Agency Hopes Real Winner on Oscar Night Will Be California

The millions of Americans tuned into the Academy Awards next month will be hit with a sophisticated new advertising campaign urging them to visit Hollywood and other California landmarks to bolster the Golden State’s sagging tourism industry.

In the new state-sponsored campaign, TV audiences from New England to the Northwest will see samples of the energy of Los Angeles, the romance of San Francisco and the diverse recreational attractions of San Diego.

Even with the legendary appeal of the mountains, beaches and deserts made world-famous by countless television shows and films, California ranked last in tourism growth in the nation last year, said Christy Campbell, director of California’s Department of Commerce.

The TV advertisements, which will run only during “special event” programming such as the Oscars or TV miniseries because of high costs, will feature lively people taking their pleasure and reveling in the “California life style,” tourism officials said.

“The advertisements will be ‘mini-movies’ about people enjoying the ambiance of California,” she said. “What you are not going to see is a travelogue or an ‘I Love New York’ (style) campaign.”

Television ads introducing viewers to the state’s key cities will be reinforced by magazine ads advertising regional delights in areas ranging from the Gold Country of Northern California to the deserts of Southern California.

The general theme in the print and television ads that debut in February will be “The Californias,” reinforcing the diversity of the state’s regions.

“They are so unique, they are, in a sense, countries unto themselves,” Campbell said.

Making up 7% of the gross state product, California’s $28-billion tourism industry has been declining since 1979. The number of visitors to California dropped 9.8% in 1983, while total trips nationwide rose about 9.9%.

The decline in travel cost California 15,800 jobs, $762 million in travel expenditures and $177 million in travel-generated payroll, Campbell said.

Part of the reason for the decline has been attributed to the success of other states’ aggressive tourism advertising, such as the highly successful, seven-year “I Love New York” campaign. The effect has been to lure tourists from California to other parts of the United States.

Competition for tourism dollars has increased heavily in neighboring states, with Nevada spending more than $2 million to promote tourism, Alaska more than $7 million and Colorado about $3.5 million.

States such as Utah and Colorado have joined New York in attempting to persuade people to sample the pleasures offered outside California.

“We have such a high per-capita income that they (the other states) come to California to skim the cream,” Campbell said.

A Utah tourism official boasted that his state’s photo advertisements are worthy of layouts in National Geographic Magazine. But Campbell said the focus of California’s campaign is to emphasize what people can do and enjoy, rather than to rely on “picture postcard” advertising.

Paul Keye of Keye, Donna & Perlstein, the Los Angeles advertising agency that developed the new campaign, said the plan is to make the idea of a trip to California as appealing as going to an exotic foreign land.

“The Gold Country ad will be like reading an ad about Peru or Portugal,” he said. “We want to say ‘Disneyland is terrific, but did you know about the other Californias?’ ”

One goal, supported by the state’s new $5-million tourism promotion budget, is to get Californians to spend money at home by discovering other parts of the state, Campbell said.

The $5 million in California’s tourism budget poured in after last year’s passage of the California Tourism Policy Act and will elevate the state from 47th to fifth among state travel offices in terms of development spending, said Flo Snyder, director of the office of tourism.

The final objective of the campaign is to develop new jobs, Campbell said, citing job development as one of Gov. George Deukmejian’s highest priorities.

Tourism provides entry-level service jobs in the cities and encourages employment growth in outlying areas, she said.

In Los Angeles, where tourism and convention business make up the city’s largest industry, more than 200,000 area jobs are supported directly or indirectly by tourism, Campbell said.