Ran across this piece in the LA Times about the battle between California and Nevada for corporations … um … yeah … a couple weeks ago (Marty Neumeier says to specialize — and I think I've found my niche in posting about minor, regional, out-of-date adnews. So I got that going for me).

Anyway, seems that Nevada has been making a play for California business with a series of ads that California Assemblyman Jose Solorio characterizes as "nasty:"

So he headed up a pro-California, multimedia campaign at California Is Golden and released a response:

The roundup of videos comes from a Marketplace Scratch Pad entry on this "war between the states." It also offers some commentary and points to an LAT op-ed piece noting that this sort of advertising has really no effect: "Relatively few businesses, once they're formed, pick up and move across state lines … the average annual job loss was only .06% of California's total employment."

Coming from an area where news about a couple hundred jobs is news, I'm sure that .06% is a substantial figure when it affects you and your community. Is the ROI worth it, though? I'd say it might be pretty good … since those ads don't seem like the product of any high-paid agency.

But that California ad has some good points (buried in there somewhere) and, what I guess is the USP: that the state is home to some of the most impressive names in modern industry. A solid point, but getting on the "what happens in Vegas…" bandwagon? There may be some parody value, but that's one of my pet peeves — co-opting someone else's tagline. Got Campaign? No, you don't.