Doing your best on a tiny budget

The international marketing team at the Scottish Tourist Board is, indeed, left wondering what city “the impoverished urbanite who is the Diary” hails from, to expose such prejudice as he/she does in his/her entry about the London Tourist Board’s campaign (MW October 18). We at the STB realise that our 1.1 million budget for overseas ad campaigns is a modest sum and therefore concentrate on three major markets: France, Germany and the US.

Step one was to establish, through research, what would motivate customers in our target market segments to come to Scotland on holiday. This confirmed our belief that there are subtle differences between markets that have to be reflected in the benefits proposed by the brands – legends/romance in France, friendly people/heritage in the US, spectacular scenery/wide open spaces in Germany.

We never hesitated over the decision to hire local agencies for each campaign: Givner & Chiles in the US, Ogilvy & Mather in Germany and Medicis in France (which, incidentally, beat Pavloff et Associes in the final shortlist). The response to all three campaigns well exceeded our targets and conversion studies have shown a healthy return on investment, which leads us to even greater optimism about each campaign’s third run in spring 1997.

We Scots are recognised abroad for our internationalism and we are proud of the successes of our many famous ex-pats. What will it take for this to be recognised by our English neighbours? Xenophobic? We aren’t, are you?

Katie Rutherford

Director, international marketing

Scottish Tourist Board

Edinburgh

Well said; though, in waspish mood, the Diary notes that the STB uses a Scottish agency, the Edinburgh-based Faulds Advertising, for its campaign in Scotland, while the London Tourist Board uses Publicis, a French-owned agency, for its campaign in England.