Baltimore has been called Charm City and the City That Reads. Now boosters believe it's where tourists can find their happy place.
"Find Your Happy Place in Baltimore" is the slogan of a $500,000 marketing campaign that the city's tourism agency, Visit Baltimore, is launching this month. It's intended to play off the recessionary blues, with one early web spot asking, "Has the economy got you in a slump?"
Created by Baltimore ad agency Carton Donofrio Partners, the multimedia campaign aims largely to draw visitors from nearby states and the District of Columbia as well as other parts of Maryland. It will promote Baltimore museums, attractions, hotels, restaurants and other destinations from now until New Year's Eve, in print and on television, radio and the Internet.
Visit Baltimore plans to unveil the campaign at a National Tourism Week event Thursday and to begin the promotions around Memorial Day. As part of the unveiling, the agency will seek to set a Guinness World Record by gathering more than 250 members in orange and black ponchos outside the Maryland Science Center in an attempt to create the world's largest human smiley face. If the record is achieved, Visit Baltimore plans to release 19 dozen butterflies into the air.
"People are looking for joy. People are looking for happiness. People are looking for simpler pleasures in the climate we are living in," said Sam Rogers, chief marketing officer at Visit Baltimore. "The idea is to get people to move around town and go see and do things they wouldn't normally do."
The theme was inspired largely by an upcoming exhibition at the American Visionary Art Museum titled "What Makes Us Smile?" that will be curated in part by Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons TV show. The museum's national advisory committee for the exhibition includes filmmaker John Waters and comedian Rosie O'Donnell.
Planners hope the campaign will boost the local tourism industry. They say they wanted an overriding theme that any number of destinations could use to promote their exhibits and activities and a theme that's in sync with the times, as the economy shows some signs of recovery.
The campaign includes the website BmoreHappy.com, which will provide information about "happy stay" packages at hotels and an interactive "Bmore Happy Sweet-stakes" game that people can play to win prizes, including baseball tickets, art work, and trips to Florida and the Caribbean.
In coming weeks, Marylanders will be hearing about "happy" seats at Oriole Park where prizes will be hidden, "happy" tables at restaurants, and "happy" happy hours at bars.
"No matter what makes you happy, you'll find it in Baltimore," says one print ad that features a variety of Baltimore figures, from Divine to Babe Ruth to the Oriole Bird, with the downtown skyline in the background, sunbeams radiating outward and butterflies fluttering overhead. "Only Baltimore has this many unexpected things to see and do all in one place."
Target markets for print ads and TV spots include Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa., Richmond, Va., and Washington, D.C. Some Happy Place promotions already have begun to appear locally, including an Internet spot that designated May 8 and 9 "Baltimore Happiness For Less Weekend." Life-size figures at the Baltimore Visitor Center depict characters from participating attractions.
For some observers, the marketing is reminiscent of promotional efforts by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer to improve the city's morale, from the Charm City moniker to "Baltimore is Best" to "Pink Positive." During the pink campaign, a former Schaefer aide, Pat Bernstein, had city street curbs painted that color in an effort to put people in a cheerier mood.
"Schaefer was a genius at putting a happy face on a situation that sometimes was not so happy," said Blair Lee, a political commentator. "This is right out of the Schaefer playbook. The problem is that Schaefer is not here. You have to have a Schaefer to sell it."
Others say they aren't sure about the campaign's tone.
"Isn't that what they tell women in childbirth, 'Go to your happy place'?" asked Marcie Jones Brennan, a Baltimore crime blogger and author. "It sounds like a pain management technique."
The eight-month campaign is the successor to previous cultural tourism promotions such as "Waterfront Invasion" and "Nevermore 2009, the 200th Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe."
The "Find Your Happy Place" concept stemmed from extensive research that shows people, more than ever, are looking to do things that make them happy after the long economic downturn, said Visit Baltimore president and chief executive Tom Noonan.
"People are going back to the basics and embracing the simpler things in life that make them smile and laugh — spending quality time with family and friends and traveling," Noonan said. "Visit Baltimore is capitalizing on the national mood and trend with a comprehensive, citywide program that promotes those places and things in Baltimore that are certain to make visitors happy."
When Visit Baltimore's cultural tourism advisory committee was searching for a theme to promote Baltimore starting this summer, Rogers said, the American Visionary Art Museum's "What Makes Us Smile?" exhibition "obviously resonated with the group."
The museum exhibition is scheduled to run from October to Labor Day 2011. Museum founder Rebecca Hoffberger will serve as co-curator along with Groening and artist Gary Panter, set designer for "Pee-wee's Playhouse." Topics of the exhibition will include tickling in animals and humans, vintage toys and the healing power of laughter.
Museum officials are counting on Groening's and Panter's participation and name recognition to help bring attention to the yearlong exhibit. The advisory committee, which will help promote it and raise funds and recommend artists to feature, also includes doctor and humanitarian Patch Adams and author Frank Warren.
Hoffberger said she's pleased that Visit Baltimore wanted to build on the theme.
"How important to do it now," she said. "At a time when fears about the instability of the global economy remain a daunting influence, shifting public and institutional consciousness to value what is an always available free luxury — taking time to laugh, smile and find delight in what is at hand — might be the most constructive communal action to be had."
Past cultural tourism campaigns have had varying degrees of success, participants say.
A circus-related theme was effective last year because the city had a wide range of shows and exhibits at the same time, from the symphony to Cirque du Soleil to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey to the Baltimore Museum of Art.
The "Maps — Finding Our Place in the World" campaign in 2008 sparked controversy when a related student arts project temporarily blocked access to the public squares around Baltimore's Washington Monument. And "Vivat! St. Petersburg," a series of Russia-themed events celebrating the arrival of now-departed Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Yuri Temirkanov, was less of a hit partly because a February 2003 blizzard coincided with many of the scheduled events.
Part of the appeal of the Happy Place campaign, Rogers said, is that it is general enough that many places and organizations can plug into it. If a museum didn't have ties to Poe or maps in years past, he said, managers might have had a difficult time capitalizing on that year's citywide campaign, but "Happy Place" is broad enough that it can be marketed in a variety of ways.
The Baltimore Museum of Art plans to designate certain areas on its property as "happy places." It's also giving away prizes such as a framed Henri Matisse print, Matisse-themed cards and a book about Matisse's art.
The Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts this year is reserving an area of the Artscape festival for "filmmakers, new media artists and digicam enthusiasts" and asking them to produce and screen "moving pictures" based on the "happiness" theme during the festival.
Rogers said dozens of local organizations are participating in this campaign. In fact, he said, Baltimore's entire tourism community is being encouraged to take part. "We want people to run with it."
He's careful to never say exactly where the 'happy place' in Baltimore can be found.
"You find your own happy place," Rogers said. "That's the point."
Sun researcher Carol Julian contributed to this article.