Tennessee firm paid $270,000 of local taxpayers' money to film this 30 second commercial.

PNJ story...

http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013306130022

Well, they'll be disappointed when they go down there and don't see the Blues. 
I think it's a nice ad.  Not sure if the price paid is good or bad as I don't know how much this kind of advertising costs.

http://www.pensacoladigest.com/2013/06/is-the-visit-pensacola-ad-too-expensive/

Interesting article. 
But I would like to know what other cities pay for similar ads. That would give me a better idea about whether the cost is justified than telling us what 30 seconds of a cable TV show cost to produce.

Nekochan wrote:Interesting article. 
But I would like to know what other cities pay for similar ads. That would give me a better idea about whether the cost is justified than telling us what 30 seconds of a cable TV show cost to produce.

HBO is hardly just "cable tv show" production values. lol
It's in the same league with the broadcast networks and feature films.

from the article...

"As a point of reference, the TV show Game of Thrones has an estimated budget of $70 million per ten-episode season. At around 55 minutes per episode, that works out to about $64,000 per 30 seconds of finished video. So even with dozens of scripted characters, hundreds of extras, and film crews working across three continents, it’s still four times cheaper to produce Game of Thrones (per unit of time) than a Visit Pensacola TV commercial."

I'm noticing a trend,  neko.  You seem to have an inclination to be very trusting of those who are in a position of power or authority.   lol
The level of your trust is about equal to my level of distrust.

Yes, I trust those in power in Pensacola, lol.

What I mean is that I don't know if you can compare the cost, per minute, of a TV show to the cost per minute of an advertisement.  Like I said, I don't know.  The ad might should have cost $10,000--I just don't know.  We have TV ads here for Hollywood, FL.  I would like to know how much Hollywood, FL paid for their ad. 
Apples to apples, oranges to oranges, Bob.  That's all I mean.

I cannot find the Hollywood ad I saw up here, but here is one that did play here in Huntsville.  I want to know what THIS ad cost:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jz8ckapx2A

nekochan, if there's one thing I've learned in life,  it's that when people spend OTHER peoples' money,  they never spend it as wisely as they do their own.

Well, you're right and that is all taxpayer money is....
But I want to know what Hollywood, FL and Chattanooga, TN paid for their ads.  Because both are very good ads.  But I can't find any news stories or anything about how much they cost, so maybe people in those cities don't go online and bitch about the cost of them.  

This is the only thing I can find about the cost of TV ads.

http://televisionadvertising.com/faq.htm

Unless they have some way to measure the response and know how many visitors those ads are actually bringing to either city,  and I don't know if that is even possible,  then I'm skeptical about the cost effectiveness of either of them.
But then again as I said,  you don't have to be as concerned about that when it aint your own money being spent.

One thing I've noticed about some of those syndicated talk radio shows.
Limbaugh or Hannity will do a commercial,  and at the end of the commercial they will tell the audience to go to the sponsor's website and they will get a discount or bonus when they let the sponsor know they learned about the offer only because of hearing the radio spot.
That is probably the only way I would ever buy a commercial spot if I was a businessman.
Because I would have to know how much bang I'm getting for that advertising dollar.

Not my money, you're right.  But there's currently a long line of other people waiting to take it.  

By a show of hands, who here has ever decided to go on vacation in a particular city based on a tourism ad that vaguely featured things to do in that city?

Boards, I was just going to say that we went to Chattanooga, but not because of that ad.  We would have gone anyway.  The State of TN currently has a TV ad running here and every time I see it, I want to get in the car and drive north.  But then, I don't need a TV ad to make me want to go to TN.   But that is a good question.

If the businesses who are funding the Chamber of Commerce are themselves paying the cost of an ad like that,  I assure you they are more inclined to want to know what that ad is getting them.
But if the ad is only bringing in a couple dozen visitors,  and the taxpayers are subsidizing the cost of it,  what the hell do they care.  They aint paying for it.

Here's a related question.  How many here have ever spent money because they read a banner ad at the top of this forum?

If they had used local filming, they would have saved costs........I think this was about 2/3s too high for a quality 30 second spot. I have done my own 30 second spots for TV for a business I own, and I wrote the script, took digital photos of the business, and the TV station provided a pro to read my script. Those ads ran 20 times on the Connan show when he was with NBC and I spent $1000.

When you front load an ad campaign with these kind of costs, you need to cut the back end. My 30 second spots with the professional reading the script and the great digital photos transitioning really was an effective ad for us......There are plenty of pros in the Pensacola area who could have done this for 1/3 of the production costs. Lots of profit for someone.

I think that a google ad words campaign for just the cost of the tv production could have brought more tourists to Pensacola than the entire tv campaign. We spend only 200 dollars a month or about seven bucks a day for our google ad words campaign, and it targets using key words in a search.......take a browser which does not block ads and put in beach vacation and look at the right hand column......see what pops up......probably South Carolina beaches.

Destin, Myrtle Beach, and Florida beaches in general on the first page of my search.....nothing about Pensacola.........they simply do not know what they are doing.

2seaoat wrote: Those ads ran 20 times on the Connan show when he was with NBC and I spent $1000.  

You need to clarify for those who might misunderstand that you ran local affiliate spots that aired during that time slot. Not commercials shown on the NBC network for that price. lol

I can tell you, I hear a lot up here about Destin.  Destin a popular destination for North Alabamians.  

Destination Destin. 

Maybe I can get 200K for that?  

http://mausmediagroup.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-tv-commercial/

Tier 1 TV Commercial
"...A tier 1 commercial is a national commercial.  It can be as simple as being created in a studio with a green screen or as elaborate as a Hollywood production.  Usually, a tier 1 TV commercial involves actors, story-boarding and script-writing.  They can vary in price drastically, depending on the size and work involved.  The 30 second TV commercial example below averages between $3500-$5,000 for production.  The commercial below was part of a branding campaign for the same client..."
This promotional ad seems ridiculously expensive to me, and I'm sure it could have been produced locally for considerably less, plus kept the money in the community.  I wonder who's getting a kickback.

We need a city motto ...Pensacola, there's nothing but beach.
or Pensacola , why did we come here?
Pensacola, no cheaper place North of mexico