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Strategy May 04, 2018

Travel Michigan Launches New Campaign, Branded Merch

By  Sara Lavenduski

Michigan, a summer tourist destination? That's the objective of a major new campaign, to encourage warm-weather travelers to try out the Wolverine State this year for their vacations.

“Long Live Summer: Experience the Lake Effect” is the newest Pure Michigan tourism push by Travel Michigan, part of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., with a budget of more than $4 million. The campaign includes radio, TV and billboard advertising across Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, the cities of Chicago and Minneapolis and southern Ontario.

Why Michigan for vacation? It’s home to family-friendly resorts, bustling cities and towns (including Frankenmuth, the state’s “Little Bavaria”), wineries and breweries, beautiful state parks and more than 11,000 inland lakes for recreation. That’s according to Travel Michigan, which also designed a Vacation Finder tool to help potential visitors plan their stay, as well as an official video with a tropical getaway vibe:

And what promotional effort would be complete without an extensive line of branded merchandise? Michigan fans can get their hands on Pure Michigan apparel, drinkware, home décor and more at an official online store.

“Michigan has so much to offer visitors, and we continue to add leading-edge technologies to the campaign to further inspire visitors to look to Michigan for their perfect summer vacation,” said Dave Lorenz, vice president of Travel Michigan, in a statement. “Long Live Summer is really about a state of mind and is another way that we can celebrate summer in Pure Michigan.”

Of course, there’s an official hashtag, #LongLiveSummer, and a Twitter feed publicizing Michigan events and activities: