When an ad campaign appeared in the London Underground promoting South Carolina as a “So Gay” destination for gay and lesbian tourists, the spokesman for the state’s tourism agency shared his unease with a colleague.
“I’m praying this little story doesn’t jump the pond, especially as the later summer slow news cycle sets in,” Marion Edmonds wrote in a July 3 e-mail. “Let’s hope that doesn’t get picked up by some SC tourist and brought back. It would be a classic case of a picture doing the damage of a thousand words.”
Edmonds’ prayer was not answered. The story broke in early July in the blogosphere, and then moved into mainstream news reports.
A pile of e-mail printouts at the South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department illustrates the agency’s confused response to the ads — which apparently were approved by a lone employee who may not have even looked at them — and the media storm that followed.
Freedom of Information requests yielded a four-inch stack of e-mail and documents dating to 2004.
The communications suggest an agency employee, who since has resigned, decided to spend $4,942.50 from a tourism promotion fund he controlled on the campaign designed to draw South Carolina trip bookings during London Pride, a gay event.
State officials quickly reneged on the decision to spend money on the ads. Tourism industry experts said by washing its hands of the ad campaign, the state is losing out on lucrative business.
John Tanzella, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, last month called it “mind-boggling” that South Carolina wouldn’t invest $5,000 to draw tourism from a lucrative niche market.
The hundreds of e-mails show the agency’s leadership figuring out how and why the ads were running in the first place and hoping the story would blow over.
The same day that spokesman Edmonds sent his note to Amy Duffy, the agency’s chief of staff, one of Duffy’s longtime friends forwarded an e-mail from an employee who was vacationing in London.
It included pictures from a gay tour promoter’s Web site talking up South Carolina’s Civil War roots and gay beaches. “Imagine my surprise in seeing this poster in a London Underground station,” the employee wrote. “Who knew?”
A document from Amro Worldwide, the tour promoter, says the posters along escalators were designed to change attitudes and “‘reclaim’ the term ‘so gay’ as a term that is rendered strongly positive for lesbian and gay people. It also allows gay and lesbian people to feel that the term is being neutered as a negative putdown, by portraying ‘so gay’ as they experience it — to be a very good thing indeed; for gay consumers and for each destination highlighted.”
Atlanta, Boston and New Orleans were among the six locations featured on the “So Gay” posters.
The Amro Worldwide document, along with images of the proposed poster, were sent to Rand Romaine, the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department’s sales manager, by Kirsty Dillury, the agency’s contract representative in the United Kingdom, for approval two days before a deadline to include them in the display.
“As you can see the images are very powerful and work well together,” Dillury writes on May 19. She follows up the next day, pressing Romaine for approval.
“It’s good to go,” Romaine replies.
It was the only communication from the agency approving the ad. None of the e-mail shows Romaine vetted the ad with agency managers before they first appeared June 27.
Chad Prosser, the state agency director, said he learned about the ads July 3 with the note forwarded from Duffy’s friend.
Edmonds, the department spokesman, had learned about them on June 30 with news releases.
Taxpayers soon found out about them, too.
“This needs to be stopped immediately!” wrote Tom Irby, a Belton retiree, in an e-mail to Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, Prosser’s boss after the news broke in South Carolina. “The persons responsible for this travesty should be fired!”
Romaine, who had worked at PRT since 1996, resigned July 11. Prosser says it was voluntary. Romaine did not respond to calls from the AP.
Romaine told Duffy in an e-mail he didn’t “specifically recall seeing the actual ad creative.” Duffy and Edmonds said the agency’s computer techs weren’t able to show that Romaine had ever opened the file Dillury had sent with the details.
“I saw a sales opportunity and reacted,” Romaine wrote.
The agency’s reaction appeared confused. For instance, on July 3, Romaine told Dillury he’d been ordered to get the ads taken down, but reversed himself 20 minutes later at Prosser’s direction.
“We were going through the process and beginning to look at taking action,” and didn’t want to embarrass the state, Prosser said. At the time, “we didn’t think it was something that we needed to make a big deal out of.”
Meanwhile, computer technicians had to open the agency’s Internet filter so Edmonds could see how the story played out on gay Web sites.
Ultimately, tour operator was paid — but out of Dillury’s company’s funds.
Prosser brushes aside questions about the publicity that South Carolina attracted.
“South Carolina is a tremendous tourism product. It appeals to a broad group of people,” he said. “We do welcome everyone. Our job is just to keep getting that message out beyond the static that’s being caused by certain groups.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More