• Ad Age , Monday, May 17, 2010 10:33 AM

Tourism officials in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are asking BP to help fund campaigns that will get the word out that their resort areas will be open for business this summer despite the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Michael Bush reports. And Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has sent a letter to BP America president Lamar McKay requesting nearly $35 million to help fund advertising.

As reported last week in Marketing Daily, BP committed to $500,000 for a media campaign to counter negative perceptions. A BP spokesman says it will consider all of the requests it receives but that it has not made a decision. "We will talk to them about it and make some decisions based on those conversations," says John Pack. "But it's too early to say that we are doing one and not the other."

The shores along the Gulf of Mexico support a $20 billion tourist industry, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But not everyone thinks that an ad campaign should be the first order of business. Damon Moglen, director of Greenpeace USA's global warming campaign, says it might come across as "bizarre if not inappropriate" to a lot of people in the region who would rather see BP clean up the damage and compensate those who have lost their livelihoods.

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