If you get a chance over the next two weeks to stroll through Grand Central Station’s northern passage in Manhattan, NY, you could quite possibly be overwhelmed.
Bahamas Ministry of Tourism officials call it cutting through the clutter.
It’s why Minister Obie Wilchcombe said the $700,000 advertising campaign spearheaded by Fallon Advertising is not your average “It’s Better In The Bahamas” ad effort.
The larger than life ads dominate walls and walls of Manhattan’s most impressive train station through which an estimated 500,000 people pass every day.
For swiftly moving passengers, there is opportunity after opportunity to be exposed to much of what is Bahamian, with a distinct focus on the diversity of the islands.
If you don’t immediately catch on to the “in your face” image of tranquility and escape as conveyed through a fishing scene in Bimini, you may find it difficult not to notice the “wish you were there” impact of a horse back rider on Harbour Island’s world famous pink sands.
But there aren’t only images of The Bahamas being displayed.
The marketing effort also features The Bahamas through scenes of New York: the businessman sitting on a cluttered Manhattan with nothing but brick and mortar as a backdrop; the famous yellow cabs forming the word ‘help’; A few walls down, the SOS image is carved out in snow as coat and glove wearing New Yorkers tow a line to board a waiting bus.
New Yorkers in the ads are crying out to be rescued.
Next to the ‘snow ad’ is an image so warm and inviting you can almost feel the tropical Bahamas clime.
Passengers are even able to walk over Bahamian ads, so if they’re looking down, officials say the message is likely to still get across.
Kevin Berigan, account group director at Fallon Advertising, said the plan is to appeal to the basic human desire to escape the choking, everyday hustle and bustle.
Mr. Berigan said The Bahamas is on display to the world and the effort will take more of the world to The Bahamas.
“It starts with an idea,” he said. “Our idea was pulled from a very basic human truth, especially in the states in the winter. ‘You need to escape. You need to get away from the doldrums of winter.'”
Earlier in the day, Rene A. Mack, president of travel and lifestyle practice at Weber Shandwick, the Ministry’s public relations agency, told a meeting attended by Minister Wilchcombe that The Bahamas gets more public relations exposure than any other nation on earth.
But Minister Wilchcombe believes that it cannot stop anytime soon. He said it would be hard for anyone not to be impressed by the Grand Central display.
“It fits into our approach of doing things differently,” he said, “creating new experiences and reaching more people. Very clearly the clutter demands that you find new ways to get your message out and this is a new way to get our message out.”
He believes that the campaign will immediately translate into increased tourism figures for The Bahamas, which last year passed the five million-visitor mark.
While the primary aim is to place the Islands of The Bahamas in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of passengers passing through the station, the ads have also captured the attention of at least one Bahamian who is among the passengers making use of Grand Central daily.
Valery Brown, deputy director of Sales and Marketing at The Bahamas Tourist Office North America, said she was impressed.
“I [feel] very proud to be a Bahamian,” she told The Bahama Journal. “Once you get off the train and into the corridor, it totally overwhelms you. It makes you feel so special that you are from this country that all of the world is looking at as you get off the train. It’s simply overwhelming. To me, it’s the best impression of who we are as a country and who we are as a people.”
The advertising initiative has apparently been so impressive that the People’s Republic of China plans to copy the effort, and is expected to soon launch a campaign of its own at Grand Central Station.
“The truth of the matter is if you’re not creative you’re not going to improve your product. You have to demonstrate creativity and our creativity is paying off right now,” Minister Wilchcombe said.
New Yorkers and others passing through Grand Central Station, were also exposed to The Bahamas through ads aboard passenger trains.
The Ministry, through its advertising agency, has also taken the creative spirit to Atlanta, GA, with a similar display of ads being mounted at the popular Peach Tree Station.
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
