Niagara Publicity Ideas

In this 1978 report, a marketing company working for Brown & Williamson considers how the company could use Niagara Falls to promote "Niagara," a new menthol cigarette brand. The marketers revel in all the possible marketing tie-ins available when using a natural wonder of the world to promote a cigarette. This was especially attractive because "water and water images are the staples of menthol advertising." They proposed ideas like holding a national competition to create a symphonic piece called "Niagara Suite," giving a grant to help preserve the Niagara frontier ("tax deductible"), a new film portraying the physical beauty and grandeur of Niagara Falls ("as opposed to the commercial and tourist aspects of Niagara"), and producing a film for TV: "Ralph Nader visits the Natural Wonders of the World to see how natural they are today." (Ralph Nader was considered an enemy of the tobacco industry for his early efforts to get smoking off of airplanes).

The marketing company Hawkins, McCain and Blumenthal says (about the idea of using Niagara Falls),


 * "When you have one of the seven natural wonders of the world working for you, the trick is not to change it, but to present it to the public in its most idealized fashion."

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Niagara Public Relations and Publicity Ideas

Objective: To heighten the existing awareness of Niagara Falls, its grandeur and natural beauty, among the target audiences for the brand. To keep the name in front of this audience using all appropriate media and methods.

1. A Brown & Williamson grant to the preservation of the Niagara frontier. Permanent, significant and tax deductible.

2. A national competition by B&W for the creation of a "Niagara Suite," the symphonic piece inspired by the Falls, which would become the official Niagara music.

3. A comprehensive search and dissemination of books on Niagara, to locate the best and redistribute them to bookstores around the country tied into a significant celebration.

4. An innovative program that would investigate the various motion pictures made on or at Niagara in the past with the thought of re-releasing them for public consumption. Two that would be considered are "Niagara" starting Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotton and Richard Boone's TV drama of the early Niagara...

5. A continuing program of "filler" releases to newspapers and TV about Niagara Falls depicting its colorful history.

6. A new film created and produced portraying the physical beauty and grandeur of the Falls themselves as opposed to the commercial tourist aspects of Niagara. This film would be distributed to thousands of clubs and organizations around the country and offered to television.

7. Tie-in with the New York State Department of Commerce's highly active and very visible program to attract visitors to New York State.

8. A traveling art exhibition of painting of Niagara which would go from city to city around the U.S.

..10 A continuing program to capitalize on the 16 million visitors to Niagara Falls every year which might include free maps, sampling and other promotion concepts...

11. A program devised to woo the Miss America contest to Niagara Falls and away from Atlantic city.

12. Schedule a representative from the Niagara Parks Commission to appear on the Johnny Carson show to speak about the conservation/restoration efforts now going on to "save Niagara."

Related Sourcewatch resources

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