Blog with Rob: Dare to Be Different

It’s one of my favorite mantras that as long as you’re true to your brand, it’s ok to be a bit irreverent sometimes.  For better or for worse I’ve pursed that as one of my marketing goals over the years, launching a Groundhog’s Day payroll campaign, delivering oversized checks to potential referral partners and even shooting a commercial depicting the gloom and doom of a payroll run gone horribly wrong. And I’m not alone in my viewpoint as many other large companies take a decidedly different approach to their marketing.

That being said, it’s nice to see a government entity be quick on its feet, marketing-wise.  The marketing team over at Ithaca/Tompkins Convention & Visitors Bureau, located right in upstate NY, is just as tired of the cold and the snow as we are.  Realizing that this colder and snowier than average weather probably wasn’t what tourists are looking for right now, they changed the homepage of their website VisitIthaca.com to something more appealing—an image  of a warm and inviting southern Florida scene with the cheeky note posted on the website’s header, “That’s it. We surrender. Go to Key West instead.”

The marketing gag certainly paid off as the image went viral  and the tourism office received so many calls they had to change the webpage back to its original photo. But don’t worry, you can still check out the before and after.