If you’ve ever looked at the Instagram feed of a recent New Orleans transplant or a millennial that just visited the city, chances are you’ve seen the hashtag #followyournola more than a few times. What you may not know is that the “Follow Your NOLA” phrase is actually part of a marketing campaign from the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, who developed the idea with New York City-based digital marketing agency 360i.
Photo via 360i’s blog.
The campaign has featured a number of TV spots, an interactive website and much more. That’s in addition to taking off on social media, where the it’s racked up plenty of free publicity as countless people caption Instagrams of their Cafe du Monde beignets with the #followyournola tagline.
This month the campaign moved on to a brand new medium—the New York City subway system. As 360i’s blog reports, ads with the tagline “Follow Your NOLA” and “Only In New Orleans” have taken over the Union Square subway station in Manhattan. The photos feature decidedly New Orleans images like a jazz band performing at Bacchanal, a brightly painted creole cottage, a fresh piece of pita bread from Shaya, a Vespa scooter parked in the French Quarter and an unidentified man playing a saxophone, among other things.
The ad campaign has been going on for a couple of years now, so it’s probably been delivering results and that’s undoubtedly a good thing for the city. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something inauthentic about this portrayal of the authentic New Orleans. Maybe its just the TV commercials’ references to “this alligator thing” that I find so off-putting.
But now that I’ve had my time to rant, I want to know how you think New Orleans should be sold to the rest of the world. What would you focus on if you could create an ad campaign for the city? Share your thoughts in the comments.
