PhillyInc

Visit Chicago, Atlanta or Boston this summer, flip on a television and you may see Philadelphia — at its most historic, hip and stylish. The nonprofit Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. has been airing a new TV spot in select cities nationwide that departs in style from its "Philly is More Fun When You Sleep Over" theme. Last year's TV commercial was a musical send-up with a pajama-clad white man singing and dancing on Broad Street. This year's spot has a smart-looking African American couple frolicking at the Liberty Bell and diverse hipsters toasting in trendy restaurants. The GPTMC said last year’s campaign cost about $2 million and this year around $1.5 million. PhillyInc’s Thomas Ginsberg talked about the commercials with GPTMC's vice president for tourism, Sharon Rossi:

PhillyInc: How do you get ideas for commercials? Rossi: "There’s a whole process. I used to be in sales. People would say I bet you get to take people out and entertain them a lot. But the bottom line is a good sales person does excellent followup, with tickler files back at the consumer or client. And designing advertising is very much the same thing. Everything we do at GPTMC is based on research. Our research drives our stratgegy, our strategic plan. The plan drives the marketing plan. The marketing plan drives all of our integrated marketing, whether advertising or P.R. or hotels. And that is driven by our need to reach the consumer in a better way than anybody else is reaching them. So it's strategy and marketing, and out of that we look at how we design a commercial. It's research and conversations with colleagues, and it’s looking at all our regional partners."

PhillyInc: How as this year different from last year? Rossi: "This spring we did research in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and D.C., and we asked them what they thought of Philadelphia and the [2006] commercial. And their responses were extremely helpful, and we’re doing this research more and more. They said a couple things. They said we need to see more of Philadelphia in your commercial. In the last one, it highlighted the pajama guy because we know the 'Philly is more fun' thing resonated. We heard it all the time. But when we went out of our market, the p.j. guy didn’t make as much sense. People in Boston and Chicago said of course they’re going to sleep over night if they come here. But refresh my memory on what Philadelphia is today? We showed them some pcitures and they said `Wow, that’s not in the commercial.' They wanted to know more about accessibility and history and authenticity. …."

PhillyInc: But isn’t the history stuff old and worn? Don’t you want to market a ‘new’ Philly? Rossi: "No, that’s an interesting point. They said we want to hear about the new things, but history is your lead story. We knew history was important. But we knew we have 30 seconds to tell the story. … We thought we needed to tell them other things. History has already been here. That story is the same, so we’re enhancing it and making it better. What has changed significantly is the restaurants, the hotels, the culture. We thought we needed to tell that story. But what the consumer told us is don’t stop talking about history. This is what we know of you. Lead with this story, and then tell us everything else. That’s what makes advertising so challenging. That’s why it’s so important that all our of messaging is based on strategy design and thoughtful marketing."

PhillyInc: Any negative images of Philly in your research? Rossi: "Just the things we know, that for years Philadelpia was thought to be a … blue-collar place. That was the old story. Today, working with the Chambers and all of the five other [promotional] bureaus and Select Greater Philly, we work together to re-tell the story of all that we are now. This is the new story and all of us are working together, each in one of our unique marketing frame of refernce. Ours is leisure, the convention bureau is conventions, Select Greater Philly is building businesses. …."

PhillyInc: Does the local news about the high murder rate affect the city’s image elsewhere? Rossi: "We did not hear that in our focus groups.”

PhillyInc: Who actually puts the commercials together? Rossi: "We do the creative work and give it to agencies. This year it was LevLane on Broad Street. MayoSeitz Media does the media buy. The Star Group did the online media buy and online creative. They’re all local. We unbundled several years ago and we’re not using one agency to do everything. This time these three worked togther strategically so beautifully, so well, that if a consumer came back and sees us in print, in billboards, on line, there’ll be synergy. It’s so important and something we’re very proud of. …
"The other thing that’s important, what we learned in focus groups, led us to write a creative brief that challenged the agencies to come up with an emotional element, so the consumer could respond emotionally. We were not going to say Philly is a great place to eat. But we will show a restaurant with three gals being cosmopolitan and holding up cosmopolitans … and showing a street with cars going by and saying Philly is ‘more electric.’ We wanted to show, not tell, them.
"We also wanted to make sure that the talent was the same look and feel of people who visit. So you’ll see diversity.”

PhillyInc: Is that the actual demographic, or is it just the target demographic? Rossi: "I think it’s the demographic of people who visit. We target 25-44 year olds and we know it’s young couples who come. There are some older folks and families. But predominantly it’s couples. … We also wanted to make sure that people knew there was night-life here."

PhillyInc: By your figures, last year’s campaign was a little more expensive. What does that tell you? Rossi: "No, last year was not more expenseive. Last year was a major production with standups, heavy equipment, made by Blair Hayes. This year was handheld [cameras]. It was a different producer, Peter Sillen. It was shot differently. The direction and goals were completely different. Last year was a retail message, and this year was an image message."
- Thomas Ginsberg