Using Some Character(s) to Sell L.A.
Civic leaders trying to sell local business on staying in Los Angeles are getting some help from Barbie and Bugs Bunny.
The characters appear in a series of TV ads from the Los Angeles Marketing Partnership as part of an effort to retain business by portraying the region as a hotbed of innovation.
LAMP, a nonprofit alliance of government and business, hopes the $2-million campaign will encourage companies that might be thinking about moving to lower tax states to stay put.
“This is historically where great ideas start and where great things happen,” said Stan Kaplan, creative director of DavisElen, the Los Angeles advertising agency that created the campaign. “Why would you want to leave?”
The campaign is the successor to the “Together, We’re the Best” advertising launched three years ago. Intended to boost civic pride, the ads were criticized as dull and lacking the snappiness of such slogans as “I Love New York.” But LAMP said it was pleased with the campaign.
Besides Barbie and Bugs, the new ads cite Los Angeles as the birthplace of the fortune cookie (cooked up by Hong Kong Noodle Co.) and the space shuttle (built by Rockwell International in Palmdale). But some innovations cited in the ads don’t live up to the campaign slogan: “It’s amazing what grows in Los Angeles.”
For example, the Jet Ski, cited in the ads as being invented in Los Angeles, is now manufactured in Lincoln, Neb.
There is confusion over a claim that the modern swimsuit was invented here. LAMP’s press materials said Los Angeles-based Cole of California contributed the so-called Peek-A-Boo suit, but the television and print ads depict a bikini.
“Does it have to be literal?” said Tracy Williams, a spokeswoman for LAMP. “It is trying to get across an idea.”
The campaign avoids addressing head-on the grumblings about doing business in Los Angeles, ranging from traffic to bureaucratic red tape. Kaplan said LAMP decided to concentrate on what is positive about the region. Each ad has a telephone number that businesses can call to get help with specific problems, he said.
Besides television ads, the campaign includes billboards, radio and magazine ads in national business publications, including Fortune, Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. The magazine ads will be aimed at businesses that might potentially locate here.
The campaign is expected to run for about six months. Bob Elen, president of DavisElen, said that virtually everyone in the region will have seen or heard an ad 30 times by the end of the campaign.
