"Nothing Compares" - Discover San Ramon

July 2019

Assignment:

Concept a new campaign for Discover San Ramon, a quiet town in the middle of Northern California. The town itself offers several relaxing activities — good food, good wine, and natural beauty abound. San Ramon is also within a 2-hour drive of several other destinations, from Sacramento and San Francisco to Point Reyes and Big Sur. But as a destination, it lacks the wow factor of its not-so-close neighbors.

Approach:

I wanted to embrace San Ramon’s relatively boring persona and reshape that idea into a positive. By embracing its nothing-ness, the “Nothing Compares” campaign is a refreshingly honest approach for a tourism destination.

It's a simultaneously self-deprecating and self-promoting tone that highlights San Ramon's boring side and twists it into something memorable. Case in point, the clients were initially hesitant, only to realize a few days later that they couldn’t stop thinking about the campaign.

It was selected for production, but the campaign was ultimately canceled after the Covid pandemic made tourism a little less appealing.