The biggest advertising campaign to date presenting Poland kicked off on CNN television today. Two spots presenting Poland as a "place to be" and a "place to invest" aim at promoting this country as an attractive destination for tourists and businesspeople.
 
Danuta Isler reports

The 12-week campaign aims at promoting the country as a destination both for tourists and businesspeople. The costs of 600,000 USD for air time and promotion were shared between four institutions - Poland's Foreign Ministry, Polish Tourist Organization, the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency and LOT Polish Airlines.

All in all, 620 spots will be aired from today til December and, according to estimates, will reach 150 million households and hotel rooms in over 90 countries where CNN is available worldwide. Elżbieta Wąsowicz-Zaborek, deputy chairwoman of the Polish Tourist Organization says the campaign is part of an effort to change often stereotypical image of Poland abroad: 'The Polish Tourist Organization has just finished preparing a special marketing strategy for Poland and I hope it will be a new vision for tourism. It will be mailny urban atmosphere, rather towns and cities atmoshpere than folklore. We want to change this because in Poland we have marvellous folklore but it's not everything we can offer to tourists. We want to develop conferences, business tours, that's why CNN is a good channel to promote Poland in this way, especially combining it with investment promotion.'
 
One of the 30 second spots features a foreign businessman who has just arrived to Poland and is showing the country through his eyes. The other one includes snippets from most recognisable Polish cities, including Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz, Hel Peninsula and Zakopane in the Tatra mountains. The spots were produced entirely by CNN. Nina Kowalewska-Motlyk is a commercial representative of CNN International in Poland: 'It's for the first time that CNN organising an advertising campaign is working with such important Polish clients. I spent two days with the crew. They were totally enchanted with Poland and with the hospitality. I think they were as surprised and impressed as most foreign viewers are when they see the commercials that Poland is a country of such diversity, that we have mountains, beautiful lakes, clean forests and a beautiful seashore'.
 
The campaign also emphasizes important features of Poland from investors' point of view, like highly educated work force, large domestic market and central location in Europe - says Paweł Wojciechowski, president of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency: 'Those are the top things that are actually mentioned not only by investors that we serve in Poland but also by all the renowned world institutions which deal with investing climate. What is important is also the timing. We live in very turbulent times and financial crisis in some institutions and Poland does not have it. We are a very stable country in terms of political environment and in terms of economy. We have very good growth rates, fairly low inflation under control so our hopes for investment are justified. And we think this campaign will strengthen our image in the global economy'.
 
In addition, a week-long presentation of this country called "Eye on Poland" will be aired on CNN between 6 and 12 of October.