Kibbe on Marketing: Don’t Remind Me

I’ve noticed a very interesting commercial that’s been running lately. The Gulf States have put on some good old-fashioned co-branding touting the region as a wonderful destination to visit during winter vacation. The spot features feel-good shots of the legendary Southern hospitality, even more legendary food and lovely beaches all pitched to viewers by ebullient local business owners. The theme is “Best Season,” a mild play-on-words referring to the Gulf states have their best tourism season in years and the region being an ideal place for the holiday/winter season.

The Gulf region has some of the busiest working ports in the country as well as ecosystems so unique, they are found nowhere else in the world – so say nothing about the shrimp! My husband was lucky enough to visit Pensacola shortly after the spill and found its beaches pristine and the people delightful. His photos have me desperate for a trip there together soon.

I couldn’t be more thrilled that the Gulf Coast is making huge strides coming back from the British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster that took place in April 2010, during which 11 people lost their lives and the environment endured destruction that I seriously doubt parts of which will ever be able to fully recover. As part of BP’s multibillion-dollar Gulf clean-up response, it seeks to repair the damaged tourist economy.

The sad thing is the commercial spot isn’t put on by the states’ own economic and tourism development organizations – it is a BP ad, plain and simple. In fact, the last few seconds of the commercial features BP’s logo and the warm and fuzzy caption “Brought to you by BP” just to make sure viewers know this message wasn’t brought to you by the Gulf itself. Why didn’t BP just leave well enough alone and let the state’s use the money to sell themselves?

The commercial (actually, it’s one of several featuring the same spokespeople) isn’t so much working to repair a region and all it contains but a glitz piece to meant to repair BP’s social (and probably financial) capital. Furthermore, placing the BP logo at the end of the commercial only serves to bring us all right back to the disaster in the spring of 2010. If nothing else, leaving the BP logo off would have made the specter of the disaster much, much more subtle and the message of a vibrant regional economy that much clearer, playing to BP’s needs even better. Throwing “BP” in our faces only serves to remind us all of the disaster, not the incredible work the people of the Gulf have done to save the region.

If the ends justify the means, then I truly hope these ads will attract crowds to this beautiful and gracious part of our country.
Cindy Kibbe, an editor for a New England business publication for nearly a decade, can be reached at cindykibbe@comcast.net.