I (Heart) NY Tourism Campaign Returns With a Twist ALBANY - The Cuomo administration wants to put the New York back in "I ♥ NY." Saying other vacation destinations had borrowed the state's iconic logo to the point that it had lost its effectiveness, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday unveiled a $5 million advertising campaign that intends to "reinvent" the I ♥ NY logo. In place of the famous red heart, the campaign, which was developed by the advertising agency BBDO and includes television and online advertisements, asks people to sketch in red marker "what they love about New York State." The original logo was created by the graphic designer Milton Glaser in the 1970s, and on Wednesday, David Lubars, the chairman and chief creative officer at BBDO North America, described it as the most iconic tourism logo ever produced. But Mr. Lubars said it "has been co-opted by literally the rest of the world." "If you go to Russia, if you go to Spain, you see "I heart something," and it's lost its New York cachet," he said. My team's assignment was to bring new cachet back to that logo and make it mean something important. The campaign begins this week with two television ads that will run for seven weeks in New York as well as in neighboring states and Canada as part of an effort to increase summer tourism among people within driving distance of New York attractions. The sketched-in replacements for the heart in the ads - a hot-air balloon, a beach ball, a roller coaster, fishing, wine - represent attractions from around the state, including Niagara Falls, the Saratoga Race Course and the vineyards of the Finger Lakes region. The campaign also includes videos of Mets and Yankees players and broadcasters, including David Wright, Al Leiter and David Cone, drawing sketches of their favorite places in New York; the videos will be played at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium and on television broadcasts of the teams" games. It is not the first time in recent years that tourism officials have felt moved to reclaim the timeworn logo. In 2008, the state tourism board rolled out a campaign based on the slogan that emphasized short day trips but also included security measures, like a difficult-to-reproduce hologram, to guard against unlicensed uses of the logo. Mr. Cuomo will not appear in the new advertisements. But after they were unveiled at an event in his ceremonial office on Wednesday, he gave them his stamp of approval. "It's a lot of energy, and I think it's great," the governor said, adding that he thought the state had not acted aggressively enough in the past to market New York to tourists. Mr. Cuomo added that as he did last year, he planned to stay in the state when he vacations this summer. "I'm excited about the campaign," he said, "because I'm very bullish on the product."