There's a contest to attract men and women to one of the biggest creative meccas in the United States.

New York? Nah.

Los Angeles? Hah.

Detroit.

Don't rub your eyes. You read correctly. Detroit.

Time Inc. is sponsoring a contest called Selling Detroit. It's not about painting a pretty picture or tricking people to coming to the Motor City. It's an effort to rebuild  “America’s most struggling city" with new talent and businesses.

A few Detroit ad agencies stepped up to the challenge to create a recruitment ad campaign. The contest is asking you to vote for the ad that will appear in an upcoming issue of Fortune.

This is the ad to vote for:

http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/fortune_poll/index.html

Yea, I'm biased. It's work by my Campbell-Ewald co-workers, Associate Creative Directors (l to r) Chris Scinta, Michael McCallum and Michael Oxner.


It's not an ordinary print piece. It's a working interactive ad. See the QR Code (Quick Response) in the fingerprint? The ad shows you how to download an app on your camera phone. Then take a picture of the code and it will download a video onto your phone.

Check it out. More importantly, vote for Ad #4 right here:

http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/fortune_poll/index.html

Then pack your bags and move to Detroit. We're a growing movie industry (Transformers, Gran Torino, the upcoming Red Dawn remake). Plus, there are several "green" initiatives moving in place. And we have a respected network of artists, writers and performers.

“Dreamers are already showing up... Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished.”

— Author and former ad man Toby Barlow, nytimes.com