One of the most notorious pieces of American tourism advertising ever produced, and one of its great accidental success stories.
In 1978, the Dade County Tourism Board hired Beber Silverstein, South Florida's charismatic, creative advertising shop, to reposition Miami to a national audience. "Miami had a problem at that time," recalled agency co-founder Elaine Silverstein. "We had a reputation as an area for retirees." The solution was a campaign that, as Silverstein put it, "embraced what was positive and perhaps forgotten about Miami, and a memorable line to tie it all together."
The tagline was Miami: See It Like a Native. The poster was model Gail Kelly, photographed by her husband Don Kelly, snorkeling gear in hand, back to the camera. The agency considered it innocuous. More than 20,000 were printed and about half put in circulation.
Then came the reckoning. Roxy Bolton, president of the local chapter of N.O.W., declared it sexist, took her complaint to commissioner Ruth Shack, and a hot political debate roiled through local government. The county commission, the very same body whose tourism board had commissioned the poster, ordered it shredded.
The irony runs deep. Approximately 10,000 of the posters had already been mailed to travel agents across the United States before the commission could act. The broader campaign was never cancelled. And the controversy that was meant to bury Beber Silverstein instead launched them nationally; new clients included the parent N.O.W. organization itself, the NEA, Humana, and the Helmsley Hotel chain.
Today the poster is a genuine collector's piece and a certified piece of Miami history. It hangs in Miami's own Historical Museum fittingly, directly across the street from the county commission offices that ordered it destroyed.