Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism has a story to tell and Target Marketing and Communications Inc. is telling it for them with a new print campaign.

The "Touring and Explorer" storytelling newspaper campaign is a departure from the clichéd, urgent call to action approach that is characteristic of most tourism advertising in North America, said Noel O'Dea, president and director of strategic and creative planning at the agency.

"The DNA of this place is steeped in storytelling and humour and it's really quirky and playful and, most visitors say, not like any place they've been before. It was natural that the approach in advertising be different from what other destinations do," he said.

Photos emblematic of the province and its culture cover about a third of the full-page ads, with the rest of the page taken up by copy inspired by the photo above. One ad features a humpback whale jumping out of the ocean waters with the headline, "In the summer, you'd be hard-pressed to take a simple picture without some whale spoiling it for you," above a lyrical description of the experience of seeing a whale either from a cliff-top looking over the ocean or up close during a boat tour.

O'Dea said the copy-heavy approach allows them to steer clear of the "plastic manufactured experiences that are associated with most vacation destinations."

The ads will run on the back of travel sections in The Globe and Mail as well as selected markets including Calgary and Ottawa, until May. Target also handled the media buy.

-Kristin Laird