Judge for yourselves - new Latvia TV spots created by Stendzenieks…

http://laacz.lv/blog/2007/02/15/tu-neticesi/#more-4432

Cant say whether I like them or not - visually they look good but somehow also seem a bit ho-hum....Id love to see a burst of energy at the end, perhaps very quick screens shots of some the 2,300,000 things to see in Latvia...might give the ad a little kick up the bum!!

Also the corresponding website:

http://www.youwontbelieveit.eu

Hate to show my ignorance - what in the hell are you talking about? 
Mr. L. L.

So far, this is the first “come see Latvia” type of campaign that I’ve liked. Hats off to Stendzenieks!

/P

I like what they chose to highlight...Pedvale (on the first page!), artists workshops, etc.  Not just the the standard things.

Will this only be a destination website?  Or will there be print or media advertising?

The Latvian Tourism Development Agency has developed TV clips, posters and a webpage for this campaign. The TV ads will run on CCN, BBC and in France (in French).  I also like the campaign because I think it will do what is intended - bring a smile, arouse curiosity and get people to look at the web page. If they look at the web page and are still interested, they will get additional info about tourism in Latvia from other sources. No one goes to a country because of one ad, but an ad can spark sufficient interest to prompt the chain of actions that leads to a decision to look into hotels, airlines and make a purchase.

I also think this campaign will stand out against the slew of ‘me too’ tourism ads for Asia and the Middle East we see constantly on CNN International and BBC.  Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, The Maldives all show pretty much the same things with slight ethnic variations - temples, monuments, beaches, dancers in exotic costumes and ancient ruins. Unless you study them closely you have no idea which country is which until the tag line at the end. My favorite is Egypt which claims to own the sun 365 days a year.  Croatia stands out because of frequency and saturation, and great aerial shots of historic seaside villages.

At least Latvia shows it has a sense of humor. I particularly like the flying Aerodium guys and the Pedvale clip.

Nice ads indeed! 4 down, 2,299,996 ads to go?… :-)

I think the best tag line I can remember was one from Slovenia a few years back: “Slovenia, the sunny side of the Alps!” which had Austria up in arms.  :-)

I’d be curious to try the Aerodium next time I’m in Latvia. I always drove past the Canadian one between Montréal and Québec for many years and never bothered to stop. The Canadian Aerodium is (was?) an indoor facility; I understand the Lavtian version is outdoors.

Pierre

Wow!  I give this a definite ‘thumbs up’!  The aerodium, blue cows (now, “I” never knew there was such a thing??!!), Pedvale’s modern art park and so much more...I still haven’t finished looking it all over, but I’m very impressed!!  And I may be just a little biased, but I really think this would at the very least be an eye catcher for a non-Lat as well--and that is the objective, is it not?

Irena

Mr. Kalnins, Sir:

Thank you for your explanation.  If it where the staring entry, I would have omitted my sarcasm.  You stated several reasons for purchasing CCN and BBC to point out that their trash audiences are being welcomed to Latvia.  Because I disagree with some of your views of internationalizing the land of my birth, I shall, after reading anita’s http://latviansonline.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/9967/ ,forgo challenging the benefits of Latvians’ joining other nations crawling to bring in dung of unearned riches. 

Mr. L. L.

Jā, jā, Mister L.L.—far better to build a wall around the land of your birth and see susbsistence farmers dance in circles (before they all leave for the Emerald Isle, at least)!

I bet it would look fabulously pure and primordial from wherever the land you earn your crust in is.

Cīņai sveiks!
/P

Great spots. Catchy, short and pithy and deliver the point. They’ll stand out.
But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t nitpick. Not sure about the Cosmos spot. Might make me want to buy their CD, but would it make me want to go down to Latvia? The ads themselves could have used a common musical hook. A good hook makes the ads linger longer in the memory.
Wasn’t all that impressed with the webpage though and if you’re going to name your campaign you won’t believe it, might as well splurge and buy some time on the search engines. When I googled you wont believe it the first thing I got is some story about a guy stuck in an elevator. :)
Also, wondering what the budget for air time is? No matter how good an ad. You need to saturate for it to have a real effect.
Still, loved the ads. Particularly the blue cow.

Andrejs

Upon watching ‘Kas Jauns Latvija’, the other night (I’m always about a week late probably due to my tempermental PC glitches-- the streaming video keeps fading in and out and seems to fare better later toward the end of the week), I had the privilege of seeing the venerable Ojara Kalnina Kungs along with Stendzenieka Kungs and others discussing this advertising campaign.  I was very impressed with the Italian gentleman, Japanese lady who spoke Latvian so well; I guess I have a hard time getting used to certain present day realities about Latvia.  That there are other nationalities there and that they do indeed speak Latvian.  The Italian fellow, asked where all the girls were in the clips, ads, but generally had favorable comments.  The Japanese lady, however, described the blue cow, the naked men running in Pedvale as “nu divaini”.  and would have preferred something more grandiose--such as Dziesmas Svetki, the singing, the process behind all those gazillian voices singing all at once in perfect harmony. 

As for how much money was spent on the project, I’m not sure, but I think I heard something to the tune of 300,000 lati?

Irena

Actually just went back to have a look at the ads again and still sorry to say am not inspired.....thinking about it perhaps its the subjects of each ad which dont do things for me.....

The Blue cow ( well a very blue channel tweaked in post-production blue cow) would leave me disappointed if I saw the real thing...Id call it blueish tinged myself.

Aerodium, this one bemuses me as well, okay they did well in Torino , but there are Aerodium centres throughout Europe and the world - the website also makes it sound like Latvians invented it.

