jULY/AUGUST 2018 BCBusiness 107 TOP: COURTESY Of BILL COzENS AND ALVIN WASSERmAN; BOTTOm: DESTINATION BC
the Super, Natural British Columbia brand, from 1979
to 1992 at McKim Advertising Vancouver. Now chair
and chief executive storyteller at Vancouver-based
Wasserman + Partners Advertising, he wrote the copy
for the whale ad, which was art-directed by Bill Cozens
and appeared in 1984.
Wasserman, whose agency is among those quali-
Ÿied to work on Super, Natural British Columbia,
admits that he wants it back. When he and Cozens
started, all they had was the slogan and some photos,
he remembers. The resulting work "won anything
it was entered into," Wasserman says. Along with
McKinney Silver & Rockett's e„orts on behalf of North
Carolina, he maintains, "we basically set what became
tourism branding around the world."
Applauding the imagery of today's campaign,
Wasserman thinks there's room to express the brand
more fully. "The thing is not to be on the nose," he
says. "It's a piece of visual poetry."
Ideally "it's one voice, one brand all the way
through—one website," Wasserman asserts. "Mainly
they're trying to harness the power of the Internet and
the power of crowd and people talking to each other to
inspire people. But you miss that opportunity to strike
that beautiful chord, to say, This is the key that Super,
Natural is sung in." –N.R.
bEFORE
aND aFTER
Super, Natural
British Columbia
advertising from
1984 (top) and the
campaign refresh
launched in 2014
