Counter Advertising?
Houston turns to Jim Parsons to help get back at Top Chef: Texas for its BayouCity snub
Imagine you're the city of Houston. You pass on spending $120,000 to host one episode of Top Chef: Texas and get skipped by the show all together. What's the fourth-largest city in the country to do?
The solution that the Greater Houston Convention and Vistors Bureau came up with is an ad campaign about Houston's world-class dining scene that will air during all 17 Top Chef: Texas episodes.
Now online, the ad has Houston celebrities — including Jim Parsons, Lyle Lovett, George Foreman, Top Chef Masters alum Monica Pope and ZZ Top's Dusty Hill —talking up the city plus food scenes from t’afia, Mark’s, Vieng Thai, The Grove, Soma Sushi, Ocean Palace, London Sizzler, Empire Café and The Breakfast Klub.
The commercial, produced by Zen Films, will air in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso during every Top Chef: Texas episode and in Chicago and Washington, D.C. during the first eight weeks.
What do you think of the ad? Does it capture the Houston food scene, or would you rather have spent the money getting Top Chef to film here?