Miami's image gets marketing sizzle with LeBron James E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions |

Steve Mitchell US Presswire July 10, 2010    The decision by LeBron James to join the Miami Heat has boosted the city's cultural profile. Larry Busacca, Getty Images   LeBron James announced Thursday that he will play for the Miami Heat next season at the Boys & Girls Club of America in Greenwich, Conn.

Bruce Horovitz

USA TODAY

If Miami is the hot place now for marketers to embrace, LeBron James is the central heat source.But he's not all that's sizzling in Miami.

Miami's got South Beach chic. It's got Cuban cuisine. It's got celebs. It's got 23 miles of beaches. And while — with its real estate market still struggling — it's not back to its Miami Vice super cool days, Miami is increasingly a backdrop again for TV shows and movies. 

"Miami is on a very bullish, upward swing in American cultural consciousness," says Robert Thompson, professor of pop culture at Syracuse University. "But it's always competing with that stereotype as that place where your grandparents go to drive slow with their left turn signal on."

 Leading the cultural charge: 

• LeBron's leap. "Symbolically, LeBron has moved Miami onto a new stage," says Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at University of Oregon. 

The former Cleveland Cavalier superstar's decision to spurn Cleveland for Miami has placed the tourist Mecca at the vortex of pop cultural chatter. James and Miami both ranked among the most popular Google searches and Twitter tweets the day after his announcement. 

The big stages for major sports figures have been New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, says Swangard. Now, he says, the addition of Miami to the mix "is reflective of the changing culture of the USA." 

• South Beach chic. James announced Thursday that he planned to "take my talents to South Beach." William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau says, "I could not have written that phrase better as a destination marker." The decision, he says, is worth "millions and millions" to the Greater Miami area." 

• Cuban cuisine. The popularity of the food now common in Miami — with an African, Spanish and Caribbean influence — has gone mainstream. Ingredients often include fresh fruits, veggies and seafood. "The food isn't overworked," says Andrew Wild, chef tournant at the Culinary Institute of America. "People like the bright, fresh ingredients — and the feeling that it's always summer." 

• Hollywood East. With LeBron's entrance — and local film incentives recently put in place — Miami Dade County expects filmmakers to spend a record $125 million in the county next year, estimates Jeff Peel, the county's film commissioner.

The hit TV shows CSI Miami and Burn Notice both are filmed there. Also, now that James will live in Miami, Peel expects the star's upcoming film project, Fantasy Basketball Camp, to be filmed there. 

• Celeb central. LeBron's got celeb company in Miami. It's home to Matt Damon, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony and Gloria and Emilio Estefan. 

The celeb hotspot is LIV nightclub at the renovated Fontainebleau Resort hotel where Lady Gaga, Paris Hilton and Chris Brown have been spotted.