MSU Red Cedar Message Board

In an earlier post you said (not sure if you took that from the study)..."The state’s tourism office spent $14.2 million on summer out-of-state advertising last year, and the visitors it attracted paid $70 million in Michigan taxes.That means the state received $4.90 for each dollar it spent on the campaign. Pure Michigan’s cumulative return on investment since it started in 2006 is at $3.70, up from $3.29 Iast year."

I will say this without hesitation...this is just a guess. How much of an educated guess it is, is obviously open to interpretation.

I'm not making a Republican/Democratic issue out of it. The campaign is very well done, and obviously ANY politician will want to be associated with it...in part because a study suggests how effective it is. Do you not think that studies like these are pumped up a bit to show how effective the campaigns are? You're not that naive, are you?

Do you think they will release research that shows how effective the Ann Arbor campaign was? What do you think it will say?

I know someones parents who cancelled a Nashville vacation for a relaxed weekend in a Traverse City bed & breakfast by the beach... people forget there are awesome freshwater beaches here.

TC has gotten a lot of pub the past few years as a vacation destination. I imagine that along with cheap flights from most of the hubs on the east coast have boosted the tourism numbers.

I don't think they run Pure Michigan TV (or radio) spots in Europe (or all over the world). I thought that's what we were talking about.

I say kill it. If I was wrong that it wasn't generating tax revenue then I'll apologize for it later.

Yep. I think if they just focused on the calm dreamy Tim Allen one with water flowing and rotated it with a "HOLY SHIT WE HAVE MOTHERFUCKING BEACHES AND SHIT! FRESHWATER" one it would pay huge dividends.

I was just coming on to say that. I see them every so often out in the middle-of-nowhere Kansas. Makes me want to be back home every time I see one.

Just saw one on A&E down here in Texas. Taking a roadtrip in a month and a half!!!

We get them here in Arizona too

I'm talking about stuff like this article that ran in Bon Appetit a couple of years ago. Mario Batali (celebrity chef) talks about his summer place near Traverse.

He makes the case that the market is great for people from NYC and the metropolis. The flights are cheap-ish, only 2.5 hours + a stopover The Leelanau peninsula has a pretty good reputation for wine and the value is much better than in the touristy parts of upstate NY.

I frequent Rivals message boards, and these ads have been mentioned favorably several times. Some people said that they learned something new about Michigan (aka, it's not just Detroit) and others have said they booked vacations because of it.

All in all, a good investment. Now we just need to cut off Detroit from out of district tax dollars, because it really couldn't get any worse. And if it did, no one would know the difference. Take those hundreds of millions, and we wouldn't need to advertise anything. If the Feds want to keep dumping money there, fine, but why should we?

What city are you in?

Cleveland has plenty to counter those lame Michigan ads.....