March 4, 2003Creative Strategy Capitalizes on Miami's Fashionable, Hip Image.
In a complete departure from conventional destination advertising, the Greater Miami Convention Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) is launching a new advertising campaign that positions Miami as a designer fashion brand. The media strategy is equally unconventional, with ads scheduled to break in April in national fashion magazines like GQ, Maxim, W and In-Style.
TURKEL, GMCVB's agency since 1993, created this innovative strategic approach as a means of reinventing the Miami brand and countering perceptions that the destination has lost its celebrity-driven chic. The campaign speaks in the same vernacular as fashion designers such as Dior, Gucci and Prada, using little to no copy and steamy shots of models wearing beyond-trendy styles in a variety of uniquely Miami settings.
"We needed to turn destination marketing upside down, so we looked to the fashion industry for inspiration," said Bruce Turkel executive creative director of TURKEL, "Fashion advertising is not about selling product benefits, it's more about creating a sense of aspiration and desire a real sense of 'I want to be there.' And Miami is a must-have destination."
TURKEL hired noted fashion photographer, George Kamper of Miami-based KSC Studio, to create captivating images capturing the destination's sultry side. Miami is hot, romantic, sexy, vibrant, said Kamper. The idea with the photos is to celebrate the buzz, the sizzle and energy that is Miami, and to make people feel these things in a manner that's exciting, yet comfortable and inviting.
When the GMCVB's advertising account went up for review in July, Bureau members were looking for fresh ideas and a new direction."After 9/11, we realized we needed to take an edgier, more aggressive approach in our advertising," said GMCVB President and CEO William Talbert. "TURKEL demonstrated that they really understood our brand, where we needed to be image-wise and how to get us there."
To that end, the agency developed a strategic alliance between GMCVB and IMG, the largest personality, event and television/new media company in the world, to create a series of high-profile marketing programs. IMG's model division represents some of today's most famous supermodels including Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum, and Tyra Banks.
Miami talks the talk and it walks the walk, said Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau Board Chairman Tony Goldman, of Goldman Properties, a man known for helping reinvent South Beach. We've got our own style, taste, flavor, great culture, great architecture and great beaches. We are humanly scaled, beautifully diverse with extraordinary dimension. We are The Riviera City.
Founded in 1983, TURKEL specializes in total brand management through comprehensive, ideas-driven strategies. The agency has achieved national recognition for its creation of Brain Darts simple, compelling, powerful communications that break through the clutter of today's busy advertising environments and build desire. With billings of $60 million, TURKEL's clients include Beacon Council, Flagler Holding Group, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, HBO Latin America, Partnership For a Drug-Free America - Miami Coalition, Peabody Hotel Group, The Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation (SAHF), Stanton Group, Sony Latin America, and TAM Travel Corporation.
Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) is a private, not-for-profit sales and marketing organization with 1,100 business members and four government partners. The GMCVB mission is to market Greater Miami and the Beaches as a convention, business and leisure destination.
For more information, contact:
Marlisa Shapiro
public relations, TURKEL at 305-476-3516
Jeanne Sullivan
assoc. VP, media relations, GMCVB at 305-539-3084 / cell: 305-401-3636
link to press release
