Cash remaining in a $40,000 fund set aside by the Warren County Board of Supervisors will be spent on a regional advertising plan of the Vicksburg-Warren County Community Alliance.

Televisions ads, created by Janna Hughes of Janna Hughes & Associates, will cost $22,913 and will run on a seven-week schedule.

The target audience is 28 million people, mostly in the 500-mile radius.

Supervisors set aside the money in this year’s spending plan at the request of the Alliance, a self-formed group that cited a state law allowing counties to spend up to one mill of taxation on advertising and promotions.

Portions of the money went to the Fourth of July celebration and to the Mississippi Military Community Council earlier this year.

Ann Jones, chairman of the Alliance’s Tourism Council, said the advertising approach is necessary to keep tourists coming to the area.

&#8220Our tourism traffic has changed and our tour bus industry is way down,” Jones told supervisors. &#8220We need to make up for the big changes and we can do this with regional marketing – it’s a significant number of the population if we market to that group.”

A similar approach was made by the tourism group after Christmas, and the results were successful for all tourism entities, Jones added.

&#8220It worked well for us in the spring and summer. June 10 was the last of that advertising and there are no funds in the VCVB budget (to keep it going).”

The VCVB is the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau. It is a separately funded, state-authorized agency with its own revenue stream, most of which is spent on advertising and operating two welcome centers.

Scott Martinez, Alliance director, said the group’s board of trustees wants to see the regional advertising continue – meaning the request for funding will likely be renewed in the county’s new budget being prepared to go into effect Oct. 1.

&#8220We need to keep doing this – to support the industry that provides jobs in the community,” he said. &#8220There’s a big gap we need to fill, and advertising is a lot about consistency. We’re going to see a lull unless we have this funding mechanism.”

The commercial will show in such cities as Tyler, Texas; Memphis; Baton Rouge; and Shreveport. The commercial will offer businesses an opportunity to advertise by paying for a tag that will run at the bottom of the commercial. Jones said this strategy will help the council raise funds for future advertising efforts. They will also work more closely with the VCVB to make sure enough money is allotted for marketing and advertising Vicksburg and Warren County.

&#8220Ideally this money would come through the VCVB, which is the funding arm for tourism,” Martinez said. &#8220As it is now, though, it’s detrimental not to advertise.”

Jones said the VCVB had already committed its advertising dollars for the year and that’s why other money wasn’t available to fund the commercial.

&#8220Before Katrina and high gas prices, the VCVB had already committed to utilize those funds,” she said. &#8220The money was adequately spent, except the circumstances changed, and we had to come up with another strategy.”

The Alliance was formed in 2001 as an umbrella group to promote tourism, industry, retail and commerce, quality of life and economic development. The Tourism Council consists of professionals from all different sectors of tourism, including some board members of the VCVB.