Ads for Oly venues targeting locals

The managers of the state's Olympic facilities want Utahns to "Get Up and Go!"

The Utah Athletic Foundation is launching a new advertising campaign this week aimed at getting locals to visit the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, the Utah Olympic Park near Park City and Solider Hollow, located in Wasatch Mountain State Park near Midway.

The private foundation isn't disclosing exactly how much is being spent on three billboards in the Salt Lake area and three television ads that will air on KSL and KJZZ in the next month or so, except that the total is less than $100,000.

"We're not trying to be slick here," foundation President Mark Lewis said. "This is just part of the continuing effort to try to get our message out that these facilities are open for the community."

The three 30-second television spots all feature the Olympic oval. Each shows a young athlete daydreaming about Olympic glory before hitting the ice as a hockey player, a speedskater or a figure skater.

"Now you can skate where the Olympic athletes made history," a narrator says. An Olympic athlete who did make history at the oval in 2002, gold-medal speedskater Derek Parra, urges viewers to "Get up and go" to the state's Olympic facilities.

It's the oval that needs the boost, even though the cost of operating all of the foundation's facilities is expected to be more than $4 million in the red this budget year. The foundation is funded by a commitment of more than $75 million in profits from the 2002 Winter Games.

In December, Lewis projected an additional $170,000 shortfall at the oval, blaming a lack of public awareness of the programs available there as well as the "underdevelopment" of skating sports in the region.

Thanks in part to the attention given the Feb. 8 celebration of the first anniversary of the Games, though, attendance has improved at the oval. In January, a record 5,044 public skaters used the ice.

The billboards showcase the sports opportunities at two of the facilities — speedskating and figure skating at the oval and cross-country skiing at Soldier Hollow. Each billboard shows both a recreational athlete and an Olympic competitor.

"The Olympics are over and the Olympic athletes are gone," said Rich Love, partner and creative director of Love Communications. "Now it's the public's turn to use these venues."

Love said the campaign is an investment in the facilities that should result in more revenues from recreational users. "Once awareness goes up and people use the venues," he said, "it'll more than pay itself back."

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