Asheville tourism officials are counting on the cuteness of cats to help promote the town as a holiday tourism destination this year.
They released a video Dec. 4 urging viewers on YouTube to “watch as festive felines travel to Asheville, North Carolina to help deck the halls at Biltmore, judge award-winning gingerbread houses at The Omni Grove Park Inn and walk in a Winter Lights wonderland at the N.C. Arboretum, plus visit the Gray Line Trolley Tours of Asheville, Wicked Weed Brewing, the historic Grove Arcade, Hip Replacements and, of course, the downtown drum circle.”
In the past, tourism officials have released other promotional videos around the holidays such as “Breakdancing Santa.”
This year’s starring cats were provided by the Asheville Humane Society. Watch the video embedded via YouTube here:
Video produced by the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau with Amplified Media.
I’m sorry. All the people in this ad are white people.
Duh.
I don’t normally comment but this is really the stupid thing I have seen. It isn’t even clever.
I’ve owned cats for decades. I have several right now. I am a cat person. But this is among the dumbest, most unoriginal and (almost certainly) ineffective PR stunts I’ve ever seen. Good luck with this as it will be very much needed. I sense a catastrophy ahead.
It’s cute, not clever. After all, most tourists prefer cute to clever, and some just don’t get “clever.”
That is true, but dressing cats up in Christmas garb has been done for decades now all over the place. There is no particular connection between cats and Asheville. If they’d used Brevard’s white squirrels trying to hitch a ride into Asheville to shop, or perhaps used bear cubs in some ‘cute’ manner, it would make some sense. But a scenario whereby a man says “Honey, I know I promised to take you to either Disney World or Madison Square Garden for the holidays, but that was before seeing that cute cat video. I’m taking you to Asheville” seems a bit unrealistic.
Way too over-produced to become a viral video. It’s an ad.