How Not To Make A State Tourism Ad

If you ever browse through a travel or airline magazine these days, you're bound to see a tourism ad for some random state in the continental U.S. Whether it's nestled in the majestic Appalachian Mountain range or spread out over the bejeweled southwest desert sands, it's probably a state that you hadn't thought of visiting before.

The problem is, even as distinctive as a lot of these states are, their tourism ads are always the same: shitty, stilted stock photos of the same crap every other tourism ad shows. Today, EADJ examines the ingredients that make up a typical tourism ad.

Okay, so here is ad X from an American Airlines in-flight magazine. We pinked out the city and state names so you couldn't call the governor's office and make fun. Notice how the diarrhea orange/brown background color complements and even highlights the unretouched skintones. And the generic photography has been compartmentalized into a neat Bento Box, which is totally American. (Also, sorry about the pube at the top of the page. It was on the scanner.)

(click to enlarge)

Ingredient 1: Generic shopping shot. To show there's boutique-y high-end shopping. Make the shot dynamic with some brand names in the crop. Or not.


Ingredient 2) Them out-of-towners like that fancy nouveau cuisine shit. So a blurry shot of some crap piled up on a tiny plate.


Ingredient 3) Feature our terrifically popular local sports team by showing a roaring crowd at a game!


Ingredient 4) Nightlife. We need nightlife. What does that mean? Beats the hell out of me. Show the shopping area at night?


Ingredient 5) Oh, yeah. We need to feature the natural beauty of the surroundings. We don't really have a geiser or a canyon. Show the lake. Yeah, the one from the crime scene. But put a classy gold frame on it, like from Olan Mills.


Ingredient 6) Booze. Show a bunch of people yakking it up at one of our bars. But not our redneck bars, because that will scare away people. Come to think of it, none of our local bars are presentable for the ad– they all have dead animals on the walls or old men crying. Hell, just show yuppies drinking at the bar at the Hyatt. And throw some colored people in there while you're at it.


Mix in all the ingredients, and you've got yourself a bonafide tourism ad for your shitty flyover state! Now, turn 'round those "OPEN" signs and be ready to accommodate all those travelers who had no choice but to pull over for the night!