Barry Smith has managed a $60 million plus advertising budget from his home. He has lead advertising accounts for McDonald’s, Gulf Oil and Trump Plaza Casino. He is the brainchild behind a famous television campaign that featured celebrities like Evil Knievel jumping out of a suitcase. The campaign is credited with leading to exponential year over year sales increases for Choice Hotels in North America.

Barry Smith has unparalleled pedigree to talk with authority about effective advertising and marketing. He has a proven 40 year track record that is virtually second to none in North America. So when a guy like Barry Smith takes an interest in little old Prince Edward Island and its tourism promotion, we should all take note.

His opinion is neither flattering nor subtle. In an interview from his Arizona home he sums it up with one word.

Idiots.

Ouch.

Smith’s connection with the Island began when he was asked twice by the Binns government to draft advertising plans targeted specifically at the major metropolitan areas along the eastern seaboard. His philosophy is pretty simple. While PEI has long been known as a family mecca the real money to be made is found in cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington. Tens of millions of people, trapped in urban sprawl in the heat of summer, within a day of PEI.

To tap into that massive potential you’ve got to first create a demand; a desire to visit PEI.  A few years back, Smith even met with 30 tourism bureaucrats and industry leaders (about 28 too many, he says). He laid out his plans for creating that demand. Was he met with enthusiasm? No. Was he met with opposition? Not really. The concepts he put forward - supported by senior Island politicians of the day - just simply fell flat. Smith is at a loss to explain the reaction; he is not sure whether it was opposition or apathy. What is for certain is that industry leaders and bureaucrats scuttled a plan that would have seen millions in new dollars invested in major US markets. 

The question is why?

The answer is simple.

Control.

It all comes down to who controls the money. 

PEI’s marketing is left to bureaucrats within the Department of Tourism with no real experience in designing and executing marketing campaigns that actually generate significant new business. It’s a big chunk of the reason why our tourism industry has been in free fall. Look at the Island occupancy rate. It stands at a woeful annual rate of 45 per cent and has been steadily shrinking for 20 years. 

The bureaucracy is prodded along by members of the tourism industry who promote self-serving pet projects that do little if anything to grow the PEI brand or create a desire to visit.

And through it all there is zero accountability. 

No one complained when we squandered $9 million on Founder’s Hall. 

No one stands up and demands that heads role when millions are spent constructing a new cruise ship wharf in Charlottetown that is unable to accommodate the very cruise ships that were promised. 

No one bothers to raise an eyebrow when we spend half a million dollars promoting a road that has simply been renamed. 

No one questions the credibility of statistics put forward by the Minister of Tourism,  who inanely suggested last year’s Aerosmith concert pumped $12 million into the local economy. 

No one is outraged that the Ghiz government’s desire for control torpedoed our chance to host the Island Games - the reason for Smith’s current outrage with Island bureaucracy. 

No one questions the effectiveness of a branding exercise - Gentle Island - that has resulted in zero growth for PEI’s tourism industry in three years. 

We’re already hearing the excuses for this year; gas is too expensive, it costs too much to fly, it’s an American election year. Rubbish says Smith. Now is the perfect time to invest more because our competitors are not. If we invest properly, even in years like this, Barry Smith contends tourism can experience a significant uptick.

Unfortunately our tourism industry talks a better game than it delivers. The old boys’ club of PEI’s tourism industry is scared of Barry Smith, and his ilk, because they are a threat to the status quo.

Smith is considered the father of an advertising philosophy called “Advertising that works the next day.” He built a highly successful career around it. What is means is that if an advertising campaign does not generate immediate and real benefits, cancel it. We do just the opposite on PEI with our annual $6 million marketing budget. We waste millions justifying a branding campaign that is a total flop. 

Because of his candour Smith is not loved in Island tourism circles. But if not him, why not someone else? Why not Doug Hall - a man who loves this Island and who is considered an entrepreneurial guru by Fortune 500 companies. He virtually pleaded with the province to accept his help. Minister Valerie Docherty and her department bureaucracy, who collectively don’t have enough real world business experience to tie Doug Hall’s shoelaces, rejected the offer.  

What does it tell you when the PEI tourism bureaucracy turns its back on two of the leading idea people in North America?

It tells you exactly where the first bomb needs to be dropped if PEI tourism is ever to grow to its true potential.