“Enjoy Illinois” campaign reminds viewers that Illinois is more than just Chicago
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been seeing an ad put out by Illinois Office of Tourism. And I found myself a bit frustrated with it.
Click to viewIf you are wondering why I have a problem, it's rather simple. Even though the ad is supposed to be about Illinois, it pretty much just shows Chicago. And while I like Chicago, it's hard not to feel bad about the rest of the state. There are cool things outside Chicago, but they tend to get overlooked. And this sort of thing doesn't help the whole downstate vs Chicagoland divide, and the resentment the rest of the state feels toward Chicagoland.
So I was pleasantly surprised today to see another ad from the Tourism Office that explicitly made the point that, hey, there are cool things elsewhere in Illinois (in this case, Springfield). And any ad that Amtrak’s Illinois state-supported services gets props in my book.
I found a few other ads from the Tourism Office, and both of them weren't Chicago-centric.
So good on you, Illinois Tourism Office.
Though I think it wouldn’t work better if you showed what those places were. Just because viewers like me are going to recognize them doesn’t mean other viewers will.