North Lake Tahoe: Golden Gate

Breaking this month, TV, radio, print, outdoor, online and transit advertising from the North Lake Tahoe Marketing Cooperative promotes the resort area—better known for its alpine, winter attractions—as a summer destination. Or at least, a better summer destination than San Fran chilly frisco. The work is by San Francisco advertising agency School of Thought.

With a limited budget, under $.5 million, the campaign almost skips what Lake Tahoe’s got to offer, and homes in instead on what San Francisco, its primary market, lacks, i.e., summer. Daytime summer temperatures in the mountains average 20˚ higher than by the notoriously cold and foggy Bay. (Incidentally, while San Francisco summers are probably little warmer than when Mark Twain lived there in 1864, his famous “coldest winter” quote is apocryphal.)

A TV commercial, in :30 and :15 versions, shows a San Francisco backyard birthday party, with cake and favors and burgers on the grill. All good, then a chilling fog rolls in and the fun is over. Lake Tahoe appears only in the commercial’s final few seconds, and only in quick—sunny—cuts. The spot closes with the area’s new tag, “Real summer. Real close.”

Print, outdoor and digital banners don’t get around to showing Lake Tahoe at all. Instead we see parka’d kids at the beach (headline: “Winter, spring, winter, fall”), a foggy golf course (“The good news is, it’ll burn off. In October”) and an iconic, fogbound Golden Gate (“Don’t call it Frisco. Or summer.”)

The media buy is all in the San Francisco DMA. TV runs on Discovery, ESPN, Food, A&E, USA and National Geographic channels. Print full pages are in local weeklies. Outdoor billboards and wallscapes and transit posters are in high foot traffic areas including the Ferry Building. Online banners are geo-targeted on Trip Advisor and radio reads on Pandora.

Creative credits go to School of Thought creative directors Tom Geary and Joe Newfield. The director is Beau Bouverat of production company Tinbike Productions, Petaluma, Calif.

The North Lake Tahoe Marketing Cooperative, based in Tahoe City, Calif., is a marketing partnership between the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association and the Incline Village Crystal Bay Visitors Bureau, designed to promote the entire North Lake Tahoe region, California and Nevada, under one advertising umbrella. gotahoenorth.com

School of Thought is a San Francisco advertising agency whose clients include North Lake Tahoe Marketing Cooperative, Milliman, Walt Disney Co., Red Bull, Meyenberg Goat Milk, Wine Harmony, Rumble Entertainment, LeapMotion, eBay Classifieds, others. schoolofthought.com