The next assignment will be for you, working in two-person teams, to create two different ads about Bolivia. You can work on them simultaneously. Both will require some research on your part.
Economic Development Ad
The first will aim at encouraging economic development in Santa Cruz. Basically it will urge business owners to either start their business here, move it here, or expand it here. Your “copy” will need to make the case that Santa Cruz is a dynamic new commercial center that is a great place to do business in.
You need to think about what makes an area attractive to a business. What do they need? Well, workers to start with. Santa Cruz has them, It is (and I have to check this out) supposedly the second fastest-growing city in South America. They also want well educated workers. You could point out that in addition to UAGRM, Santa Cruz has 18 private universities, up from none 25 years ago. And it also has a network of fine high schools (including this one).
Businesses need good transportation links: Santa Cruz is astride (more or less) the new “Bioceano” highway, the first direct transcontinental highway. It has good roads to Argentina and to most other parts of Bolivia (with the exception of Sucre). We have a very efficient little airport that functions as a ¨hub¨ for South America, and also has intercontinental flights to North America and Europe. We have a railroad to Brazil. We have a river – but perhaps the less said about that the better.
Economic development requires a pro-business political environment, and I think we have that, at least in the region. It needs electric power, industrial parks, adequate water supplies, first-rate hotels. Good housing . . . . we do well on all those counts.
An important source of information is likely to be your parents or their friends, many of whom have businesses here. Ask them why they’re here. What are the advantages? (We’ll skip the disadvantages.)
One added challenge is to include in every ad in big type this slogan:
Santa Cruz, Bolivia OUR FUTURE IS NOW
It needs to be this size, and use these type faces, which are Freestyle Script for “Santa Cruz, Bolivia,” and Franklin Gothic Demi C for “OUR FUTURE IS NOW.” The copy should be in Times New Roman 12 pt. There should be a separate headline dealing with the particular aspect of Santa Cruz that you are “selling.”
The reason for this uniformity is that we are constructing a “campaign,” We want people to be able to recognize these ads, and, hopefully, be attracted to them because they find them interesting and persuasive, with lots of new, interesting information.
You need to identify the source of the ad and give people a way to get further information. Let’s all say that these ads are from the “Santa Cruz Economic Development Agency,” and tell people to go to www.santacruznow.com for more information.
TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AD
For this, you need to pick out an attraction in Bolivia, and make an ad that will make people want to come and see it. Make things easy on yourself by picking one you know well and like.
There are any number of choices, and I will just name a few of the more obvious ones – the salt flats of Uyuni, the Jesuit Missions, Sucre, Cochabamba, and (maybe) La Paz. Bolivia is also a Mecca for bird lovers, and you can learn a lot about that by going to the birdbolivia.com website, which also has some great images. Another attraction along this same line are the large number of Hunting Lodges.
I do not think Santa Cruz is now, or ever will be, a tourist attraction in and of itself, but if you think it could be and have a way to “sell” the idea, by all means go for it. Santa Cruz does have at least one world-class attraction, which is Guembes Butterfly Center, and it does have Aqualand, but I think it’s hard to get people to fly in from the US or Europe just for those attractions. The same can probably be said for the narco traffickers’ plane on the first ring.
The three big national parks – Amboro, Noel Kempff, and Madidi --.might be a good attraction, but would need, I think, a clever angle. There is one nice lodge in Madidi called the Chalalan Lodge that offers a real jungle ecology experience. ( Alas, it doesn’t have a website of its own, but if you Google it you can get travel agencies that book stays there, and have information and some pictures on their websites.)
But, hey, this is your country. Certainly you must know some place here you would like to show off to a foreigner.
I have not decided yet whether to have a distinctive typographic logo that will identify this as a campaign. Or, to be more accurate, I haven’t thought of one. Can you? Maybe we can figure one out together
In any event you will want to do some reasonably thorough research on the location you have chosen so that you can write some engaging, fact-filled copy about it. Images are easy to come by through Google and other sources.
The same rules are in effect as on the previous advertising assignment for both of these assignments. Have a strong image that will stop the recipient, an engaging headline to get him or her to read your “message,” and a compelling message to “make the sale. The message should start with a short sentence that gets the reader’s attention, explain what your “pitch” is, and say why that’s important or interesting. Then the remainder should unfold in logical fashion.
Identify the source of the ad as the “Bolivian National Tourist Board.” And give people a place they can go for further information, probably a fictitious website like wwww.boliviatourist.com
