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One of the early advertisements with the state’s tourism slogan (Image courtesy Virginia Tourism Corporation)
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Image courtesy Virginia Tourism Corporation
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Image courtesy Virginia Tourism Corporation
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Image courtesy Virginia Tourism Corporation
In 1969, George Woltz and Dave Martin had something to prove. Two years earlier, the two business partners had unsuccessfully pitched an ad campaign to the state tourism board. Someone with an undistinguished two-page ad mockup won instead.
Woltz and Martin agreed that if they ever had a second chance, they’d give the tourism board something they wouldn’t forget. That’s how “Virginia is for lovers” was born.
Plenty of folks think they know how the indelible, award-winning 50-year-old slogan came about, but the 84-year-old Woltz, who co-founded the advertising firm Martin & Woltz, which became the Martin Agency, wishes to correct the record on a couple of details.
The story goes that a “$100-a-week copywriter” named Robin McLaughlin created “Virginia is for lovers,” but it was more of a collaborative effort, Woltz says. McLaughlin was not a copywriter, but an assistant to Helen Lloyd, a researcher on the creative team who couldn’t make the last meeting before the pitch.
And “Virginia is for lovers,” which McLaughlin did indeed recommend at that meeting, had been tossed around earlier. Everyone liked it, Woltz says, but they worried it was too risqué for staid old Virginia. In the end, Martin said Woltz should pitch “Virginia is for lovers,” while he would pitch “Virginia: state of contrasts.” In front of five unsmiling men handpicked by Gov. Linwood Holton, Woltz pitched. They won the account, and the wildly successful campaign was born.
“We had a good team working on things,” recalls art director Libby Meggs, who was a recent hire at the time. “That campaign was the most collaborative bit of work.”
The creative team set up a photo in Williamsburg featuring amateur models in Colonial garb (including, according to Meggs, a few Eastern State Hospital patients on day passes) for a print ad in Modern Bride to draw honeymooning couples.
Whole Lotta Love: The type style of logos featuring the slogan has varied though the years. (Image courtesy Virginia Tourism Corporation)
Meggs then came up with the look of the classic logo — white serifed letters on a black background and a bright red heart. It was based on fencing uniforms that also bore hearts, she says. Then the team decided a TV spot was in order, even though they had no budget for it.
A dreamy couple wearing black sweatshirts with the slogan walk on the beach at sunset as a simple song — just the words “Virginia is for lovers” — plays. The woman in the spot was Deborah Shelton, who later represented Virginia in the 1970 Miss USA pageant.
It was a public service announcement, and Woltz and Lloyd persuaded a TV station manager in Norfolk to play it. Other stations picked it up, too. Virginians loved it. The commercial, Woltz says, made the campaign “a complete hit.”
People started making their own “Virginia is for lovers” signs at concerts and fairs, so the ad firm responded by producing bumper stickers and buttons, which flight attendants across the country wore. The slogan preceded I ♥ New York, and the campaign earned a star on the Madison Avenue Walk of Fame in 2009.
McLaughlin deserves credit for the creation of the slogan, as do Meggs, Woltz, Lloyd and copywriter Barbara Ford, who were there at the start. Calvin West wrote many of the early ads, account executive John Boatright was “head of the shirt division,” Woltz says, and state Tourism commissioner J. Stuart White championed the TV spot, let the record show.
