Tourism Commercials

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this blog is all about me and the random thoughts and things floating in my head that I find interesting.

While watching television, I saw some tourism commercials. Mainly one for California and several for the state of Kansas. After seeing the California commercial, I want to go visit California. It seems like a really fun place to visit, if not live in. Sure, there's the big cities filled with pollution, the long commutes to work, and some other serious negatives, but damn, it sounds like a lot of fun.
If you see the commercial, you'll notice that it's very clever. It takes the concept of work and what makes work terrible--overtime, long hours, working on the weekends, etc.--and cleverly twists them around. For example, nobody wants to work on the weekend, right? However, their version of "working on the weekends" involves going to an amusement park. And board meetings involve surfing and skateboarding. Long hours involve being in the outdoors with the family. And to top the deal off, the Governator appears at the end. He's wearing a suit suitable for summer, sitting at a table, eating food, drinking wine, and it's a glorious, sunny day. And the tagline at the end is great. If this sounds like a job for you, then come to California. Now that's a tourism commercial. It's funny, clever, and it shows the best of California. Who wouldn't want to go visit California?
Now compare this to the dreck that is considered a tourism commercial for the state of Kansas. All in all, Kansas isn't such a bad place to live in. It could be worse. Then again, it could be better, but you make the best of what you've got. Kansas is more of a quieter, slower place. It's a little bit country, a little bit metropolitan. Not a lot to work with, but hey, they made South Dakota and Oklahoma sound like interesting places to visit, so why not Kansas? Hell, if the city of Manhattan, Kansas can make their city sound interesting and not some place in the middle of nowhere, then surely the state of Kansas can do the same.
What did the State of Kansas consider a good commercial? A bunch of pictures of wide open prairies, some sunflowers, some windmills, and a lot of empty skies. And a tacky, kind of lame country/folk song that would make Peter, Paul, and Mary proud. Not so great in luring in tourists from California or anywhere outside the Midwest. Then again, I doubt people from the Midwest would want to spend time in Kansas after seeing that commercial. They already have the flat spaces and empty skies that populate Kansas.
I mean, they could have done something more exciting. I don't know. Show some KU basketball. Clips of K-State or KU football (think Orange Bowl). Some exciting clips from the Kansas Speedway. Some images of the cities that portray a little cosmopolitan, a little small town(nice ones, please). I don't know, maybe people walking down the street with shopping bags. A park scene. Then add in a limited amount of the folksy images of sunflowers and prairies and nature. You don't need to pound that image of stereotypical Kansas, especially if you don't want to portray Kansas as that flat state in the middle of nowhere. And change the music to something more...well...modern. The fiddle and guitar routine is a little stale. And the vocal yelps and whoops don't help either. At least in my opinion. More importantly, change the damn slogan. "As big as you think" is corny. And it's ambiguous. It can be interpreted in a positive or negative way. If that's the best they could come up with, then that was a waste of money.
That would be a much more exciting and vastly superior commercial. It give a more balanced picture of Kansas. One that would appeal to people a bit more. If you want shopping, some city life, some small town charm, or the great outdoors, then Kansas is your place. And this idea for a commercial only took me less than a minute to think up. No need for consultants or anybody else.

And the older commercials that talk about historical figures? Stupid as well.
As much as I find Eisenhower to be a great military leader, the commercial was dumb. Yes, you too can be a military leader who liberated Europe and became President, even if you lived in some small town nobody has ever heard of. But you have to come from Kansas to get those qualities. "Kansas, as big as you think." No, that was stupid. The concept was good, but the execution stunk. If you're talking about Eisenhower, you have to show something more than a boy in a cornfield. You need to show Eisenhower leading the troops. You need something visceral. Not some boy in a cornfield and some Eddie Albert sounding dude doing the voiceover. That's just lame. And a waste of money. I'm thinking that a lot of other states can take clamin in making Presidents. Not just Kansas.
What would have been better? Talk about Eisenhower and how he saved Europe from the Nazis and then became President. Then say something like "He came from Kansas. See what made him a hero." Forget the "As big as you think." It just detracts from the commercial.
And the Amelia Earhart commercial? Again, good concept, bad execution. What screwed up the commercial was the question at the end. I guess it was supposed to be rhetorical and the answer was supposed to be along the lines of "Earhart was a great pilot and pioneer; Kansas builds that kind of character." When I saw the commercial, I started to laugh. Um, didn't they read up the history books? Amelia Earhart, though a pioneer in female aviation, went missing over the Pacific Ocean. She left behind important communication and navigation instruments for some odd and amazingly idiotic reasons. If you're going to fly over a relatively empty ocean like the Pacific, you need communication and navigation instruments, so you don't get lost and crash and die. That says a lot about a person from Kansas. You could interpret that question and come up with a decidedly negative answer: "Yeah, Kansans are stupid idiots who leave behind important stuff to survive. Don't trust them with anything important, like your life." That's a great impression. "Kansas, as big as you think."
I don't care if the commercials wins awards. If nobody's visiting and you're winning awards, then what's the damn use for the awards? It's the tourism revenues that really matter.
Oh well. Kansas still has a reason to keep the roads maintained every year. And it's not for the tourism that's staying in Kansas. It's so that the vacationers driving through Kansas won't have any flat tires while they go somewhere else in the United States. Like California or Florida.


That's all for now.