Miami: See It Like a Native

I am shocked. Shocked to find out that Miami, Florida once used sex to appeal to tourists, luring them here to spend their money.

You may remember a similar “shocked” line from that timeless, classic movie from the early 1940s Casablanca. It was spoken by the great character actor Claude Rains, playing the clever police captain Louis Reynault, who was trying hard to please the occupying German forces in Africa, and the American and French allies at the same time during World War II. They meet at Rick’s American Café, where Rick’s owner — the Humphrey Bogart character — allows unfettered gambling on premises.  Reynault goes into “shock,” as he is being presented with winnings from his night of gambling and precedes to close down the establishment.

Fast forward 36 years to 1978 and you’ll find the Dade County Commission and our county tourism board putting themselves in roughly the same, self-inflicted predicament. The Dade Tourism Board hired a local advertising agency to come up with a campaign to sell the merits of Miami and South Florida to tourists.  And, the ad agency they hired — Beber Silverstein — happened to be South Florida’s charismatic,  creative advertising shop in those days. Silly them: they came up with a catchphrase, “Miami: See It Like a Native.”

That wasn’t all they came up with.

With the campaign came a full color poster of a female skin diver, posing with her back to the camera and wearing a bikini bottom and no top. More than 20,000 posters were printed and about half were put in circulation.

That’s when that repository of culture and the public good — the very same county commission, whose tourism board hired the ad agency — went into their own Claude Rains “shock” mode. Apparently, the commissioners woke up and discovered that selling Miami with sex and celebrity was ‘suddenly” underway, prompted by the loud charges of “sexism’ coming from leading feminist Roxy Bolton.

“Miami had a problem at that time,” recalled Elaine Silverstein, co-founder with Joyce Beber of the ad agency in 1972. “We had a reputation as an area for retirees.” Then came some insightful thinking from the agency, conceiving a campaign as Ms.Silverstein put it, “ … embraced what was positive and perhaps forgotten about Miami — and a memorable line to tie it all together.”  The campaign was positioned to emphasize the area’s beauty, its weather, its people; and, the advertising slogan “Miami: See It Like a Native” was born.  With it came what the ad agency envisioned as an “innocuous” poster featuring model Gail Kelly and photographed by her husband Don Kelly.

“It’s sexist,” cried Bolton, president of the local chapter of N.O.W. (The National Organization of Women). She took her complaint to sitting commissioner Ruth Shack and soon we had a hot political debate roiling in our local government.  And before you know it, the poster of Gail Kelly was ordered shredded. Or was it? The campaign was not cancelled, as visual stories of the area were carried on weather forecasts in northern cities, cleverly announced in TV ads about Miami and broadcast when temperatures in those cities reached below 50 degrees.

Approximately 10,000 of the posters (the un-shredded ones) were mailed to travel agents in the United States before the county commission got its uncultured hands on them.

As for the ad agency that started all of this, they’re doing quite nicely — thank you. Forty-six years after starting in a two room office on Bird Road, they are now called the Beber Silverstein Group and are still going strong with clients like Av Med, P.G.T. Industries, Carnival Cruises, McDonald’s, Barry University and the Miami-Dade Office of Cultural Affairs.  The agency’s president is Jennifer Beber, daughter of one of the founders. Ms. Silverstein, a lover of words and books, still shows up for work.

The poster kerfluffle from long ago led to Beber Silverstein being hired by national clients like the parent N.O.W. (How’s that for irony?), the NEA (National Education Association), Humana and the Helmsley Hotel chain. Local clients included the Miami Herald, Exotic Gardens, the Grand Bay Hotel and many of the Miami high rises. The creativity that has marked the agency for all these years was led in the early days by ad mavens like creative director Lou Masciovecchio, writer Jerry Hauschman and media buyer Hank Goldberg, who went on to become a popular sports talk show host and reporter for ESPN and local radio.

As for the poster, it’s now a collector’s item and sells online today. Ebay lists it for $550.  Several thousand are supposedly still out there. Yes, the “See It Like a Native” poster lives on, despite the action of our county commissioners. It hangs today in Miami’s own Historical Museum, bare bikini back and all.  If you’d like to view it—and this includes members of the Miami-Dade County Commission—our museum, fittingly, is located directly across the street from those very same county commission offices.

Bob Goldstein

About the Author
Bob Goldstein is a retired broadcaster and advertising executive who has lived in South Florida for more than forty years. He is a veteran political activist (dsdcfl.org) and a member of the South Florida Writers Association. If you would like to comment on Bob’s columns, send your response by email to robertgrimm62@yahoo.com.


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10 COMMENTS

  1. I have one of these posters hanging in my living room given to my husband signed by Gail. He helped her pick them up in the parking lot when she dropped them (short version of a longer story). Loved the article

  2. Great article. We didn’t mention the creation of the Nude section part of Miami beach. Does that still exist.”. Negnoirnegblanc.com

  3. N.O.W. stands for The National Organization for Women, not “of”, because feminist men are members, as well. I remember the kerfluffle about “See It Like a Native” very well. It was ironic that a prominent ad agency owned by two women came up with that campaign!

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