What's the deal with Americans ripping off our tourism slogans?
Posted by Steve Wright at 11/30/2007 3:16 AM and is filed under Place branding,Destination Marketing,Tourism Marketing,tourism campaign,Destination Branding 
It seems that Canada has a new export industry: tourism taglines.
First Anchorage, Alaska, launched a brand remarkably similar to its next door neighbour, Canada's Yukon Territories.
Then New Mexico tried to one-up British Columbia's claim of being "The Best Place on Earth" by positioning itself as "The Best Place in the Universe".
But this latest case of cross-border shoplifting really takes the cake:
- Peoria, Arizona, recently entered the Canuck-copying frenzy with its new tagline "Naturally Connected." The line is, of course, already in use by Canada's Victoria County.
- Not content to swipe one Canadian tagline when two could be had for the same price, Peoria's alternate tagline during the comprehensive branding process was "Come to Life... In the Desert". "Come to Life" has, of course, been used for years by the province of Nova Scotia.
- For those of you thinking this is nothing more than an odd coincidence, it will seem even more odd when you realize that Victoria County is located in... Nova Scotia!
- How does a branding process in the American desert end up choosing between two taglines from Canada's east coast? Maybe they just figured we wouldn't notice. Or that we're so darn nice we just wouldn't mind one bit thank you very much.
- Peoria's local media have picked up on the "Naturally Connected" connection (though they haven't yet caught on to the Nova Scotia connection to the alternate tagline) and some folks are asking smart questions.
- The answers, unfortunately, aren't so smart from the folks who were hired to create the brand and tagline: Don McEachern, CEO of North Star Destination Strategies, a leading(?) US brand firm that has done work with more than 80 American cities, said "he would be hard-pressed to find a negative to two communities having similar slogans." Huh? Isn't that the very reason why cities hire branding firms - to differentiate themselves? And isn't that the very definition of a brand - a unique mark that identifies a unique product? Someone should direct McEachern's attention to his own website where the firm claims "each North Star client faces a unique challenge that requires a unique solution." Unless they meant that to read "a solution that is unique within the continental United States (offer not valid in Canada)."
- North Star was apparently behind another branding campaign that resulted in the launch of a slogan for Longview, Texas ("Pure and Simple") that was already in use by South Walton, Florida. The South Walton slogan was, of course entirely original and was created by ummm... wait a minute... North Star Destination Strategies?
- Scratch the previous edit. When they said "a unique solution" on their website they must have meant "a solution that is unique within at least a few hundred miles of city hall unless we've forgotten something we did a couple of years ago and then hey, all bets are off, and you guys are pretty much totally differentiated by having a different name for your city already anyway, right? Taxi!"
- Why don't we just cut out the middle man here and license our taglines to the American market? I'd be hard-pressed to find a negative in that.
Well put Steve. While on the subject how about the Emirates Airlines and their use of "Fky Emirates. Keep Discovering." Mmm, sort of sounds familiar - I suppose once we're done discovering we'll start exploring - "oh, the humanity..." http://www.keepdiscovering.com/uk/
The vicissitudes of branding a destination...
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Hi Jaime. You've got a sharp eye.
To be fair, and I'll have to double-check this, but I think Emirates may have been using the "Keep Discovering" line prior to the launch of Brand Canada. I seem to remember it coming up during the competitive check that was done on Brand Canada. Similarly, North Face (outdoor clothing) has used "Never Stop Exploring" for years.
Neither are destination brands (though Emirates, obviously, is in the travel space) and I think "Keep Exploring" is a better line and unique in the destination branding world. "Discover" is an over-used word in tourism taglines, usually used to preface the name of the destination when you can't think of anything better.
Thanks for the comment and for your tireless efforts in promoting Canada to the Spanish-speaking world!
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I heard about this at a recent DMAI Conference in Washington D.C. I'm thankful you have posted it. Unfortunately we in Longview Texas did not take the right steps to vet the company we hired (NSDS). Had we done so, we would have successfully avoided a great deal of political flack and not been set back but more than 12 months in our effort.
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Steve,
I just discovered this post. My reaction is Wow. Thankfully most of us branding professionals south of your border are just that - professionals that are true to the process and their clients.
Derrick
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