ND Ad Not Created to Cause Tension

Have you seen the new ad for North Dakota’s night life? Well, the advertisement was supposed to be fun and flirty but it ended up causing a scene. Three young women and two young men are flirting through a window at a Fargo motel bar. The ad printed next to the picture was also quite interesting. “Drinks, dinner, decisions.Arrive a guest. Leave a legend. “It was meant to be “a little flirty, a little fun,” said Pat Finken, president of Odney Advertising, the agency that created the ad. The state’s tourism department was not prepared for what kind of reactions they would get.

Finken and Sara Otte Coleman, director of North Dakota’s tourism division, said Friday “they were surprised by the reaction.It wasn’t my favorite ad. I thought, ‘Oh, this is a little cheesy.’ I certainly didn’t think it was over the line, or seductive, or in any way in poor taste,” Coleman said. “It really just takes one or two (negative comments), and then people jump on the bandwagon.”

The said ad was one of 10 ads that were introduced for the North Dakota tourism campaign. No one could prepare themselves for the amount of negativity the ad actually received. “When they posted it on Facebook for the public to view I thought nothing of it, nothing at all,” Paynter said. “They’re trying to get a certain age group to look into the nightlife in North Dakota …. It wasn’t supposed to be some sleazy, racy photo,” stated one of the girls who were actually in the campaign ad. The ad was meant to attract Canadian travelers and should have been placed in Canadian magazines.

The five people who were in the ad also know each other, so it came as a surprisingblow to all of them. “We were quite excited for this ad to come out, so for it to blow up like this is almost embarrassing,” she said.

Kristin Lamoureux, a professor in George Washington University’s Department of Tourism stated that “That’s the goal of marketing, is to create some sort of buzz,” she said. The result is the campaign that you kind of see now, which is, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” she said. “If you look at those commercials, a lot of them push the envelope a lot.”

Some campaigns want to create controversy, and that is their intent all along. It depends on what your product is that determines how well it sells. Each state also has its own advertising campaigns to promote the state. Some states decide to stick with wildlife, parks and outdoors. Unfortunately, you cannot please everyone when it comes to creating an ad. The intention of this ad was not to stir anything up, but instead to advertise.