State reins in spending on new ad campaign

Freedom trail tour guide Josh Rudy of Braintree last year chats with tourists at Quincy Market. (John Tlumacki/ Globe Staff/ File 2008)

Turns out, travelers aren't the only ones trying to stretch their dollars during the recession.

In the "spirit of cost efficiency," the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism said it plans to roll out a new advertising campaign this month that reuses video filmed for last year's campaign. The footage of attractions across the Bay State has been converted into a dizzying whirl of animated pop art.

This year's scaled-back campaign, which includes print ads, is in stark contrast to last year's 90-day marketing blitz, which featured a new TV commercial - and a new reason to visit Massachusetts - each day.

This year's on-air campaign features only two new TV commercials, which will air between March 16 and June 12.

The state spent $361,160 producing this year's campaign, 18 percent less than last year's $440,020 bill. And it's spending $2.57 million to advertise in Boston, Providence, Hartford, New York, and Albany - 14 percent less than the $2.99 million it spent last year.

"We have a responsibility to the destinations, hotels, attractions, shops, and restaurants to find new and innovative ways to market this incredibly diverse state," Betsy Wall, the tourism office's executive director, said in a prepared statement.

Patrick B. Moscaritolo, the chief executive of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, hopes the campaign, which was created by ad firm Connelly Partners, will appeal to vacationers within a day's drive of Boston and Cambridge, which have suffered a "dramatic drop-off in business travel."

The hard-core business travelers, who each sleep in hotels here more than 75 nights a year and "have propelled forward the Boston and Cambridge visitor industry for the last five years, are now chained to their desks - if they're even fortunate enough to have a desk and they're not out on the street," Moscaritolo said. "The target now becomes leisure travelers."

Nicole C. Wong can be reached at nwong@globe.com.