Over on the blog that broke the story, the Palmetto Scoop, they share that this story has been dubbed the Water Cooler story of the Day.
A video shared on that website from the local news implies that the $5,000 that the advertising was supposed to cost is now not going to be paid, which means? South Carolina is going to stiff the company that did the advertising. Now that is really gay...
And in the comments of Palmetto Scoop:
Your reporting is missing many salient facts.
Our company - Out Now http://www.outnowconsulting.com - created the advertising for our client Amro Worldwide. The campaign has not been pulled, and is still there on London Underground, including South Carolina posters. Right now. Today.
You also seem not to understand that lesbian and gay travel is not an unusual market to target — we work with many of the largest tourist offices in the world to help them better understand and reach gay customers.
South Carolina, in making such a big deal of this, is managing to create a large anti-gay tourism response against your State.
Millions of dollars will likely be lost by SC tourism business in coming months and years. Perhaps that is okay with you.
Just one thought — if 5% of the $10.5 million taxpayer funds for tourism promotion are from gays and lesbians, why express so much outrage over a spend of less than $5,000?
The actual amount that gay taxpayers contribute to that budget is more than $500,000. Every year.
How much of that budget does SC allocate to promoting gay tourism?
Ian Johnson
CEO, Out Now
http://www.outnowconsulting.com
http://www.gaymarketnews.com
Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., have not yet complained about the advertising campaign.
3 comments:
The outrage is mixed. Some are outraged that South Carolina was advertising to homosexuals in the first place and want to "get to the bottom of it," like the state senator in this article - http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807120309.
"From my own perspective, it's bad for the state to make such statements about the state, to assert that South Carolina has gay beaches," he said. "I think that sends a cross message when we're saying, 'Come to South Carolina for its family-friendly beaches.'"
Others are outraged that South Carolina pulled the ads out of fear.
In any case, South Carolina is most definitely going to miss out on some tourism dollars.
emily said......
In any case, South Carolina is most definitely going to miss out on some tourism dollars.
4:44 PM
Right you are. Gays have disposable income that most of us don't have until the kids are grown and on their own.
Re family friendly beaches in S.C.
They sure are, just returned from 7 days in hilton Head and I did not see one thong-bikini.
Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism director Chad Prosser said the agency had no authority to ask the ads be taken down anyway, since the contract was through a third-party British vendor.
"There was nothing that could be done to pull it," Prosser said. "The campaign was going to end before that whole chain of events could take place."
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Rohan
South Carolina Drug Treatment
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