Michigan Economic Development Corporation drops $743k on scratch-n-sniff magazine

Michigan’s economic development agency dropped $734,204 on scratch-n-sniff additions to five magazines in a last-ditch effort to attract more residents, according to documents that Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a records request.

• Summer season: $371,602 – five publications (Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Magnolia, Real Simple, Midwest Living)
• Fall season: $371,602 – five publications (Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Magnolia, Real Simple and Midwest Living)
• Winter season: $0 cost – added-value opportunity in three publications (Food & Wine, Magnolia, Midwest Living)
• Travel Michigan total cost: $743,204 with total campaign valued at $976,225

Travel Michigan is the state's official tourism promotion office, helping strengthen Michigan's robust and growing travel industry, Danielle Emerson public relations manager at The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, told CapCon in an email. 

“The total print program you’re referring to reached 3.3 million readers and delivered a campaign value of $976,225, with Pure Michigan’s investment totaling $743,204. We continue to work closely and aggressively with our partners across the tourism industry to promote Michigan as a travel destination. In 2024, 131.2 million visitors to Michigan contributed $30.7 billion in direct visitor spending resulting in $54.8 billion in total economic impact to Michigan’s economy, generating $3.6 billion in state and local tax revenue, and supporting 1 in every 17 Michigan jobs, including 96,000 in the food and beverage industry.”’

The state of Michigan should let the tourism industry, not taxpayers, foot the bill for travel advertising, the director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told CapCon in in email.

"People in the tourism business can pay for their own advertisements, scratch and sniff or otherwise,” Hohman wrote. “Lawmakers should leave taxpayers out of it."

The state of Michigan has attempted to fight population loss through more spending.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $3.1 million in advertising across social media on 68 media campaigns from 2024 to 2025, according to documents obtained through a records request.

It spent six-figures in advertising begging residents not to kill themselves, CapCon exclusively reported. 

State-funded tourism doesn’t work, according to a 2016 report from the Mackinac Center co-authored by Mike LaFaive, the senior director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative. 

“Paying big money to return to a 1980s scratch and sniff fad in hope of luring tourists to Michigan is more a signal of program desperation than creative marketing,” LaFaive told CapCon in an email. “State tourism marketing has long failed to generate positive returns. Scratch and sniff advertisements will not turn that tide.”

Michigan hired a chief growth officer, Hillary Doe, and paid her $180,000 before she left that position this year.