Philly To Attract Hippest, Phattest Residents

It took a few days, but a New York paper has localized the New York ad students ‘Move to Philly’ campaign. It shows up in Metro NY (natch), the younger brother of our city’s free daily. (The article doesn’t mention that the people behind movetophilly.com say they weren’t asked if their website could be used, but not all of the students used it. One used philly.com, actually.)

The Metro article references Jessica Pressler’s New York Times “Sixth Borough” article (always a requirement), then talks with Jeff Guaracino of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, who says his group’s working on its own ads, thank you very much:

Jeff Guaracino, a spokesman from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, said, “There’s this buzz going on right now.” His agency was awarded $5 million to launch its own non-traditional marketing campaign — perhaps using ringtones or bloggers — this summer to attract 25 to 35 years olds.

“The campaign is still being developed,” Guaracino said. “It’s not just going to be edgy, like the work of those students. It’s going to be hip and phat. We have black, white, Latino, gay, straight, 20-somethings, 50-somethings, working on this.”

I can’t wait to blog about that hip new Philadelphia ringtone.

Ads tell artists life is better down in Philly [Metro NY]
Developing: Move To Philly Versus Move To Philly [Philebrity]
MovetoPhilly.com
Tuesday: Philly Is Cheaper Than New York, And Other Factoids You Already Know

Philly Is Cheaper Than New York, And Other Factoids You Already Know

A story in today’s Daily News reports on a group of New York City advertising students who had a somewhat challenging school project. Their goal? Convince people to move to Philadelphia.

Catherine Lucey spares us any Sixth Borough references in her article, which also details a presentation the students (from Adhouse Advertising School) gave to Steven Grasse, who heads up the Philly-based Gyro Worldwide Advertising. (Grasse money quote: “New York’s full of shit and it’s phony.” Take that, Ethan Hawke!)

The mini-campaigns — Look! The DN put something online for once! — are pretty solid, though they do seem to only say, “Philly is cheap!” or “Philly is cheap and Ethan Hawke sucks!” The Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corp. is also planning a “buzz-building” (sigh) move-to-Philly campaign later this summer.

Still. We already have enough assholes in this town. (Insert your own Joe Vento joke here.) Do we really need a bunch more annoying people in our bars? Dirty Frank’s* is crowded enough.

The ads are great looking, though, and some of them are incredibly clever. (The weird escort-style ad is the only real baffling one.) But doesn’t everyone already know Philadelphia is cheaper than New York City? And don’t they mostly still live in New York anyway?

Enough questions. Now pass me a $3 Brooklyn Lager.

Edgy ads that could lure New Yorkers [DN]
Move to Philly Image Gallery [DN]

* This example used just to point out that Dirty Frank’s got a shoutout on a particularly awful episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Fox last night.