St. Pete and Clearwater are going national. Pinellas County is planning its first ever national ad campaign to promote the two areas as pristine tourism locations.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the county’s tourism agency, Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, is planning on purchasing ads on Pandora as well as underwriting from various National Public Radio programs.
There will also be enticing photos of sun and sand from the region’s Gulf beaches to draw in visitors from frigid cities to the north.
According to the Times, the agency plans slogans like “Crank up something besides your thermostat and “less snow, more glow.” The slogans will dot newspapers in cities like Boston, Chicago and New York where temperatures are already lower than what Florida sees most days during the winter.
The agency also plans to purchase bus wraps in those large, cold cities showing off sunny skies and picturesque paradises in the county.
To further promote the area, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium is expected to be featured in reality animal-rescue show next year. Aquarium CEO David Yates said he’s in the process of producing a TV show for digital access, but also plans to pitch that to various networks including Animal Planet.
It’s unclear whether the two are related. The aquarium has already served as a huge tourism draw after two box office hit movies were made about the aquarium’s Winter the Dolphin who lost her tale and was retrofitted for a prosthetic. Visitors from all over the world come to see winter on trips to the area.
