WTF? And I LIVE here?!

The tourism slogan of the City of Reno has been "America's Adventure Place" since about 2002 and the marketing group thought it needed updating. The city reportedly paid a LOT of money ($100,000+) for a new idea to be put together with ad campaigns and whatnot. So what did that buy? They decided that the new slogan will be "A Little West of Center"...

Um...

The intention is to mean that we are a little west of the center of the United States. For starters, that doesn't really say anything and is hardly a tourism draw. AND it's not even correct! For those of you who are not aware of the geography of the US here's a map with Nevada outlined in red. Colorado is a little west of center and we are two states further over, not to mention that Reno is within 30 minutes of touching the western edge. We are 1/2 hour from California, that's hardly "A Little West of Center" which leaves us to wonder how they came up with this...



On the other hand, we just paid over $100,000 for this so maybe it really means something more like "Has a screw loose" or "A few bricks short of a load" or "Lost her rocks", in which case it's entirely correct. That being said, is that really what we want to tell the world? "Come here and do stupid crap because, hey, we're a little nuts so you'll blend right in"? Oy...

Luckily the mayor this morning called it embarrassing and got them to throw it out. So this means that now they'll be making sense? Well, no, not really. The rest of the campaign so far is still a go ahead. According to kolotv's story today "While board members ditched the 'West of Center' slogan, they are moving forward with the rest of the new campaign. It sells our area as "refreshingly offbeat" and uses a talking bighorn sheep to relay that message" Just to make sure you didn't miss that "uses a talking bighorn sheep to relay that message"... Uh, huh.

What is it with this area and REALLY bad slogans? The power company had, a while back, a really bad reputation. They were really hard-nosed about profit and if a customer was behind they were shutting off their power without trying to work out a payment plan or anything. They got a reputation as being uncaring. So they brought in a PR company and did up a new slogan. They made hats and pens and all kinds of junk with the new slogan plastered on it. The employees were brought in to a room for an "unveiling" and when the curtain was pulled back the new slogan said "We Delight Our Customers". Someone started to snicker. Delight? Or de-light? The curtain was closed and the slogan died. All the pens and stuff were boxed up and hidden away. Did we hire the same people to do the City of Reno slogan? I wonder.