New Orleans runs $5m anti-British campaign – paid for by BP

Chris McGreal The Guardian 06/16/2010 16:41

New Orleans in fog

The B in BP may no longer mean British, but tell that to New Orleans. The city is using a $5m cheque from the company to launch what might be seen as only a slightly tongue-in-cheek anti-British campaign, aimed at luring tourists who might be discouraged by the approaching oil spill.

New Orleans is using BP's money to launch a series of television and newspaper advertisements across the US on Friday, including one that declares: "This isn't the first time New Orleans has survived the British."

The slogan is set against a statue of General Andrew Jackson, who repelled a British assault on New Orleans back in 1814.

But it says in the small print that "right now everyone is welcome, especially our friends from England". (In the US, the terms British and English are often regarded as interchangeable even when it comes to the World Cup.)

The advertising campaign is the brainchild of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, which fears a sharp reduction in tourism and gatherings of other kinds, just as business was picking up after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"You can't just say we're open, come," the bureau's president, Steve Perry, told the organisation as he launched the campaign, according to blogofneworleans.com. "You have to acknowledge it. It's sorta like the poster with the family in front of the shark tank at the aquarium after Katrina, saying we're pleased to report that this is the only part of New Orleans that's still under water."