Tourism Branding Gone Wrong.

Posted by Shawn Patriquin, on April 1, 2009

As we put the finishing touches on a brand destination tourism campaign for a client, I thought I would take a few minutes to share a couple of examples that we came across in our research. Take this opinion with the understanding that as an ad-person I can be a bit cynical when I look at others work. But know this, I will be the first to give credit where credit is due (in my opinion of course). Perhaps it’s a little bit of jealously – after all, we haven’t had the privilege of charging $50,000 for a logo design/brand-mark.

Destination Tourism Brand-Mark – Wisconsin Hard to imagine getting paid $50,000 for this logo/slogan. There are just so many things wrong with it. Then again, never being to Wisconsin, maybe it’s right on mark. Nevertheless, it doesn’t make me want to go there. However, I would have if I got the $50 large for the job.

Alberta Rebranding A nice mark but it’s hard to get my head around the positioning statement. However, if you watch the 2 minute 30 second video on the rationale of the direction you might get it or take the time to download the 5.5mb brand book you might get it. I am guessing that 90% of the budget went into the producing the malarkey to justify the direction (and the bill). This re-brand will cost taxpayers $25 million over 3 years to phase in.

Moose Jaw Rebranding At first glance, I thought this was an April Fool’s joke when I first saw it on Marketing Magazine PM (I still hope that it is). However, after some cursory research, it seems legit. Man, if this is for real I hope they didn’t pay more than a few hundred dollars over and above the cost of the license for Corel Draw for this Yves Noblet to create this thing. How do you rationalize a slogan by saying ‘this was my first time coming here and it was surprisingly unexpected – there it is…your new slogan and oh yeah, I’ll throw in this doodle of a moose antler exclamation point I did on the train-ride here. Can I please have my big cheque now Moose Jaw?’ NEXT!