Hills are alive with … rap
Published 12:01 am Friday, February 18, 2011
As we’ve learned over the years here in the Evergreen State, tourism campaigns are always good for an expensive laugh, if not for actually drawing people to visit the area.
Reflecting on the ill-fated “SayWa” slogan of 2006 — part of a $442,000 marketing campaign cut s
hort after just seven months of mockery — still makes us chortle, er, choke.
And Seattle would just rather forget that whole “metronatural” fiasco, unless, of course, it’s still stuck with that 2006 slogan, since Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau spent $200,000 to develop the campaign, and planned to spend $300,000 promoting the brand “metronatural” and had it copyrighted and all. (Surely, in retrospect, the money spent on slogans like “metronatural” was a big blinking neon warning sign of an economy about to topple under the weight of its freewheeling spending.)
Now, with the recession receding, communities are once again competing for the lucrative tourist dollar with advertising campaigns. Apparently there’s something about this business that spawns ideas that all fall under the category “ill-advised.” Which brings us to a campaign for the little fake Bavarian village of Leavenworth, part of which includes a music video promoted as the “Best tourism ad ever,” USA Today reported, adding a skeptical “Hmmm…” to its headline.
Hmmm is right. Like Seattle, Leavenworth is free to spend its tourism promotion dollars as it sees fit. But one would hope there was someone in the village willing to shout out that the emperor has no lederhosen.
Because this video — aimed at attracting “younger, hipper” tourists — is so bad it’s phenomenal. Which also means its had a few YouTube views. And now Leavenworth has posted a new video of the behind-the-scenes making of the original video.
The “best tourism ad ever” music video features a nutcracker named Woody Goomsba, and female dancers in some sort of Oktoberfest-esque cheerleader type outfits getting all vulgar to a … rap tune. (Der-Town Crew singing “Gitcha Goomsba Up”). Because nothing says faux-German village like a rapper nutcracker… With hilariously unsubtle shots of Woody the nutcracker, and of bratwurst, just to name two, is it possible the video director confused “Bavarian” with “Freudian”?
That Woody Goomsba, he’s “cool like kielbasa,” to cite one of the lyrics that can be repeated. Time will tell if such a video will help lure younger visitors to Leavenworth, or just scare away older ones.
But just in case it turns out such money is well spent, Everett needs to start filming its “Year-Round Kiteboarding Paradise” video, complete with scantily-clad kiteboarders, and perhaps a rapping seal, now.
