The
Bahamas stepped outside the box with its new $12 million nationwide
ad campaign that launches on Dec. 11 and runs through April.
In choosing a theme
-- other than sun, sand and sea -- to highlight the destination,
the campaign zeroes in on why people travel rather than where they
want to go.
The target market is
the overstressed, unhappy, overworked and under-tanned segment of
crazed consumers, according to Vernice Walkine, director general of
the Bahamas 
Ministry of Tourism, who
"can benefit from a 'Bahamavention,' an action taken by concerned
friends and family members to get a loved one the help and recovery
only a Bahamas vacation can give" she said.
The ads introduce
Bahamians as experts who embody a less stressful and more balanced
life. Real Bahamian residents appear in the ads, extending a
personal invitation to escape everyday life by vacationing in the
Bahamas.
The 'Bahamavention'
ads are running in newspapers and consumer publications, on
national and cable TV channels and on New York City subway
trains.
A late-night,
30-minute infomercial, designed as a spoof on the traditional
infomercial, includes a somber-voiced narrator and pathetic
characters whose loved ones perform Bahamaventions and deliver
Bahamas vacations.
A new Web site related
to the campaign, www.bahamavention.com, goes live on Dec. 11, as well,
and will be linked to the Bahamas tourism site, at www.bahamas.com.
"The creative
elements in this campaign [are designed to] remind the millions of
Americans who have gone too long without a vacation of the benefits
of taking time off -- and that the Bahamas is the ideal vacation
destination for that escape," Walkine said.
To
contact reporter Gay Nagle Myers, send e-mail to [email protected].