MACKINAC ISLAND – A business marketing strategy billed as the largest of any state in the nation, featuring a number of high-tech businesses that located or expanded in the state and proclaiming that Michigan has the “upper hand” for business location and development was introduced to enthusiastic applause at the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce conference.

The theme and overall style of the ads drew praise from several attendees, saying it projected a good message to help sell the state around the country. And selling the state was one object all individuals talked to agreed needed to be done to help build the state.

The ad unveiling on Thursday morning followed Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s call on Wednesday evening for the state and all its people to help sell the state’s strengths in terms of technical education and financing options for new businesses.

Some people said the ads indirectly are a political boon to Granholm, but Granholm said her name appears nowhere in any of the ads, and most the ads will air outside the state.

“This campaign is to bring jobs to Michigan,” she said.

The $10 million advertising program will focus 80 percent of its efforts on national markets, as required by statute; includes television, radio and print ads; and will feature Michigan native Jeff Daniels, head of the Purple Rose theatre in Chelsea and star of some 40 movies, who narrates the message and introduces the executives who talk about their decisions to come into the state.

Daniels, who is being paid for his part in the ads, said he had been offered more money to do commercials in the past but turned them all down. He is doing this campaign “because I believe in this.” His payment is coming out of tobacco settlement funds. Daniels said he would not have done the ads if the payment had come out of tax money.

Radio and press ads are starting immediately, and will be followed by television ads later this year. Michigan Economic Development Corporation President Jim Epolito said some ads will later be focused on particular markets where the companies the state wants to attract are largely located.

“We have a tremendous number of success stories in Michigan but not a lot of people have heard of them,” Epolito said. “We need to come together, come together to sell our state.”

The ads are aimed at what business marketers call the “C-level” of executives, in other words CEOs, COOs,. CFOs. The national radio campaign will include ads run on the Sean Hannity show on ABC radio, on Maria Bartiromo’s “Money Minded” show on the Premier Radio Network, and on CBS radio. Publications that will run ads include Fortune and Forbes.p>

Along with Daniels, WJR radio personality Paul W. Smith will narrate some of the radio spots as will Charles Osgood of CBS.

The ads will focus on several companies that either expanded in Michigan or chose to locate in the state, including United Solar Ovonics and T/J Technologies.

United Solar Ovonics recently announced an expansion in Greenville, and the company’s COO Subhendu Guha said the company did a thorough study of a number of states before making its expansion decision and Michigan offered a total package to keep the firm.

Maria Thompson, CEO of T/J Technologies, said the state also had the technological background needed for a high-tech firm.

The ads got a genuinely positive reaction from the people attending the unveiling. Kevin Kelly of the Michigan State Medical Society said he thought the “upper hand” theme was particularly positive.

Asked if he thought his presence really would mean anything in terms of selling the state, Daniels said the fact he is a celebrity – having starred in some 40 movies including “Terms of Endearment,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “Arachnophobia,” “Dumb & Dumber,” “Gettysburg,” and “Good Night and Good Luck” – should hold people’s attention “for the first five seconds of the ad.”

The ads should help the state because the state has tremendous resources that people don’t recognize. Daniels filmed two movies in Michigan, “Escanaba in da Moonlight” and “Super Sucker,” and said the all local filming crews he worked with were among the best he had ever used.

In his own business there was an annoying arrogance that productions have to be done either on the west or east coasts because the expertise available. But Michigan has tremendous film experience through filming commercials and training films, Daniels said.

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