
From MediaLife:
“It’s all over the news, all the beaches along the Gulf Coast that have been ruined by the BP oil spill.
Yet beaches further down the coast are still pristine, and that’s created a public relations challenge for businesses in those areas. How do you tell the public, specifically vacationers, that your beaches have not been affected?
That was the issue facing the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, which was worried that potential tourists would forego a visit to its beaches because of their proximity to the spill.
The bureau hit on an innovative solution: Each morning it uploads pictures of the oil-free Panama City beaches to digital billboards across the Southeast, where most of its tourists hail from.
“Everybody here very much wants to make sure we’re doing everything we can to get the message out that there is no oil along any of the beaches in northwest Florida,” says Dan Rowe, president and CEO of the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. “There’s no better way to reassure the public than to show a photo that is live as you can be.”