Ads herald business opportunities in Maryland

Posted: 7:21 pm Tue, June 15, 2010
By Liz Farmer
Daily Record Business Writer

With a much tighter budget than in prior years, the state Department of Business and Economic Development has launched its first new advertising campaign in more than a decade.

On a $150,000 budget — less than a third of the roughly $500,000 allotted in 1999 — “Maryland of Opportunity” touts the job, business and growth opportunities in the state by featuring business owners’ stories. The 1999 DBED campaign was called “Come to Work, Stay to Play.”

Signs at Baltimore’s Penn Station, Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and a billboard near the Pleasant Street exit off the Jones Falls Expressway went up last week, while radio and online ads launched earlier.

The billboards and signs prominently display lesser-known Maryland success stories such as Volt restaurant founder Brian Voltaggio of Frederick, a finalist on Bravo’s Top Chef reality show, and Mei Xu, a Chinese immigrant and founder of Annapolis-based Chesapeake Bay Candle.

“People know Kevin Plank,” said Andrea Vernot, DBED’s assistant secretary of marketing and communications, referring to the founder of the sports apparel company Under Armour Inc. “We perused the business market and looked for people who really represented Marylanders doing great things in our core industry sectors — people who stood out and are good examples but might not have been a household name.”

The state agency launched the ad campaign in the midst of a gubernatorial race in which former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, is criticizing the administration of Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, for an “anti-business reputation” and calling for new state efforts to make Maryland more attractive to business.

With $150,000 to spend on the ad work by Baltimore firm Trahan, Burden & Charles and the media placements by Owings Mills-based Media Works, DBED had to get creative, said Sherri Diehl, the department’s director of marketing.

She estimates that DBED is getting a $250,000 value for the campaign by working with county marketing agencies, the campaign’s featured business owners, and trade organizations — who can all tweak the “Maryland of Opportunity” slogan for their own advertising. Last week she and others met with Baltimore County marketing officials about how to use the campaign to showcase the video gaming companies based there. DBED has similar meetings planned across the state in the coming weeks.

Diehl said she expects county advertising to pick up later this summer. The Baltimore City outdoor ads will run through July 9 and another round of outdoor advertising launches this September in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.

“One of our goals with the campaign was to create something … that was adaptable,” she said.

That was the case when the state Office of Tourism, which launches a new campaign each year, saw “Maryland of Opportunity” and wanted TBC to develop something similar. That led to the “Land of …” campaign launched in May, with ads featuring Maryland as a land of adventure, romance or history, just to name a few.

“[In our research] we found people who haven’t been here don’t really know what we have to offer,” said Margot Amelia, the tourism office’s director. “So it wasn’t that we had a bad image, we just didn’t have much of an image.”

The Office of Tourism’s budget for its ad campaign is roughly $1.5 million, down from about $2 million spent last year on its “Maryland. Pretty. Close” campaign. Unlike DBED, the tourism office’s market is primarily regional visitors and its advertisements are seen in the Washington and Philadelphia markets in addition to Baltimore.

“This is a really unusual example because they are two different audiences we’re marketing to,” said Amelia. “But it’s a chance for us to create some kind of synergy … and statewide branding.”