The Ministry of Tourism of Costa Rica tapped into the creative talent at BBDO, Toronto for its first major campaign to lure u.s. tourists.

The Toronto team of copywriter Randy Diplock and art director Jamie Way spent a week in December in the Central American country, working with Costa Rican affiliate Garnier/BBDO.

Creative execution was completed in Toronto.

BBDO, New York handled media placement.

The campaign, targeted to intellectual, eco-conscious travellers, features five tv spots to run on The Discovery Channel and six print ads to appear in Rolling Stone magazine in the next couple of months.

There is also a print component directed to the travel industry.

‘Tan Your Soul’ is the theme-line created by Diplock and Way after their original suggestion, ‘Nature’s Theme Park,’ was shot down.

The ads tell the story of a country with 840 species of birds, two large mountain ranges, dozens of volcanoes, two long beaches, and hundreds of waterfalls and rain forests.

Also, unlike neighboring Panama and Nicaragua, Costa Rica has no military.