• by Tanya Gazdik , June 9, 2013

Fire Island, a 32-mile-long barrier island that took a major hit when Superstorm Sandy hit last October, is launching a campaign to let tourists know that the summer getaway is open for business.

Millennium Communications created the tagline "Revive FI," supported by copy reminding tourists that Fire Island is a nearby destination where you can revive yourself with beaches, shopping, dining and nightlife. 

The key messages of “Come, Visit, Stay, Play” are repeated in social media, out-of-home, print, TV and radio spots, as well as digital messages running on the placed media's companion sites.  

Some of the radio spots make reference to the devastation of Sandy, acknowledging that it's been a challenging road to recovery. The print and digital ads do not refer to the storm and the damage.

For Millennium Communications, the client's marketing and messaging challenge hit especially close to home. Agency President and CEO Pat Macri lives on Fire Island.

Millennium was selected by The Concerned Friends of Fire Island Inc., a non-profit group of businesses on Fire Island, to tell people in metro New York that the popular summer getaway was well on the way to rebuilding and it would be open as usual. 

It was a daunting task, since news reports earlier in the year had virtually written off the area as a wipeout for the summer 2013 season. 

“The challenge we faced was double-edged,” Macri says. “We needed to create compelling messages that said, ‘we’re back and open for business.’  And we had to do it with a very limited budget for both creative and media.” 

When the project was first envisioned late in January, a few local businesses put up seed money to get the project started. Macri donated his own time, and he discounted his agency’s hourly fees by one-third. He also called on his vendors to offer special rates on their services, and convinced area media to give heavily discounted time and space.

Macri also secured added funding from the Long Island Convention Visitors Bureau and Sports Commission and the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency. 

Companies serving Fire Island businesses, such as food distributors, also were convinced to add to the coffers, and Fire Island Ferries, which runs ferries from Long Island’s south shore to six Fire Island communities, stepped up with major support. What began with about $25,000 in seed money grew to nearly $100,000.

Macri said more funding has continued to come in from other area businesses and their vendors, and Millennium has recently extended the ad campaign reach into the Metro section of The New York Times.