home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=92TT1774>
- <title>
- Aug. 10, 1992: Give Me Your Active, Your Affluent
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Aug. 10, 1992 The Doomsday Plan
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 20
- BUSINESS
- Give Me Your Active, Your Affluent...</hdr><body>
- <p> When businesses choose celebrities to endorse their products,
- they generally opt for world-class sports figures or gorgeous
- starlets. But a travel-industry ad campaign now airing on
- Japanese television may prove that graying world leaders of
- debatable sex appeal can sell with all the pizazz of a Vanna
- White. Developed by Go*USA, a tourism-industry trade group, the
- commercial features none other than President George Bush
- promoting the U.S. as a vacation paradise. Over images of
- rolling lawns and sandy beaches, Bush touts Hawaii, homegrown
- Dixieland jazz and, in an endearingly shameless display of
- personal preference, the wonders of Maine and Texas.
- </p>
- <p> The same ad (minus the Japanese subtitles) appeared on
- British television earlier this year and was a resounding
- success. As a result, Go*USA decided to export the commercial
- to Japan. Last year, taking advantage of a weak dollar, 3.3
- million Japanese visitors flocked to the States, creating a near
- $10 billion U.S. trade surplus in travel and tourism with Japan
- alone. The travel business and the Commerce Department hope the
- Bush ad will lure even greater numbers of big spenders to
- American shores in 1992.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-