New Bermuda Ads Play To Sex And Sensibility

Is that wind sock just a wind sock?

How about that slowly unfurling blossom in the new television ad for Bermuda?

Is it intentional that the camera takes a tight shot of a golf ball making a hole-in-one as the background music singer croons "I'm in the mood for love"? You bet.

There's nothing subliminal about this ad's seduction. It's part of a new $12.2 million campaign for Bermuda tourism, built around the slogan: "Let yourself go."

Read what you will into the commercial's images of the long nose of a cannon, of the camera slowly closing in on a round rock formation, or of the loving couple focusing on the oysters listed on their restaurant menus.

Go ahead, chuckle at the not-so-veiled nuances. In the 30-second television spot there are a total of 10 suggestive symbols. It's a regular Freudian field day.

But don't bluntly ask the ad's creators it's so sexually charged. They don't like to use the "s" word when discussing their work.

"We see them as `romantic metaphors,' " said Richard Lobel, a vice-president of DDB Needham New York, the advertising firm that created the campaign.

Rich Buceta, half of the two-person creative team that developed the ad, said the tongue-in-cheek sexuality was part of an effort to attract younger people to the island.

"We're going for the 30-something market, and the ad will appear during shows like `Seinfeld' and `Mad About You,' so we wanted it to have a certain comedic style."

Gary Phillips, Bermuda's director of tourism, said he loved the ad.

"I think it's exactly what we need right now. It's what we need to get people thinking about Bermuda in a different way. . . . We have people saying, `Bermuda is for me, but not until I'm 63' and we want them to think about Bermuda now."

A decline in tourism is also behind the aggressive campaign. In 1987 the island counted 631,314 visitors, but the number has been in a gradual decline, dropping to 557,628 visitors in 1995. The Bermuda Department of Tourism the new campaign will attract 25,000 more Americans to the island this year.

Lisa Rettig-Falcone, creative director for the promotional campaign, said she was not concerned about the overt connotations of the "I'm In the Mood For Love" ad. "We feel it's playful and romantic. I don't think it crosses any lines."

Phillips agreed, saying the innuendos were "evocative" and "not over the top. . . . People say the media has gone too far into the bedroom. I don't think this is in the bedroom. It's still in the parlor."

Still, Buceta said, sure, they could have settled for traditional romantic shots of a sunset on the beach - "but that would be wallpaper Who would watch that?"