A Philadelphia tourism agency recently received an award from an international advertising company for its outreach efforts to the overseas LGBT community.
The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International gave one of its prestigious Adrian Awards to the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau for the organization’s 2007-08 U.K. Gay and Lesbian Marketing Campaign. Representatives from PCVB accepted the Bronze award in the Public Relations, Consumer Marketing Campaign category during HSMAI’s 19th annual Adrian Awards dinner in New York City Jan. 26.
Kathleen Titus, director of tourism sales at PCVB, said the group chose to apply for the award because its LGBT campaign was unique in both focus and target audience.
“When we looked at the application of what awards we could go for, we thought that this was a nice niche for what we were doing with consumer advertising,” Titus said. “Every year PCVB submits different applications for awards like these and we thought that our gay advertising in the U.K. and throughout Europe would be one that we might have a chance of winning because we really went above and beyond on this campaign when you compare it to what other destinations were doing to attract these consumers.”
The campaign, which launched in 2006-07 and stretched beyond the United Kingdom to countries like Germany, was fueled by the PCVB’s partnership with Gaydar Radio. PCVB worked with the online company to produce radio and Web spots that ran for four weeks and followed the trail of a fictitious gay traveler as he experienced all that Philadelphia had to offer.
“The whole premise of the ads was that this gentleman Robert, whom we called ‘Ben,’ is loving Philadelphia so much that he never leaves. When people tuned into Gaydar Radio or visited the Web site, they’d listen for where he was going next, but he ends up never leaving Philadelphia.”
Titus said that when the company was researching what elements of the city to include in the ads, they decided to not only promote Philadelphia’s unique LGBT community but also to bring in the city’s many mainstream attractions that would be of interest to LGBT travelers.
“When we were looking at things that were unique to Philadelphia, we’re really home to the birth of civil rights and freedom,” Titus said. “And we have the actual Gayborhood itself, which is different and unique from those in other cities because it’s right in the middle of Center City, where people live, shop and walk. Everything falls right next door to City Hall — the theaters, the historic district, the shopping along Rittenhouse Row — these are all unique to Philadelphia and something we wanted to go after.”
Titus said that although other tourist destinations are more traditional LGBT hot spots, Philadelphia’s rich history and culture make it stand out as an alternative travel spot.
“When looking at gay and lesbian markets, especially in the U.K., a lot of people will say, ‘Let’s go to New York City or San Francisco.’ But these people have probably been there several times, so we tried to show them, how about coming to Philadelphia?” Titus said. “This is where everything started. We tagged onto what GPTMC [Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Campaign] was doing with its ‘Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay’ campaign. Philadelphia has history and if you’re a gay traveler or not, when you come to the city you want to experience the same things as everyone else.”
Several foreign journalists who’d taken note of the campaign visited the city to cover last year’s Equality Forum and PCVB representatives, along with Tami Sortman, president of the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus, and other PGTC members took the visitors on tours throughout the city, visiting traditional tourist spots as well as LGBT-themed events such as last year’s LGBT rodeo, Liberty Stampede.
“[The HSMAI award] was a fabulous surprise because it was for international travel and international tourism, so it was a huge coup for Philadelphia to be receiving an award for an international campaign focused on the LGBT community,” Sortman said.
Titus noted that the Adrian Award gives some well-deserved recognition to a city that has been committed to attracting LGBT travelers from around the globe.
“This was a huge honor, being recognized for something internationally, especially when we were up against such tough competition. When most people think of gay and lesbian destinations, they think of prime areas, but they’re not doing as much advertising as Philadelphia’s been doing. It took a lot for Philadelphia to get to this point, so this is really great for us.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].