VISIT FLORIDA Official Media Newsroom

VISIT FLORIDA® Selects DDB Miami to Help Position Florida as the No. 1 Travel Destination in the World

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 11, 2009

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VISIT FLORIDA, the state’s official tourism marketing corporation, announces today that DDB Miami will serve as its new general market agency of record for advertising, beginning July 1, 2009.

DDB Miami of DDB Worldwide, which was created in 1949 by the Omnicom Group, one of the largest communications organizations in the world. DDB Miami will be responsible for VISIT FLORIDA's domestic media planning/buying, creative services/production and electronic media planning/buying for the general market.

“Destination marketing is a very competitive business and DDB Miami has the consumer insights, creativity, smarts and the resources to develop innovative advertising programs that will increase travel to the Sunshine State,” said Will Seccombe, Chief Marketing Officer of VISIT FLORIDA.

In addition to the announcement of DDB Miami, VISIT FLORIDA has also retained the services of Spark and Miles Media. Spark, a boutique creative agency based in Tampa, Fla., was retained to implement select integrated marketing projects. Miles Media Group of Sarasota, Fla., will add to their duties as VISIT FLORIDA’s direct marketing agency responsible for producing Official Florida travel publications and the VISITFLORIDA.com website. Miles Media will implement an innovative traffic generation program to increase traffic to the award-winning website through a combination of search engine marketing and search engine optimization.

“Our challenge was to identify and retain the best-in-class marketing firms to help VISIT FLORIDA achieve our vision of establishing Florida as the No. 1 travel destination in the world,” said Seccombe. “Tourism is a very important to the State of Florida and our industry counts on VISIT FLORIDA to retain the best and brightest partners to maintain and grow Florida’s share of global travelers.”

In accordance with company a guideline, which calls for periodic evaluations of external vendor services, VISIT FLORIDA posted an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) in October for:

· Domestic Media Planning and Buying

· Creative Services and Production

· Electronic Media Buying and Creative Services

VISIT FLORIDA received Letters of Intent to Bid from 45 firms and proposals from 16 firms. Six agencies were selected to present their proposals to the selection committee in Tallahassee.

“The advertising agency ITN process was extremely thorough and very competitive, “said Dan LeBlanc, President of Cape Leisure Corporation and VISIT FLORIDA’s Board representative on the agency selection committee. “I was very impressed with the quality and creativity of the competing firms and believe that VISIT FLORIDA has selected the agencies best suited to execute our strategic marketing initiatives.”

As the state’s number one industry, tourism is responsible for welcoming more than 80 million visitors each year, which results in over $60 billion in taxable sales revenue and employs in excess of 1 million Floridians. For every $1 spent on tourism marketing, VISIT FLORIDA – the state’s official tourism marketing corporation – generates more than $55 in tourism spending and $3 in new sales tax collections, paid by visitors, not residents. VISIT FLORIDA promotes tourism to Florida through sales, advertising, promotions, public relations, new product development and visitor services programs. As a public/private partnership VISIT FLORIDA has more than 3,100 tourism industry Partners and major strategic alliances with American Express Travel Related Services, AirTran Airways, Disney Destinations, Dollar Rent A Car, The Hertz Corporation, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment and Universal Orlando. To learn more about VISIT FLORIDA, visit www.VISITFLORIDA.org.