Closing day in Atlanta

Finally the silly slogan for my hometown of Atlanta “Every day is an opening day” has been benched.

Since October 2005 when it was launched, I have been critical of the slogan. Not only is it a generic, meaningless idea, but a better idea is already out there in the hearts of minds of consumers. An idea that is powerful, credible and motivating. Ignoring this idea, which has the potential to become one of the greatest city slogans of all-time, is a marketing crime.

Summarizing the attributes of a city/state/country brand with one word or phrase is extremely difficult. Unlike a toothpaste, soft drink or an automobile, places have an incredible amount of diversity.

Volvo is safe. Coke is the real thing. Crest fights cavities. But what is Atlanta? A southern metropolitan city with a variety of leading industries? Not exactly catchy.

For sure, Atlanta is not where every day is an opening day. One day every spring, the Braves have an opening day. One day every fall, the Falcons have an opening day. And in 2005, the world’s biggest aquarium opened in Atlanta. Aside from that, the “every day” slogan has no connection to our city.

Furthermore, it’s a slogan that could be said of any city with a sports team or a new attraction that recently opened. The mission of a slogan is not just to define your brand, but more importantly to differentiate it from other brands.

One way to test the differentiation factor is to reverse the slogan and pin it on the brand’s major competitor. Does it make sense? Could it define another brand? If not, then the slogan is just plain puffery that is likely to be ignored.

• Scope is the good-tasting mouthwash because Listerine is the bad-tasting mouthwash.

• Target is the place for cheap chic because Wal-Mart is cheap but not fashionable.

• Pepsi is the choice of a new generation because your parents drank Coca-Cola.

Most place slogans would be ridiculous in reverse:

• “Incredible India.” India is incredible because Pakistan is not credible?

• Guatemala: “Soul of the Earth.” Guatemala has a soul because Mexico is soulless?

• Atlanta: “Everyday is an opening day.” Atlanta is open every day because Miami is closed?

Just yesterday New York City unveiled the city’s first global advertising campaign. The theme: “This is New York City.”

What? I’m not kidding the city will spend $30 million on advertising to tell the world “This is New York City.” As opposed to “This is not Boston, unless the Red Socks Win” a long running campaign of its neighboring city to the north.

“This is New York City” is not powerful, memorable or unique. It doesn’t say anything about the city that distinguishes it from any other city. You could easily substitute any city name in the world into the campaign. Paris, London, Rome, San Francisco or even Atlanta.

New York City is the most exciting city in the world. You are at the center of it all when you visit there. Wall Street, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Times Square. It is home of the financial, media, theatrical and fashion centers of the world.

New York needs a verbalization that reinforces that idea in the mind. The reason to visit New York is because it is the Big Apple. The biggest most exciting city in the world.

One of the best city slogans in recent years is the Las Vegas campaign “What happens here stays here.” Brilliant! In reverse, “What happens at home doesn’t stay at home” is equally as true. Las Vegas has an annual budget of $86 million and it is money well spent.

The idea Atlanta should use would be difficult to sell because it has been around for a long time. It isn’t new, original or creative. After paying an advertising agency millions of dollars, city leaders would likely laugh if the agency came back with an old slogan it wanted to refurbish.

Advertising agencies are focused on creativity, the new and different. Creativity might be good for winning a Gold Lion at Cannes, but it is not necessarily the best way to build a brand.

How should Atlanta be positioned? Let’s look at some of the facts.

• According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport is the nation’s busiest.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Atlanta had 72,861 private housing starts in 2005, the highest of any metropolitan area in the U.S.

• No American metro area attracts more young professionals. According to Impress Consulting, Atlanta leads the nation in luring high-educated 25 to 34-year-olds.

• According to Nielsen Media Research, Atlanta is the fastest-growing TV market.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, metro Atlanta added 890,000 residents from April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007, the largest numerical gain of the nation’s 361 metro areas.

• According to the travel discount site Hotwire.com, Atlanta has the best “travel-value index” of the 50 most-visited places in the U.S.

When we arrived in the city back in 1997, a friend called us and his first words were “Welcome to Hot-lanta.”

In addition to all the great things about the city, it sometimes runs over 100 high-and-sticky degrees in the summertime. And sometimes the traffic is terrible because of the rapid growth the city has experienced. But these negatives are worth having if it means no snow in the winter, lots of high paying jobs and an abundance of recreational activities.

One of the silliest rationales for not using the slogan “Hot-lanta” is that city leaders are afraid to remind people how hot it is. What? It would be like ignoring the rain in Seattle, the fog in San Francisco or the gridlock in New York. The best way to deal with a negative is to turn it into a positive.

• Listerine: The taste you hate twice a day.

• With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.

• Avis is only #2 in rent-a-cars, so why go with us? We try harder.

“Hot-lanta,” is a slogan that deals with the negative and turns it into a positive. It is the hottest growing metro area in the country. Who doesn’t want to live in the hot place, eat at the hot restaurant or work at the hot company? Sure, not everybody likes hot. Some people prefer northern Wisconsin because it’s cold and almost completely devoid of people. (Local joke: Wisconsin has three seasons: July, August and winter.)

Building a brand requires sacrifice. You give up the isolation and the snowmobiling to live in Hot-lanta.

For me and millions of others Hot-lantans, it is worth it.

Comments

[Paul Dushkind]

Hotlanta doesn't sound very catchy to me, but the strongest argument you make for Hotlanta as Atlanta's nickname is that the term has already caught on in Georgia. You Atlantans know what you mean: your image of your home town is that it's growing fast. And that the weather is hot, of course.

