There’s an obvious question to ask about this story, but I don’t see it being asked.
Where do they make corndogs, anyway?
After a couple of high profile job-poaching trips to California and Illinois, Gov. Rick Perry is planning a new raid — this time on the Big Apple.
And he’s putting big money behind the state’s big mouth: $1 million for a TV advertising campaign promoting the Lone Star State’s pro-business approach and strong economy, officials say.
Perry is scheduled to travel to New York on Sunday, June 16, and also plans a stop in Connecticut during the four-day trip, the governor’s office is announcing Monday. The message will be identical to the one he has taken to other states: Texas wants you — namely your jobs and investment capital.
“The governor’s job recruitment trips are doing exactly what we intended — getting the word out about the low taxes, smart regulations, fair legal system and skilled workforce that have made Texas a beacon for employers,” said Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. “We have a formula in Texas that has made us the best state in the nation to live, work, raise a family and run a business — and it’s a formula other states and our federal government would do well to replicate.”
The 30-second ads will feature Texans from a variety of professions — from filmmakers to doctors — extolling the virtues of the state’s economy. They will run on CNBC, FOX News, CNN, ESPN and the Discovery Channel, according to the governor’s office. The spots are scheduled to run for a week, and begin airing Monday, aides said.
The New York ad buy, which dwarfs the ones purchased earlier this year in California and Illinois, appears to be the most aggressive campaign yet by the state’s economic development marketing team.
[…]
While marketing a state’s economic climate to businesses in other states and countries isn’t a new concept, Perry has taken it to a new, confrontational level. When he went to California in February, Perry met with business leaders, talked up Texas to reporters and was featured in a radio ad criticizing the Golden State.
“Building a business is tough. But I hear building a business in California is next to impossible,” Perry said in the ad. “See why our low taxes, sensible regulations and fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving to Texas.”
The swaggering Texas governor ratcheted up the rhetoric in an ad directly appealing to Illinois’ business leaders, telling them their state’s business climate was “designed for you to fail.”
“With rising taxes and government interference on the upswing, your situation is not unlike a burning building on the verge of collapse,” Perry says in the ad, which urges business leaders to take an “escape route” to Texas. The Illinois ad campaign, which included print and radio spots, cost about $80,000, according to published reports.
The recruiting trips have prompted some eye-rolling scorn in the states where he’s conducted them.
After Perry’s trip to California, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown called the state’s $24,000 ad buy targeting the California businesses “barely a fart” and said it would have no impact on the state’s economy. (When a maker of firearms gear, Shield Tactical, announced in May it was relocating operations from California to Texas, Perry attributed it directly to the recruiting trip and ad buy.)
And right there is the critical point that is being overlooked. Shield Tactical, which calls itself a “family business”, is the only business named that has actually paid heed to Perry’s call to come to Texas. How big a business they are I can’t say – neither their website nor Perry’s press release mentioned their size – but the point is that they’re it so far, after two high-profile ad buys and a ton of press coverage of them. If that’s the case, then by any reasonable metric, Perry’s ad campaign has been a miserable failure. Maybe the New York buy will produce better results – they are spending more money there – but if so it will be a big change from the previous ad campaigns. The Trib article says that “no tax dollars are being used in connection with the marketing trip or ad campaign”, and for the sake of simplicity I’ll take that at face value, but clearly there’s a significant part of the story being missed here. Like with most things Rick Perry does, there’s a big splash up front, then little if anything to show for it once the cameras stop rolling.
Well, okay, there is one thing to show for it:
“This kind of strategy in which you use free media has always been a hallmark of Rick Perry’s public profile,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s hard not to see this as an ongoing branding effort for the next stage of Rick Perry’s public career.”
I must admit that by that measure, this has been a success. Any actual businesses lured here would be a bonus. Trail Blazers, Texas Politics, Hair Balls, and BOR, all of which have videos of the ads in question (and may I just say again what an awesome “Democrat” Farouk Shami was and is), have more.
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