Finding a slogan that connects
"Greensboro connects" did not connect three years ago as the city's slogan. So Action Greensboro is trying, again, to come up with a branding strategy that sticks.
Toward that end a panel Thursday centered on the city's unique selling points -- the character and qualities that make Greensboro Greensboro.
Then the attendees split into groups and brainstormed ideas.
The audience stressed such Greensboro qualities as location, climate and hospitality, Jim Schlosser reported in the News & Record.
One idea: The grass is greener here (insert Cheech and Chong joke here).
Seriously though, folks, this branding business isn't easy. There are people who makes gobs of cash devising some brilliant and many absolutely awful branding campaigns.
But cynicism aside, there's value on reflecting on we are as a community and what distinguishes us from other places.
For instance, if someone were to ask what makes Winston-Salem and Greensboro different, what would you say?
What about Greensboro and High Point?
I hate to break the news here, but their grass looks pretty green to me.
I don't mean to cast aspersions at a good neighbor (also, I lived there for nine years and loved it) but if it's any consolation, "Greensboro Connects" is a whole lot better than what Winston came up with in its own branding attempt: "O! Winston-Salem. Now That’s Living."
O wow. And they were dead serious, too.
Comments (8)
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Greenboro connects / High Point Disconnects!
Allen, where are all the children in High Point?
Guilford County school enrollment UP! High Point down!
Action Greensboro had better realise that is no use spreading this BS that Greensboro is great while they advocate to drive High Point into the ground.
Posted on September 15, 2006 11:54 PM
How about "Home Of The Grasshoppers" ??
All kidding aside, that's got to be the stupidest name for a sports team ever.
Posted on September 16, 2006 12:14 AM
How about "A Good Place to Raise a Boy"? (The actual motto of the Ms town where Emmett Till was killed.)
Sloganeering is a doomed enterprise. They always sound like stupid special pleading and who cares anyway?
With Greensboro, the problem of civic branding is exacerbated by the perfectly average nature of a city whose averageness constitutes what desirability it has. Not too big, not too small, not too cold, not too hot, not too boring, not too exciting.
That's it: "The City Goldilocks Would Love" or "Just-Rightboro, USA."
Posted on September 16, 2006 2:39 AM
I wish they would find something that accentuates the real positive about Greensboro, which is that it really is the best of the state's big cities to live in. "Greensboro-It's Not Charlotte" would be my choice, but I don't think they'd put that on a bumper sticker.
I agree with the other poster who said slogans don't much matter. But "Greensboro-The Best of Everything" makes alot of sense. There isn't anything that Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, or Asheville have that we don't also have other than the NBA and NHL. And we don't have alot of the congestion and crime rates some of those areas have.
This is a great, but underpublicized, college town. Downtown is coming back strong. We will (or should) move up to at least AA in baseball with the great new stadium. Lot's of health care choices and hospitals. A really good airport (albeit underutilized). You can get anywhere you want to go in 30 minutes or less on a well laid out highway system. The town has a good mix of young and old, and a diverse population. The climate gives you four seasons, but not to the degree that any of them nearly kill you with heat or cold.
Instead of trying to be Charlotte or Raleigh, we just need to rationally work with what is at hand and grow the area in ways that maintain what is good about Greensboro. I've travelled to just about every major city on the east coast and from what I've seen this is among the top 5 places to live. We just have to get all our leaders to realize that and live up to that in how they present themselves and our community.
Posted on September 16, 2006 8:23 AM
Didn't Fantasia say that High Point was "Home of the Living Dead"???
Posted on September 16, 2006 1:25 PM
Guest:
Actually, she didn't say that. Fantasia wrote in her autobiography:
"My friends used to call High Point the 'Land of the Dead,' because it was so hard for people to get their voices heard, musically or otherwise."
Posted on September 16, 2006 11:06 PM
Dudley:
You raise some excellent points. We are what we are ... and, to tell you the truth, it ain't half-bad.
Posted on September 16, 2006 11:14 PM
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Posted on November 7, 2006 11:54 AM