But I wonder if the slogan travels well. Sitting here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I, for one, didn't realize that Atlantans call the place Hotlanta, or that Hotlanta is a hiphop term. To an outsider, calling a city hot may mean that it has a lot of strip shows. (Isn't that what you would infer if Las Vegas touted itself as hot?)

I Googled the word Hotlanta and the first things that came up were gay and lesbian dance clubs and gay and lesbian softball leagues! As Seinfeld would say, not that there is anything wrong with that, but it's not promoting the image that business and population are growing.

Wouldn't "Boomtown" or something along that line work better? I don't if there is already a city that owns the name Boomtown.

PS. If your publicity adopts such a theme, what do you say in a few years when business in the Atlanta Metropolitan area cools off? It happened to Seattle.

[David McElroy]

To Ben Bacon:

Hip-hop music might have adopted the term "Hotlanta," but it's been in common use in the South since long before hip hop ever existed. In the same way, the term "left coast" (and "right coast," for that matter) were around long before today's hip hop artists were even born. The fact that a certain culture adopted those terms doesn't stop them from being a part of the larger culture. The "suits" don't know hip-hop culture, but I'll bet they've heard the term Hotlanta for many, many years.

[Brandon]

Impressive words here...just landed here via a search on "Laura Ries" since a news story on google news identified you as saying that it's sad that Kodak isn't sponoring the olympics anymore. I read your words of wisdom on focus at "ries.com" and have to say "impressive...such obvious, but great words & things we shouldn't forget." Keep up the great blogging & work.

[Visit Yogyakarta]

What about "Jogja - never ending Asia" slogan?

Yogyakarta (some people call it Jogja, Jogjakarta, or Yogya) is a city with outstanding historical and cultural heritage. Yogyakarta was the centre of the Mataram Dynasty (1575-1640), and until now the kraton (the sultan's palace) exists in its real functions. Also, Yogyakarta has numerous thousand-year-old temples as inheritances of the great ancient kingdoms, such as Borobudur temple established in the ninth century by the dynasty of Syailendra.

[Sunil S Chiplunkar]

Incredible India because Pakistan is not credible!! Ha, ha I quite like that. But frankly it wasn't meant to be that - sort of raise curiosity - that was the idea behind the slogan - Incredible India. But is has caught your mind so there is some punch in the slogan.

[Geoff Livingston]

Does that mean DC should brand itself the District of Corruption? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Hotlanta would be cute, and it could be sexy, too. Sex appeal works for vacation. Do one wants to have a dull, lame and/or annoying vacation.

Also: This is NYC is absolutely ridiculous. All of that talent on Madison Ave. and that's what they came up with? Sounds like a pure ego play that will rally the inside troops, and p' off the rest of the country. End result: Bad for tourism.

[Ben Bacon]

Hotlanta is great, but it has one dominating problem: Hotlanta is a hip-hop term. I truly believe that The Suits would have quite a hard time swallowing slang slogans from the streets (say that five times fast).

Imagine NY running a campaign with "Crooklyn" or LA announcing that they're the "Left Coast."

If Hotlanta could be brought into the mainstream, then it is a wonderful idea. But, like "bling-bling" and "homie," it appears to be a word peeled from the streets (yet never truly leaving its roots).

For fun, give Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris' "Welcome to Atlanta" song a spin, since it seems to be Rep the Streets Day 2007 in ATL. :)

[brand]

It seems, Laura, that blogging does have an impact - eventually. In Atlanta's case - it took about a couple of years?

I do recall your Dad - Al Ries - suggesting the perfect moniker - Hotlanta - to mirror its rapid rise up the US domestic destination league table.

Leadership of a category is a powerful strategy to position a brand. It seems that people are drawn to where it's 'hot' despite the possible negative interpretation of unbearable summer temperatures.

So how should Atlanta build on its domestic success and rival New York's international positioning as a world-class city based on ex-Mayor RudiG's big brand idea: The World's Capital? (Some of us may recall post 9-11 when the then New York Mayor stepped onto a British Airways flight from London and uttered the immortal words: "Welcome to the World's Capital")

By developing the tactical idea: "Now that you've visited The Big Apple: the World's favorite American destination, you're ready to experience Hotlanta: America's favorite American destination", you lead people from what they know to where you want them to go. (Atlanta's airport has overtaken Chicago's airport as America's busiest domestic port)

So let's now try and put forward a powerful global brand plan based on that tactic.

Atlanta is home to two of the World's top brands - Coca Cola: the World's No.1 product brand, and CNN: the World's No.1 news channel. The perfect opportunity to co-brand product with place.

But Coca Cola and CNN are both strongly associated with Brand America, whose current strategy of exporting the 'American Dream' - Land of the Free - using military might, has plunged the country's international brand image and reputation to an all-time historic low.

Although this is unquestionably a difficult period for Brand America and every brand associated with it, it's important to remember that it's only temporary from the perspective of an historic timeline. However, within every cloud there's a silver lining - an opportunity for the city of Atlanta and its people, to catapult themselves onto the world stage - post Olympics.

Atlanta is the spiritual home of arguably one of the greatest personal brands in 20th Century history - the late Martin Luther King - who, having been influenced by India's Gandhi, campaigned under a 'freedom-thru-non-violence' strategy.

Atlanta, by becoming a cultural activist through co-branded campaigns with The King Center as well as Coca Cola and CNN, the city has the credentials as well as the resources to take up Brand America's greatest challenge in the 21st Century, and in doing so, it would build a global leadership position for itself.

Atlantans, Uncle Sam Wants You (and Needs You Now)!

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