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Officials with the Bradenton Area Convention & Visitors Bureau spent some time recently recovering from a bout of the oopsies.
The root of the issue: The agency sponsored the rally towels the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins handed out to fans before the first game of the Eastern Conference finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning May 13 played in Pittsburgh. The bureau's logo and website, and its core destinations, including Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key, lined the bottom of the black and yellow towel.
In hockey terms, the pro-Penguins towel giveaway put the CVB in the penalty box. Lightning fans made sure of that, via social media, with a #BoycottBradenton movement that trended after the game — a 3-1 Lightning victory. Tweets included this one, from BoltsJolts, an unofficial team blog: “Let's show @visit Bradenton who they gave the finger to with that statement. Get it trending higher. #BoycottBradenton.”
Bradenton CVB officials were blindsided by the backlash. No one in the office considered the promotion, which cost $6,000 for 20,000 towels for the one game, a significant risk.
The CVB released a statement the day after the social media onslaught. Elliott Falcione, executive director of the CVB, mentioned the Bradenton area's deep roots with Pittsburgh, particularly with the Pirates holding spring training in town for years. The CVB's towel sponsorship, he says, was a marketing move, not a dig against the Lightning.
With the negative stories still streaming over the weekend, Falcione held a brief press conference May 16. He says the Pens reached out to him with the advertising opportunity and needed an answer, quickly. Getting the logo and brand awareness into the hands of thousands of potential visitors, says Falcione, was a no-brainer — he thought.
Asked specifically about the social media firestorm, Falcione says it was a mistake that he “didn't think it all the way through.” But while he says he wouldn't do something like this again, he and the CVB will remain aggressive in courting visitors and sticking to the mission of promoting tourism. “I believe in what we do, but we make mistakes because we take risks,” he says. “But we won't make the same mistake twice.”
Falcione didn't address another social media happening: The people who say all of this is a whole bunch of nothing. Such as this tweet: “Plenty of things in this world worthy of outrage. The #BoycottBradenton is by far one of the dumbest.”
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