For MGH, it?s their job to make going to Ocean City more than just a day at the beach.
Serving as the advertising and public relations company of the Ocean City Convention and Visitors Bureau and Department of Tourism for more than six years, Owings Mills-based MGH Advertising Inc., has built off of last year?s successful campaign. The “More Fun Here” tag line was so well-received by the Ocean City Department of Tourism in 2006 that an expansion of the campaign was proposed and accepted for this summer. The television and radio advertising will focus on presenting all Ocean City has to offer potential visitors.
“One of the problems that youhave in marketing all of Ocean City is that a lot of the beach towns sort of look alike in 30-second clips,” said Andy Malis, the president of MGH, who handles the Ocean City account personally. “It?s always been a challenge to differentiate Ocean City from Mertle Beach, Jersey Beach and Virginia Beach.”
Television and radio intensive, the “More Fun Here,” campaign costs about $1 million a year to draw new tourists. Television spots combining animation and real life will run April through June, and radio promos will hit the airwaves in July. Target regions for the ads include Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Central Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.
The difference in this year?s effort will be a new tourism-focused Web site that will not only supplement the current Web site of the Ocean City Department of Tourism, but also become a cyberspace destination to create a digital network for local destinations. Last year, Malis said MGH tracked a 25 percent increase in unique users for the site.
“We are sort of putting [the site] on steroids this year,” Malis said. “We really want to increase the prominence of using this new Web site.”
As for the Ocean City Department of Tourism, they have been very pleased with the results.
“This campaign was one that we were very happy with. It has a good shelf life because the message is universal and can mean different things to different people, they wont get tired of it,” Ocean City Assistant Director of Tourism Deb Travers said.
