The Tobago Tourism Agency has been thrust into controversy after an alleged plagiarism claim involving the newly-launched “Tobago Beyond Ordinary” drive.
Last weekend, British territory Anguilla shared images from an online album on its new destination launch in New York, via Facebook, which showed that the island’s slogan ‘Beyond Extraordinary’ bears a similarity to Tobago’s recently rebranded slogan. Screenshots were also shared from the Pure Grenada website which highlighted the similar marketing keywords “untouched, unspoilt, undiscovered.”
The posts caused several discussions and debates via social media calling for an explanation of the similarities.
In an immediate response, Tobago Forwards leader Christlyn Moore described the situation as beyond embarrassing.
“It is with deep regret and concern that we have observed the glaring similarities in the advertisement for destination Anguilla, destination Grenada and destination Tobago. Considering that Destination Tobago was the last brand launch out of the three, allegations of plagiarism are hard to avoid.
“It is therefore up to the Tobago Tourism agency and their various proxies, including the office of the Chief Secretary and the Minister of Tourism, past and present, to provide an explanation of why taxpayers’ funds were used to mimic the advertising campaigns of two other competing destinations. Was this an error or a con job?”
Moore also called on Tourism Minister Randall Mitchell and the relevant agencies to disclose the identity of the campaign’s brand manager and the cost to taxpayers for the existing brand concept. She said until such matters are addressed they would have no confidence in the Tourism Ministry, Secretary for Tourism Nadine Stewart-Phillips or any of their various agencies.
But at a news conference at the Tobago Tourism Agency in Scarborough yesterday afternoon, CEO Louis Lewis sought to clarify the “Tobago Beyond Ordinary” brand.
He said the strategy process began in November 2017 with local and international stakeholder consultations, which were precursors to the branding exercise that involved extensive market research. He said the TTA then conducted a “soft launch” of the brand in the United Kingdom in October 2018 in both Ireland and England, a launch in Tobago later the same month and an international launch at the beginning of November at World Travel Market (WTM) in London.
“In the development of the brand, we kept a close eye on what everybody else was doing and everybody else I mean all warm weather destinations, so we looked at the Caribbean islands, we looked at the Pacific islands just to ensure that there was not a duplication,” Lewis said.
“What I recall very clearly is that at that time, talking about July and up to the time that we launched in November, the tagline for Anguilla was ‘Tranquility wrapped in blue’, very different.”
Lewis described the situation as an unfortunate coincidence
“I want to set the record straight up front, that we took a very careful, studied approach to arrive at the branding for Tobago...What I think transpired, at best, may be an unfortunate coincidence. There are many similarities between Tobago and all the other islands in the Caribbean, so it is not inconceivable that you can find synergy between taglines chosen by other destinations.
“However, I must emphasise that at no point did we imitate any other destination, because our intention was always to stand out. Thus we are in the process of paying particular attention to the implementation of our marketing strategy to ensure that Tobago comes up as a destination of choice when people are searching for options in the Caribbean.”
Lewis said in July 2018 several firms were invited to bid for the for the deal and UK-based Gravity Global was selected. But he said the firm does not currently represent any other Caribbean destination. He said the TTA was allocated a budget of $20 million to cover marketing, product development and other associated and miscellaneous expenses and they expect to stay within budget.