Ocean City, Maryland Department of Tourism

With summer rapidly approaching, Ocean City, Maryland, needed a big idea to kick-start the season. Many of Ocean City's typical visitors couldn't afford to go on vacation due to sky-rocketing gas prices, and if they could, many would not out of fear that their personal economic situation would change. So MGH found something big to encourage people to go away: the end of the world.

We had read about a scientific study predicting that the planet's oceans would evaporate in one billion years. So in a variety of advertising, we encouraged people to book their Ocean City vacations soon — before the ocean disappears.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign began with a televised address from the mayor of Ocean City, in the style of a 1960s civil defense announcement. The spot was placed on YouTube as well. And a full-page newspaper ad was created, urging citizens to "book now."

The media strategy was equally creative. The spot itself aired for only two nights. But we employed a "roadblock" strategy, so it would air at the same time on every major network affiliate on the East Coast. The print ad only ran once, but in multiple newspapers on the same day.

The impact of this unique message, coupled with the unusual media buy, produced results disproportionate to our rather modest budget. Our word of mouth team was able to generate more than 50,000 views of the spot on YouTube in the first week alone. Our PR team generated major coverage in newspapers and television stations from New York to Virginia. And while most tourist destinations saw declines in attendance from 5 % to 15 % that summer, Ocean City saw its numbers rise significantly.