Controversy has been brewing over the ‘So Sri Lanka’ campaign unveiled by the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau at the World Travel Mart (WTM) in London last week.

Many on social media have expressed disdain for the slogan, arguing that "so Sri Lanka" is an incomplete sentence, void of context and meaning.

Others have asked how something as colloquial as “so Sri Lanka” could be used in an international campaign to promote the country.

As a person on social media pointed out, “Imagine if Mexico had come up with a similar slogan, ‘So Mexico’ - what would that even mean??”

Meanwhile, advertising agency Dentsu Grant Group claims the current TVC for ‘So Sri Lanka’ developed by  J. Walter Thompson (JWT), who won a contract of Rs. 314 million to develop Sri Lanka’s brand identity, is a “rehashed” version of an original 8-part TVC developed by the group for the Tourism Promotion Bureau earlier this year.

‘We at Dentsu Grant were surprised to note that our original TV Commercial conceptualised, shot and produced for Sri Lanka Tourism earlier this year has now been poorly rehashed and used for the new positioning launched in London at the WTM: So Sri Lanka,” the Group said on its Facebook page, where it has also released a number of other videos it produced as part of the 8-part TVC for Tourism Promotion Bureau.

Here is the video produced by JWT that was unveiled at the WTM in London this week:

The video produced by the Dentsu Grant Group: