S.C. says come visit, sticks it to Chicago

Image by 20090209-tha.jpg

Oh, man. Chicago, you have tons of stuff Charleston doesn't -- including negative temperatures. And the folks at South Carolina Parks Recreation & Tourism are sticking it you.

They're targeting Chicago with an ad campaign dubbed "Time to Thaw."

The Web page loads up with Chicago's current temp, to boot.

Here's what the Web page says:
Welcome to South Carolina's official site for frozen, windburnt Chicagoans looking for a warm winter escape. Within the toasty pages of this site, not only will you find hot deals on vacation packages to South Carolina, you'll also find info on our 380 beautiful golf courses, 182 miles of gorgeous beaches, shopping, dining and much, much more. So kick your ice-encased snow boots off and get ready to thaw your bones in beautiful, warm South Carolina.

Go check it out.

The ad campaign was so good (and effective) that it won Google's first-ever "Wisdom of the Crowd Award."

You can head over to The Charleston Regional Business Journal for some brief analysis.