Yo! Jesse Pinkman! We’re still waiting
Our more loyal readers may remember the brief exchange Chaa Creek had with Breaking Bad Star Aaron Paul last year.
This all happened after the infamous Breaking Bad episode where Saul Goodman, the lawyer of dubious ethics and moral fibre, suggested that Walter White’s brother in law, DEA agent Hank, be “sent on a trip to Belize” as a euphemism for killing him.
Walter deferred, but the remark about Belize was heard round the world.
What to do when your tiny country is used in such a manner?
Great minds thinking alike, both the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) and The Lodge at Chaa Creek decided to turn the statement into a marketing opportunity. The BTB, in conjunction with their US based advertising agency Olson Engage, ran an invitation to the Breaking Bad cast to come visit Belize.
Meanwhile, The Lodge at Chaa Creek ran several tongue-in-cheek blog posts suggesting that, obviously, Belize was a metaphor for heaven, since it’s so beautiful and peaceful, and Saul was simply suggesting that Hank be sent to heaven.
“Why not? They obviously agree that Belize is heaven! Saul was being kind! He was suggesting they solve the problem by dispatching Hank to Paradise! Get him out of the way in the best manner possible! Send him to his eternal reward!”
Now, the argument has certain logic to it. To anyone who has been there, Belize is the closest thing we have to heaven on earth. So if you do a quick substitution;
“Have you given any thought to sending him to Heaven?” it makes a lot of sense.
We had a bit of fun and our readers seemed to enjoy it.
When Aaron Paul, who plays troubled young Jesse Pinkman, expressed interest in BTB’s invitation, Chaa Creek tweeted a personalised invitation to him to come down with a friend and see for himself why we assumed Belize was linked to heaven. He and his team tweeted back:
“Can we go? LOL”
More blog posts and media exposure followed, but alas, we never saw Mr Paul nor his wife, who we commended, and still commend, for their work with the anti bullying children’s charity, The Kind Campaign.
So we had to smile upon reading, all this time later, that the BTB and Olson Engage received a major industry award and recognition for the Breaking Bad effort at the at the Holmes Report’s In2 SABRE Awards at the Four Seasons San Francisco last week.
We unfortunately weren’t in San Francisco, but from what we hear the BTB/Olson Engage campaign also won for marketing buzz and digital influence with a best in show for turning a potential negative into a memorable, remarkable opportunity.
The Holmes Report’s Insight & Innovation or In2, SABRE Awards, recognise and showcase “the most innovative work in areas such as content creation, multimedia storytelling, data and analytics, research and measurement” according to their website, so we tip our hats to the BTB and Olson Engage for taking home such recognition from industry peers.
And, of course, we’d like Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston and rest of the cast to know that the invitation to come to Chaa Creek and check out Belize is still open.
Who knows? Maybe now those things have slowed down and they have more time…