh-water coastline, or the majesty and recreation in our 19 million acres of magnificent forests," Zimmermann said. "The Pure Michigan campaign is designed to introduce to the nation the attributes that make Michigan such a popular and unique destination."

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.

The Mercury Awards is a program created by the National Council of State Tourism Directors to recognize its members for excellence and creative accomplishment in state tourism marketing and promotion, and to inspire the continued development of truly imaginative and exciting destination marketing and promotion programs.

The Birmingham, Michigan office of McCann Erickson developed the strategy and creative for the Pure Michigan campaign. McCann's Chief Strategy Officer Mark Lantz explains their approach: "The campaign is intended to entice out-of-state travelers from neighboring states about one place that still feels magic, mythic, authentic, untamed, unspoiled, uncompromised, timeless and true. It's pure Michigan. We wanted to communicate to consumers what makes Michigan special, and identify experiences you get here that you can't get anywhere else."

Pure Michigan commercials can be viewed/listened to online at michigan.org/travelads.

McCann Erickson's Birmingham, Michigan office creates advertising and integrated marketing communications programs for Travel Michigan; Saab Automobile USA; General Motors Corporation (Corporate Advertising); Delphi; Honeywell Consumer Product Group's Prestone, FRAM and Autolite units; and a variety of other clients. McCannWorldgroup is the world's largest multinational advertising agency system, with operations in 131 countries. It is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE: IPG). To find out more about McCann Erickson, visit its Web site at www.mccann.com.

Travel Michigan, a division of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, is the State of Michigan's official agency for the promotion of tourism. Travel Michigan markets the state's tourism industry and provides valuable visitor information services.