Toward a “Beautiful Bangladesh”: the bleed-over effect of tourism advertising

Abstract

This study explores the bleed-over effect of tourism advertising by measuring a sample of international respondents’ attitudes toward Bangladesh, its people, and its government before and after watching a television commercial. The commercial, “School of Life,” is part of the Bangladesh Tourism Board’s “Beautiful Bangladesh” campaign to promote the country as an international destination. Results indicate that this commercial did “bleed over” to create a more positive attitude among respondents in all three areas measured. It shows that a developing country like Bangladesh can successfully implement tourism advertising and destination branding as public diplomacy tools to better brand and promote itself among a variety of international stakeholders. These results support similar research that applied the bleed-over effect of tourism advertising among more developed and well-known countries.