How Fall River Created a Brand at a Fraction of the Cost of RI
GoLocalProv Business Team
How Fall River Created a Brand at a Fraction of the Cost of RI
It was a stark contrast to Rhode Island’s chaotic, publicly embarrassing rollout in 2016 -- which saw nearly $10 million funneled primarily to two New York firms, Milton Glaser and Havas PR.
SEE SLIDESHOW BELOW OF NATIONAL PRESS COVERAGE OF RI TOURISM ROLLOUT
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“We are very pleased with the rollout of the brand and how it has been received by the citizens of Fall River, as well many other colleagues and friends from throughout New England that I have heard from,” said Mayor Jasiel F. Correia on Thursday.
For Fall River, one of the most economically depressed communities in the region, the wins are beginning to pile up.
Amazon recently located a massive facility in the city - now employing 1,800. The job creation equals nearly a third of all the job creation in Rhode Island in its first two years under Governor Gina Raimondo. And in contrast, much of the job creation in Rhode Island is highly subsidized by the Raimondo administration.
A Very Different Approach
While the Rhode Island tourism campaign was driven by RI Commerce staff and their board, along with partners in the state, the Fall River brand development process was incubated by EGN, the lead Rhode Island firm that drove the process. Figmints, the branding and design firm located in Pawtucket, led the creative process.
“From the beginning of this process the combined teams of EGN and Figmints had established a solid plan of how to be as inclusive as possible in talking with the community,” said Rick Simone of EGN. “This allowed us to gather immense amounts of data, conducting over 100 meetings, attending many local events and taking dozens of local tours. Our committee formed by the Mayor guided this process with great passion as well as provided a constant of additional feedback.”
“The ‘Make It Here’ brand was not made up, it was uncovered,” said James Kwon, Figmints’ founder and CEO. “It resonates with the community because it is true. At one point in its history, Fall River was once considered to be one of the most prosperous cities in New England. We kept asking ourselves, "If then, why not now?’ That question informed the foundation of the new brand.”
Rhode Island’s rollout became a blame fest. Raimondo accused Rhode Islanders of being too negative. There were charges and counter charges by vendors. Then, Raimondo forced the resignation of tourism boss Betsy Wall.
“From talking with businesses such as Matouk to non-profits like the Children’s Museum…we had conversations in coffee shops, markets and restaurants. It is how we discovered the true spirit of Fall River,” said Simone.
While Fall River is celebrating the new campaign, Rhode Island is still licking its wounds a year later.
The tagline “cooler and warmer” was discarded. The logo is used primarily by RI Commerce and partners, but has not been extended to state signage or much else.
Commerce is now out for yet another review for new vendors, and in the fall, one top regional tourism organizations questioned Commerce’s process and priorities.
"That's where I don't see a whole lot being done, and I don't see what's being done behind the scenes, that's unbeknownst to me," Evan Smith of Discover Newport told GoLocalProv.com in September. "The regions are looking for the state to make a brand to connect to, so that we can collaborate and integrate with what we're doing."
Commerce’s board is scheduled to review final staff recommendations at the next meeting. According to Matt Sheaff of Commerce, presently there are no ads promoting Rhode Island businesses or tourism running anywhere in the country or internationally.
National Press Critique RI's Embarrassing Tourism Campaign - 2016
New York Times
A world-renowned designer was hired. Market research was conducted. A $5 million marketing campaign was set. What could go wrong?
Everything, it turns out.
The slogan that emerged — “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer” — left people confused and spawned lampoons along the lines of “Dumb and Dumber.” A video accompanying the marketing campaign, meant to show all the fun things to do in the state, included a scene shot not in Rhode Island but in Iceland. The website featured restaurants in Massachusetts.
Boston Globe
After the slogan’s unveiling, the blunders just kept coming. A promotional video to accompany the campaign included a shot of a skateboarder in front of a distinctive building that turned out to be the famous Harpa concert hall, located almost 2,500 miles away, in Iceland.
The new website erroneously boasted that Little Rhody is home to 20 percent of the country’s historic landmarks. And officials needed to remove three names from its restaurant database, after realizing the information was so outdated that two of the restaurants aren’t open right now.
City Lab
“Cooler & Warmer.” It took me roughly 30 minutes of reading about Rhode Island’s new tourism catchphrase to realize that “cool” is a double entendre—as in, the occasional temperature of the Ocean State, but also “hip and awesome.” And I still didn’t quite get it? This was not a good sign. I may be dense, but lordy, was I not alone.
Time
The Rhode Island Tourism Division had to pull its latest video shortly after it was posted online Tuesday because it contained footage shot in Iceland. The three-second scene in question shows a man doing a skateboard trick outside of the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, the country’s capital.
IndieWhip, the company that edited the video, and the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, which hired the firm, have apologized for the error. “The footage in question is of a Rhode Island skateboarder, filmed by a Rhode Islander,” IndieWhip added in a statement.
Forbes
A Big Price Tag Puts a Target on Your Back. Rhode Island spent a reported $550,000 to develop the “Cooler & Warmer” campaign. Development costs for the Florida and Washington campaigns cost $380,000 and $422,000, respectively. That’s before the first piece of media was ever purchased.
My advertising agency brethren will argue you have to invest money at the start of the campaign to “get it right.” But from my perspective, the above numbers seem exorbitant for a program built on public dollars. And in each case, an angry electorate agreed.
Creating a great “place marketing” campaign is a difficult job. Don’t make it more difficult by ignoring the lessons from states like Rhode Island, Florida and Washington.
