United States of Awesome Possibilities

[raysox]

Ever see those "Visit South Africa!", or South Korea, Switzerland, Jamaica ect. Well, the USA doesn't have a tourism campaign. I actually heard about this in my AP Human Geography class. But the US wants to market the country as a place that isn't how we're seen. Rather, as a place of awesome possibilities for tourism. From what I remember from class, the colors aren't red white and blue because they didn't want to portray patriotism. And the logo is a bunch of pixels coming together to make one formation, like the US. The campaign will start early 2012. It hopefully will open tourism up in places like Florida so homeboy can get a job.

Article

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/marketing-america-united-states-awesome-possibilities-201520762.html

First time I saw it, I thought it wasn't that great. But I've grown to like it, it's really not bad.

[CAB]

Kinda weird, I never really thought about there being any type of tourism campaign for the US. I like it though. I didn't get the logo at first, but after reading the article it makes more sense. The "awesome" part of the slogan seems a little unprofessional, but I think it works.

[hettinger_rl]

Isn't it ironic that America is trying to get people from other countries to come here and also trying to keep people from some countries out?

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

Isn't it ironic that America is trying to get people from other countries to come here and also trying to keep people from some countries out?

it's the same logic in 'sex is bad but don't use condoms or birth control'

[drdougfresh]

I like how diversity is in quotes in the press release.

Good for us, we need more tourism. I'm not so much a fan of a logo that looks kinda childish without the explanation, but once you get the symbolism, it works. I'm just not so sure how the rest of the world will view that.

[fumbler]

Ilike it and i see how it would work as it looks iratic.

[STL FANATIC]

Isn't it ironic that America is trying to get people from other countries to come here and also trying to keep people from some countries out?

it's the same logic in 'sex is bad but don't use condoms or birth control'

No it's not.

America is trying to keep out illegal immigrants because there is a high amount of criminal activity and negative economic impact stemming from it. They're trying to bring in legal tourists to stimulate positive economic activity.

Basically every first world country doing the same thing. Not strange at all.

[Gfonk04]

Isn't it ironic that America is trying to get people from other countries to come here and also trying to keep people from some countries out?

BAM! Thread derailed in the third post, nicely done.

Raysox, I think the reason we've never seen a national tourism campaign is probably (this is a guess) because individual States have had their own tourism. Personally I think that makes more sense anyway. It's easier to say "Visit California! Disneyland, Yosemite, San Francisco!" than to say "Visit America! We've got... oh geeze, where do we start? Mount Rushmore is cool. And the Grand Canyon, but that would be tough to see in the same trip. If you're gonna hit Mount Rushmore you probably won't make it to New York so we'll talk about that next time..."

America is conveniently divided into 50 different tourist destinations, marketing them individually makes more sense.

So far as the campaign goes, I get the de-emphasizing patriotic themes, not just to downplay nationalism, but also because they're not asking people to come here to patronize our flag industry. The concept of "E Pluribus Unum" is a good one, but I think the design they're going for would better lend itself to video, where each pixel starts as a photo maybe and then dissolves or whatever to become one of the pixels in the mosaic "USA." As a still image it makes me think of a baseball scoreboard or the news ticker in Times Square...

Also, I love the word "awesome" and over-use it all the time, but for a professional marketing strategy? To other countries?

[Cosmic]

Isn't it ironic that America is trying to get people from other countries to come here and also trying to keep people from some countries out?

BAM! Thread derailed in the third post, nicely done.

Raysox, I think the reason we've never seen a national tourism campaign is probably (this is a guess) because individual States have had their own tourism. Personally I think that makes more sense anyway. It's easier to say "Visit California! Disneyland, Yosemite, San Francisco!" than to say "Visit America! We've got... oh geeze, where do we start? Mount Rushmore is cool. And the Grand Canyon, but that would be tough to see in the same trip. If you're gonna hit Mount Rushmore you probably won't make it to New York so we'll talk about that next time..."

America is conveniently divided into 50 different tourist destinations, marketing them individually makes more sense.

So far as the campaign goes, I get the de-emphasizing patriotic themes, not just to downplay nationalism, but also because they're not asking people to come here to patronize our flag industry. The concept of "E Pluribus Unum" is a good one, but I think the design they're going for would better lend itself to video, where each pixel starts as a photo maybe and then dissolves or whatever to become one of the pixels in the mosaic "USA." As a still image it makes me think of a baseball scoreboard or the news ticker in Times Square...

Also, I love the word "awesome" and over-use it all the time, but for a professional marketing strategy? To other countries?

I think that makes sense to an extent, but I think most people wouldn't take in "California" in a single trip any more than they could see the whole USA. I think the commercials are just to get the conversation started, to plant that seed in your head. I'd say pretty much all travel commercials are mixes of different places, seasons, holidays, etc. The point is to get you excited about "Norway" or "Jamaica". The details come later, especially in the age with so much travel information and booking easily accessible online. Really, I think the most important point is that presumably a federal program would be better able to reach the international markets.

[speedy]

Isn't it ironic that America is trying to get people from other countries to come here and also trying to keep people from some countries out?

it's the same logic in 'sex is bad but don't use condoms or birth control'

No it's not.

America is trying to keep out illegal immigrants because there is a high amount of criminal activity and negative economic impact stemming from it. They're trying to bring in legal tourists to stimulate positive economic activity.

Basically every first world country doing the same thing. Not strange at all.

Couldn't have said it better myself.