My Favorite Minnesota Adds Social Media - and Potato Wrestling - to State's Tourism Site

Quick! What's the first thing you think of when you think of Minnesota? Can't quite get an image? That was Minnesota tourism's problem. "We're known for our hockey, our funny accents and our lakes," the Tourism board told me in an email exchange. This wonderful campaign, incorporating social media, silliness, and a damn good idea should help to change that.

My Favorite Minnesota features real Minnesotan's videos, stories and photos about their favorite places in the state to fish, bike, camp, shop, eat, and mashed potato wrestle. They tell you where the best fairs, lakes (Minnesota has thousands), golf, snow sports, family fun and much more can be found.

Mashed Potato Wrestler, Steve-O Gratin (Minneapolis resident Steve Barone) was recently crowned Mashed Potato Wrestling Champion of the Universe and he made this video about it that's featured on the state's new tourism sub-site. Visitors and natives are invited to upload their favorites to keep the content of the site fresh and fun.

My Favorite Minnesota includes Olympic luger Tony Benshoof's favorite places for adventure and thrills, a motorcycle gang's favorite scenic byways and "Liam's 12 favorite places in Minnesota to take his parents." Fishing, a tried and true tourist draw for Minnesota, is included as 10 bait shop owners across the state team up to reveal their 10 favorite fishing holes in Minnesota.

John Edman is the Director of Tourism for Minnesota. The advertising agency is Clarity
Coverdale Fury in Minneapolis.

Posted by B.L. Ochman

Here's another variant on "The Midwest is more interesting than you think it is!" theme:

"Doing Indy" podcasts about Indianapolis

Never been to Minnesota but sure looks nice and friendly from the clips. User Generated Content utilised to its best. Nice to see. There are some poor examples out there of UGC used by brands (see fosters in the UK for one). But when it works...it can gel really well