And the website - dont know if anyones taken the time to actually read it but I read a few other pages/ideas for ‘unbelievable Latvia’ and was almost shocked that some of the garble written could be released as part of the campaign - have a look at Big Black under more cool things - sounds like in-jokes in the studio - not campaign material....I appreciate the tone of it but it needs to be cleaned up a bit...in the end its a smoke-hazed ramble.

Loved the Pedvale clip - I suppose because I have taken tourists there and I am sure theyve been amazed. This is Latvia to me - the others are an agency Latvia.

I wont say anything about Cosmos since Ive never forgiven them for their ridiculous, embaressing robot at last years Eurovision contest - now we have to fight our way through the semi-finals and look whats on offer for this year - a boy and a large red wig wearing women singing about lowe ( thats a deliberate ‘w’ , replace it with a ‘v’ for the real word)...I am betting that this act will represent Latvia this year :(

OK then - Im waiting to see the next batch of clips - I think it could be a good campaign and for gods sake lets stick with it but maybe we should have some input as well....Im putting in a vote for storks - every year that male returns a few weeks before the female and if he hasnt prepared the nest properly he gets an awful clacking!

You are quite correct Jem ,the ads are b-o-r-i-n-g ! Certainly would not make me interested in visiting this “backward” country. Images that the locals want to project are usually not the ads which bring in outsiders.  Some of my son’s friends may accompany us to Riga ,but they are not interested in blue cows. They heard Riga is a great party town,and that did interest them.

But, “dels” that is not the visitor that is being courted with these ads.  I could be wrong, and Ojars will certainly correct me if I am, but it seems that Riga and Latvia feel they have quite enough of the sodden drunk and sex trade tourism sector and are perhaps looking for something different.

I am certainly as foreign as anyone when it comes to Latvia, and I would be interested in ads like this.  Any entity, including a national tourism board, will try to appeal to different sectors of the market.  This simply looks to be addressing some other sectors.

In reality, I still think Latvia is selling many of its best features short.  And in addition, I think there’s a lot of development building up around some of the seedier features, leaving a dearth of accomodation options that would show off these other features in a better light.

For instance, there are tons of accomodations in the less toney portions of beachfront...but what about accomodations that show off the “Latvian beaches as retreat” feature.  Obviously you don’t want to have millions of people descending on Mazirbe or Tuja, but there are simply not appropriate accomodations in these places for an upmarket crowd that wants to quietly relax, not party till dawn.

I think that Latvia’s artist/artisan communities could potentially be a big draw.  And this is the first time I’ve seen any attempt to reach that market, but it still is not well enough presented to make “finding” these opportunities easy.  Why couldn’t weeklong artist or artisan tours be offered?  Hands-on opportunities are always a draw.  Why couldn’t the Artists’ Union get involved in some of these things?  Similar with musical opportunities.  The summer outdoor music (opera) season could be expanded to run the entire summer, with packages to Cesis or Valmiera.

Or with the popularity (especially in the US) of the microbrew industry, why not work with the many breweries in Latvia to come up with some kind of brewery tour...showing off both the “quaint” countryside and also the many beer options in Latvia that never leave the country because they are not brewed with the preservatives, etc. to be shipped out of country.

Anyway, enough ideas for now.  I think this is a start...at least someone is thinking along the path of the unique opportunities that could be offered.  I still think the problem is that people are expecting that the tourism advertising should be aimed at BIG markets...and yet, like everything else in the Baltics, there really isn’t enough infrastructure to provide for that kind of response.  That doesn’t mean building huge hotels in Valmiera.  It means, the advertising should be specialized, aimed at the smaller special interest groups that can be accomodated.

Frankly, this is something I would someday love to help organize for latvia and the Baltics, small tour groups like this.

Didn’t know about the blue cows being enhanced digitally. Oh, well.
Still think the ads are pretty good. They stand out and are far mor effective than the previous campaign.
About the nightlife… I think there is little need to advertise that fact. The tour organizers already push that aspect of Latvia hard enough. Also, that kind of promotion tends to work best as word of mouth. Advertising actually tends to be counter productive.

Andrejs

Now that I have overcome some technical glitches and can reenter this Forum, a few more words about the ads:

For most mid and small size countries in the world, the problem is not a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ image, but simply no image at all.  There are over 200 countries in the world, all vying for tourists, investors, projects, and other benefits that come from international awareness. Without Googling or Wikipeding, can anyone tell me off the top of their heads what’s the difference between Uruguay and Paraguay? I’m sure South Americans can’t tell the difference between Slovenia and Slovakia. How about Mauritius and Mauritania? According to research undertaken by the Swedish Institute, Sweden most often gets confused with Switzerland. And so on.

Stendzenieks campaign is directed only at tourists, and its primary goal is to get a potential tourist to stop for a moment and think about Latvia. No serious tourist will base a decision on an ad, but might be prompted by the ad to look a little further.

The copy on the web page has been polished up a bit, but it is still fun. It is not written by a state agency or government bureaucrat, but by a goofy guy named ‘Eriks’. It is hoped that his boyish enthusiasm will capture someone’s fancy. Dziesmu Svetki are next on the list (it is already written up on the web page), and other ideas will follow. But remember, an ad is like a display window in a store - its main task is to get you to come inside and see more.

The blue cow, like the fern blossom, like the Irish four leaf clover, like the trolls of Norway, and the fog of London are all myths, legends and fairytales that may have some connection to reality, but who cares? How many millions have kissed the Blarney Stone, rubbed the holy stone in Hagia Sophia and stood in the shadows of Stonehendge, hoping and believing that they are really real?

As for the person who ‘trashed’ the viewers of CNN and BBC - I suggest you try telling that to the tens of thousands in Latvia whose livlihood depends on tourism, foreign investment and Latvian exports.