“Wait Mary, I have another great idea, we could market the 12th of July in Belfast to tourists in a similar way…. how does Green is the new Orange sound?”
Tourism Ireland today announced details of a new campaign to leverage St Patrick’s Day – called ‘Green is the new black’.
Apparently it has nothing to do with a well-known Irish alcoholic beverage…
According to Tourism Ireland, the campaign has been designed to build on the success of Tourism Ireland’s annual Global Greening initiative – by extending the impact and sharpening the commercial returns of the Global Greening for tourism operators around the island of Ireland and travel trade overseas.
But does it cheapen Ireland when you build a brand association with a day that is associated with getting a good deal? The saving a few quid day, the being too lazy to head down the shops day, the oh fu*k I better get her that perfume when it’s on offer day
Imagine the scene in the Tourism Ireland Marketing hub:
- “Joe, how can we milk tourists more?”
- “I don’t know Mary, maybe let’s be really lazy and try and fix a campaign that is not broken and try and shoehorn in some other well-known marketing initiatives”.
- “Great, sure everyone is bored of green and we need to think of something that gets people spending more money over here to justify our massive wages and free trips around the globe”
- “What will we call it Joe?”
- “Let’s call it ‘Come to Ireland and Drink Guinness Day’, or is that too obvious?”
- “No let’s just be lazy and copy, Black Friday Marketing, and hopefully make it look good enough to win a few awards that we sponsor”.
- “Wait Mary, I have another great idea, we could also market the 12th of July in Belfast to tourists in a similar way…. how does Green is the new Orange sound?”
Tourism Ireland’s say they are aiming is to generate significant ‘buzz’ overseas, to capitalise on the exposure for Ireland delivered by the Global Greenings – and stimulate sales at a key booking period.
Modelled on the Black Friday premise, Green is the new black will be a ‘big splash’, time-limited sales period – offering prospective visitors in all our main markets the opportunity to avail of significant and exclusive savings on fares to travel to the island of Ireland and on tourism products when they get here.
Yes, the words, ‘buzz’ and ‘splash’ have been used to make their press statement appealing.
Don’t get us wrong, Tourism Ireland do a great job…. but this all feels a bit crap, so instead of a slash, we mean splash…. we are going to dump an idea into the mix.
Why don’t they continue to celebrate the green and expand on the Global Greening initiative with the song from ‘The Flight of the Dove’s’ Movie – ‘You don’t have to the Irish to be Irish’ and theme is around that old coke advert ‘I’d like to buy the world a coke’ (This is our idea if any of you advertising types try to steal it we want compensated, idea copyright and all that :o)
We personally think the ‘Green is the New Black’ idea cheapens the product offering here – organisations can still do deals in a more appealing campaign that celebrates the Green.
The one big winner out this campaign will be a lady called Stephanie Dickson
