rss
mobile
Feeds
Then came the grisly revenge planned against the doctor who administered the lethal injection.
That's typical fare on the popular TV crime drama, "Law & Order."
But the episode that aired last February had something else: Parts of it were set on Hilton Head Island.
Recently the island has been mentioned on other nationally aired TV shows, too -- Lifetime's "Army Wives"; ABC's dramedy, "Cashmere Mafia"; and FX's "Rescue Me," where gruff New York City Fire Department battalion chief Jerry Reilly says he might pack it up, "move down to Hilton Head. Spend the rest of my days working on my handicap."
Local tourism officials say the name-dropping is good for the island.
"What this means is Hilton Head Island is melding into pop culture," said Charlie Clark, vice president of communications of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber tracks national media references to the island on TV (there were 270 this year) as well as mentions in non-local newspapers, magazines and on Web sites (there were 526).
"It's invaluable," Clark said of the free media attention.
If the chamber had to pay for that amount of media exposure, it would cost several million dollars, Clark said.
While the TV mentions are gratis, the chamber does have to spend money to make it easy for producers of shows like NBC's "Today," the CBS "Early Show" and ABC's "Good Morning America" to do segments about the island.
Using a $47,000 grant from the Town of Hilton Head Island, the chamber shot high-definition footage of the area's beaches, golf courses and the Harbour Town Lighthouse for use on those shows.
The travel division of Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm in New York, also promotes the island for about $125,000 annually, Clark said.
Of all the media references Hilton Head has received this year, "99.9 percent of them are positive," Clark said.
Clark and Weber Shandwick employees will meet next year with Canadian media officials to try to generate buzz about Hilton Head in Canada. The chamber's Visitors and Convention Bureau, which focuses on advertising and marketing, has also started a push to appeal to Canadians.
"We're laser-targeting in Toronto," which has a big population and a large number of affluent residents, Clark said.
