Greetings and Solicitations : National Ads Unveiled to Bring L.A. Business

The people who brought you those “Together We’re the Best. Los Angeles.” ads unveiled on a rainy Thursday their first national campaign, touting L.A.’s sun, surf and sand along with the region’s business advantages.

The New Los Angeles Marketing Partnership’s ads, which will appear in national publications, shift the focus from local mood enhancement to encouraging business and job growth. The new ads target small and medium-size companies that might want to move to Southern California, whereas last year’s ads sought to correct misperceptions about Los Angeles, but only for a regional audience. A series of new local radio ads will highlight small-business success stories.

“The idea is to give a feeling that Los Angeles is the place to do business and to give the facts to back that up,” Mayor Richard Riordan said. “We’re trying to get people to want to come to Los Angeles for selfish reasons.”

The New Los Angeles Marketing Partnership is one of Riordan’s pet projects in his quest to make Los Angeles more business-friendly. But the public-private partnership also has been a pet peeve of some in the community who have groused about everything from the first-year ads’ lack of hipness to the slogan’s tortured rhyme scheme.

Measuring the effectiveness of the campaign so far is a tricky business. After all, how do you take the temperature of our collective self-esteem? But NLAMP is armed with a survey showing high local awareness of its advertisements as well as a positive response to its advertised 800 number.

The first scheduled national advertisement in this year’s $2.5-million campaign features a swimsuit-clad man reading a book under a palm tree with the words, “If you think driving in the snow is tough, try running across hot sand with bare feet.” The ad pokes fun at colder climates and invites business executives to learn more about Los Angeles by calling an 800 number, which connects them to a business assistance network run by the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.

The approach, engineered by the downtown ad firm Davis, Ball & Colombatto, marks a sharp detour not only from the earlier ads but also from Southern California’s reputation as the favorite poaching ground of every town with an economic development department.

“We wanted to have a little fun and remind people that no one here is calling in sick because of the weather,” said Regina Birdsell, executive director of NLAMP. “There are some bottom-line business advantages to being in this region.”

Other ads discuss L.A’s surge in imports and exports (with a crashing wave in the background), the region’s large concentration of small businesses (with more surf in the background) and a line graph showing the area’s sharp plunge and rebound in jobs (the resulting curve looks like a smile superimposed over blue sky and puffy white clouds).

NLAMP said a recent survey found that nearly half the respondents had seen the first year’s campaign and that 76% of those who saw it remember one or more of the positive economic facts featured. What’s more, 90% of the thousands of callers to the 800 number supported the marketing effort.

Birdsell said the group has been formally tracking calls to the 800 line only since February and that calls have been averaging about 450 a month this year. The business assistance network is working with 88 companies who called the phone number, she said.