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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Alan Fogg,
Director of Communications
afogg@fceda.org, 703-790-0600
Yep: Fairfax County, Virginia, Begins "e-country" Advertising Campaign
Effort targets technology entrepreneurs and workers in Silicon Valley and worldwide
Fairfax County, Virginia, March 13, 2000 — The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA) today kicked off a new advertising campaign aimed at promoting the county around the country and the world as a technology hub with an enviable quality of life for technology entrepreneurs and workers. The ads will appear in business and technology magazines starting this month, and on cable television programming and on bus shelters in the Silicon Valley.
The ads carry the slogan "Yep, you're in e-country now!" and a tagline "Bandwidth as Big as Your Dreams" with a progress bar similar to those used on Internet sites.
Four print ads and one television commercial have been produced with the "e-country" slogan and bandwidth tagline. They were unveiled at the Global Internet Summit at George Mason University in Fairfax.
The ads draw on light humor: The print ads feature a dog wearing a collar bearing an e-mail address, a baby with a mobile comprised of computer circuit boards, a young man "playing" a computer onstage before an appreciate audience, and a woman with a tattoo of a laptop computer above her ankle. The 30-second TV commercial features a crying baby soothed only by the circuit board mobile.
The campaign will include $1.4 million in placements between now and June 30, 2001. Ads run in national business or technology-oriented magazines such as Wired, Red Herring, Fast Company, Black Enterprise, MIT Technology Review and Forbes Global. The ads will also show up in unusual places: bus shelters around Silicon Valley and in a diorama at the San Jose (California) International Airport, in order to spotlight Fairfax County to Silicon Valley companies, entrepreneurs and workers.
The TV spot will be used on the CNN Airport Network, and on cable networks in the Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. areas.
Campaign objectives include:
- Continue to increase consideration of Fairfax County as a business location among business employers, knowledge workers and venture capitalists.
- Continue to attract business prospects, especially from companies expanding to the east coast of the U.S. from other technology centers in the U.S. and around the world.
- Help Fairfax County entrepreneurs and employers attract knowledge workers and venture capital.
- Retain Fairfax County business base by strengthening positive perceptions of living, working, investing and doing business in Fairfax County.
This is the FCEDA's ninth advertising campaign since 1978. The lighter tone of the ads, and the focus on lifestyle concerns, is important, said Gerald L. Gordon, president of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.
"This campaign is designed to appeal to the younger men and women who populate technology companies today and make them successful," Gordon said. "Research shows that quality-of-life considerations are very important to this group and this campaign is designed to hit those considerations."
The Richmond-based marketing communications firm of Siddall, Matus & Coughter Inc. designed and implemented the campaign. SMC has had the FCEDA's advertising account since the first campaign in 1978.
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