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Ocean City Touts Cicada-Free Vacations
 | | | The campaign's logo says it all: No cicadas here. |
Cicadas shriek and buzz all around you, pelting windows, dive-bombing decks, overrunning yards, blanketing trees – then dying, their carcasses crunching under your feet.
But not in Ocean City. It’s a “cicada-free” zone. Cicadas avoid OC because they don’t like its moist, sandy soil and lack of tree roots.
So Ocean City's touting itself as the place to go to get away from the winged, red-eyed critters.
In newspaper ads and on radio spots narrated by none other than Ocean City Mayor James N. Mathias Jr., the resort invites you to escape the din of the Brood X periodic cicadas by coming down the ocean.
“Just when you think the cicadas are winning the battle, you remember: They can’t come to Ocean City,” reads one of the print ads. “They can’t survive in our sandy soil. Or walk the boardwalk. Or play in the waves. But you can. And then, suddenly, you have the last laugh.”
Another ad, depicting a cicada inside a circle with a slash through it, reads: “Fact: Cicadas do not like sandy soil. Fact: You are not a cicada. If a few million buzzing cicadas aren’t your idea of a good time, then plot your escape to Ocean City, Maryland. We are guaranteed 100 percent cicada-free. Our doors are wide open to cicada refugees.”
It’s enough to make the mayor of a beach town gush. “While most of the Mid-Atlantic endures the attack of the cicada, I’m proud to report that Ocean City is officially a cicada-free zone,” Mathias says. “I urge citizens to escape the madness and seek the refuge of quiet, cicada-less Ocean City.”
MGH, the advertising and public relations firm whose clients include Ocean City, created the $160,000 campaign.
Michael O’Brien, senior vice president of MGH, based in Owings Mills, Md., came up with the idea.
“It’s the other side of the whole cicada story: Everybody’s talking about where they are; this is about where they are not,” O'Brien says.
“If I’m this disgusted by these bugs, there’s got to be a lot of people out there who feel the same way."
Once MGH confirmed the insects don’t invade Ocean City, O’Brien says, the agency quickly put together the campaign. Humor and bug puns aside, he says, “At the heart of this really is an educational message.”
Print ads have appeared in newspapers in the Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia areas. And the radio ads start airing June 1 on stations in Baltimore and Philadelphia.
“We’re here for you, the cicada refugee,” Mathias intones in one of the radio spots. “There is no shame in accepting help from a neighbor – especially not one with a boardwalk, beautiful sandy beaches, championship golf courses and plenty of convenient outlet shopping. On behalf of the people of Ocean City, Maryland, I wish you all the best in your struggle to be free.”
An Ocean City proclamation (below) takes a decidedly light-hearted tone about what’s bugging “less-fortunate” folks who must contend with the cicadas.
“The Mid-Atlantic states will be invaded and overrun by millions of large, poor-flying, red-eyed, ear-piercing, 17-year Periodic Cicadas, which will squirm and wiggle out of the earth, mate and then die, blanketing the ground with rotting carcasses,” the resolution says.
“Ocean City, Maryland, will remain free of this flying menace … and welcome with open arms, the cicada-harassed (or just down right grossed-out) residents of the Mid-Atlantic region as refugees.”
The ads and the proclamation acknowledge the real reasons cicadas avoid Ocean City, but suggest other possible explanations: Perhaps they don’t like bright sunshine, salt-water taffy, boogie-boarding, miniature golf, caramel corn, crabs or sand castles.
“It’s only once every 17 years you can do something like this," OC spokeswoman Donna Abbott says. "We had a lot of fun with it. It did create some buzz.”
Reporters have been ringing her non-stop, and the campaign has generated coverage by the Associated Press, newspapers in the Baltimore and Washington areas, CNN, even a Japanese TV station, Abbott says.
You can’t buy that kind of media exposure, she says. “This campaign came along and just fixated everybody’s attention,” Abbott adds. “This just gets our name out there.”
And that’s just the kind of buzz the resort craves.
TOWN OF OCEAN CITY PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, The Town of Ocean City, Maryland has been designated a Cicada-Free Zone; and,
WHEREAS, The Mid-Atlantic states will be invaded and overrun by millions of large, poor-flying, red-eyed, ear-piercing 17-year Periodic Cicadas, which will squirm and wiggle out of the earth in unison, mate and then die, blanketing the ground with rotting carcasses; and,
WHEREAS, That’s disgusting; and,
WHEREAS, Cicadas do not like Ocean City, Maryland’s moist, sandy soil and lack of tree roots; and,
WHEREAS, it has been determined that Cicadas do not like bright sunshine, the smell of suntan lotion, the taste of salt-water taffy, boogie-boarding, surf fishing, caramel corn, sand castles, kite flying, French- Fries, outlet shopping, steamed crabs, bumper cars, or even miniature golf; and,
WHEREAS, These facts prove that cicadas aren’t just annoying – they’re stupid; and,
WHEREAS, Ocean City, Maryland will remain free of this flying menace and will make its motels, hotels, condominiums, apartments, and camp grounds available to the public as temporary shelter (regular rates apply, or course); and,
WHEREAS, the businesses and residents of Ocean City, Maryland welcome with open arms, the Cicada-harassed (or just down-right grossed-out) residents of the mid-Atlantic region as refugees;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, James N. Mathias Jr., Mayor of the Town of Ocean City, Maryland, proclaim to all citizens and visitors to Ocean City, that Maryland’s only seaside resort is a Cicada-Free Zone and that we welcome to our town, those who are less fortunate.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of The Town of Ocean City, Maryland to be affixed this the 11th day of May, in the Year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Four.
James N. Mathias Jr. Mayor
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