News

The Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism (MOTT) has commissioned an ambitious production that will create 90 new television commercials to communicate the extensive range of leisure travel experiences the state provides. In a typical year, MOTT would produce 2-3 individual commercials for its annual brand marketing campaign, but the agency has decided there are so many amazing places to visit in Massachusetts that an expanded presentation is in order.

The MOTT campaign features the new tag-line, “Massachusetts. It’s all here,” and notes throughout that “There is so much to do in Massachusetts, we have to run a new ad everyday.”

“Governor Patrick has challenged us to showcase the tremendous array of beautiful and exciting destinations the Commonwealth has to offer,” said Betsy Wall, executive director of MOTT. “This new campaign represents every corner of Massachusetts and clearly demonstrates our incredibly diverse geography, culture and hospitality.”

MOTT’s advertising agency, Mullen, conceived the 90-spot idea and is leading the production effort with on-location filming scheduled for 34 days in August and September. MOTT has worked with the state’s regional tourism councils to identify the 90 unique locations that will appear in the commercials with every region of the state, from Cape Cod to the Berskshires, being represented.

Mullen is employing cost-efficient production techniques in order to keep the campaign budget consistent with MOTT’s most recent TV production efforts. This includes filming with a small in-house production team, using a hand-held camera and shooting on location with no set design, no props and no custom wardrobe. Post-production work, including editing and sound, will also be handled in-house at Mullen to contain costs.

“The challenge of promoting tourism in our state is that there is so much to feature that most ideas for a 30-second commercial don’t come close to showing the best of what Massachusetts has to offer,” said Jason Stinsmuehlen, group creative director at Mullen. “In the past we’ve had to imply what’s available here with concepts that showed two activities and one or two people staying an extra day. With this campaign for 2008, we’re not merely saying there’s so much to do in the state, we’re demonstrating it.”

The finished commercials will be ready to go on-air in March 2008, at the beginning of the spring-summer tourism season. They will air as a series of 90 individual commercials designed to inspire leisure travelers to discover the multitude of wonderful destinations in Massachusetts.