City's Ad: "This Isn't the First Time New Orleans has Survived the British"

Update: The Guardian reports that the "This Isn't The First Time New Orleans Has Survived the British" ad campaign has been dropped, and the article's author Chris McGreal notes that he received an angry email from Steve Perry of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau blaming the Guardian article for cancellations from British travelers. McGreal quotes an email from Perry bemoaning the cancellations and stating: "You cannot imagine the devastation to Louisiana from (hurricane) Katrina and now of our marshes and wetlands down on the coast from the oil spill as we have now suffered the two most devastating events of modern times." Today Perry confirmed that the ad campaign has been pulled.

The Guardian has a slightly bemused take on the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau's new ad campaign: "This isn't the first time New Orleans has survived the British."

Chris McGreal, the Guardian's Washington reporter, writes that, "The B in BP may no longer mean British, but tell that to New Orleans. The city is using a $5m cheque from the company to launch what might be seen as only a slightly tongue-in-cheek anti-British campaign, aimed at luring tourists who might be discouraged by the approaching oil spill." McGreal cited blogofneworleans.com's interview with Convention and Visitors Bureau Chairman Steve Perry.

"This isn't the first time New Orleans has survived the British" references General Andrew Jackson leading his troops to defeat the British in the Battle of New Orleans, and it's certainly catchy as far as slogans go. The NOCVB must focus its campaign on letting potential visitors know that New Orleans remains the same tourist-friendly location it has always been. Some are canceling vacations in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast over oil leak concerns - a severe blow to the hospitality industry.

McGreal writes that, "BP wrote a $15m (L10.1m) cheque to promote tourism in Louisiana last month. It paid a similar amount to the state of Alabama, and $25m to Florida."

And speaking of cheques and/or checks, there's now a $20 billion escrow commitment from BP to settle claims, along with $100 million for rig workers laid off during the deep water drilling moratorium. The company also announced today it will not pay this year's dividends to shareholders. After that, BP's Swiss chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said, "BP cares about small people."

Much is still being lost in translation.

 

Follow Karen Dalton-Beninato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kbeninato

Comments

[Paul Russell]

02:59 PM on 06/17/2010

Hilarous

Good job, New Orleans

Laughed my ass off reading that

[SBrooksB]

02:35 PM on 06/17/2010

I understand that it's meant to be "catchy" and wry, but coming, as it does, from the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the slogan strikes me as careless. And I say that as a New Orleanian.

The other day a London family posted to a well-known travel site about their upcoming trip to New Orleans. They were concerned that they would no longer be welcome in the city, and wondered if they should cancel their trip.

I see how the British press is fueling the anti-British thing, but we need to be very careful not to reinforce that.

[whitemale08]

02:25 PM on 06/17/2010

Even during the revolutionary war, Americans were not necessarily fighting the English people, they were fighting the British Empire a.k.a the British East India Corp.

Empires have always been 'private', whether held by financiers or by monarchies and oligarchies.

However today that empire still exists, it's just now called Wall Street/City of London.

Wall Street has an address in New York and the City of London has address in England.

It's like the emperor of the Roman Empire was headquartered in the city of Rome.

The British press is working for the empire because they are trying to make the BP oil spill be about the U.S. vs. U.K., which is not the case.

However we all must recognize that the British Empire still lives on, it's just called Wall Street/City of London, and we have to defeat that empire once and for by stop bailing out the trillions of worthless derivatives and credit-default swaps by these banksters.

We also must defeat the British Empire by making them pay for the damages to our Gulf Coast.

Nigeria wasn't strong enough to defeat the Anglo-Dutch arm of the British Empire when Royal Dutch Shell ravaged the Niger Delta. Till this day you can't eat the fish out of the area.

We must not allow BP run all over our homeland like Shell did to Africa.

[doctorj2u]

05:16 AM on 06/17/2010

I am getting fed up with the British press trying to make the oil disaster an anti-British thing. I have heard nothing on the ground in Louisiana against the country. It is very much against the multinational company BP. And BP deserves every drop hate. As for the slogan, I think it is pretty clever. I myself have quipped in jest that the British are trying to get us back for whipping their butts at the Battle of New Orleans. It is New Orleans humor. Get over it! I think the biggest problem with the slogan is that many Americans have no idea of history and probably have never heard of the Battle of New Orleans.

[RabidRightRebel]

02:20 AM on 06/17/2010

It should be noted that fully 39% of BP shareholders are American and 40% are British and the BP engineers that made the reckless decisions were American. So your xenophobic atittude is some what misplaced.

You would be better served detailing the history of corpoarte greed and its effects on the average Amercian!

[Bienville]

07:22 AM on 06/17/2010

I expect the investigation will reveal that the reckless American engineers were directed or pressured by corporate management.

[FBuchan]

12:40 AM on 06/17/2010

Previous times though, I don't think the British tried to salt the earth, figuratively speaking.