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Client: Glendale, CA
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Seeking a snappier city slogan? Just do it
By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer
San Diego has branded itself as "America's Finest City," while Hershey, Pa., is rightly known as "The Sweetest Place on Earth." Closer to home, Burbank has long sold itself as the world's media capital, Simi Valley boasts of its connection to the Reagan Presidential Library, while the High Desert city of Lancaster wants the world to know about its sunny skies.
Glendale recently joined cities with its own snappy slogan: Your Life. Animated. It's the core of a marketing campaign that officials hope will spotlight the community's assets and spur economic growth. "This is a promise of what we can deliver and what we aspire to be," said Alison Maxwell, deputy director of economic development for Glendale.
The search for the city's identity stretches back several years, when Glendale and other cities large and small found themselves mired in the recession. Hoping to pull out of the economic doldrums, officials wanted to promote Glendale but quickly determined they didn't actually know what they were selling. Was it the city's locale? Its economic base? Its diverse neighborhoods?
Looking for direction, the city hired North Star Destination Strategies, a Nashville-based marketing company that also created the slogans and logos for Lancaster ("It's postively clear") and Tehachapi ("Live up.") North Star spent more than a year meeting with residents and business owners, eventually concluding that most people saw Glendale as merely the city tucked between Burbank and Pasadena.
"There are 33 neighborhood and six business districts that combine to bring life to the city of Glendale," said Don McEachern, president and CEO of North Star. "We wanted to shine a light on that activity and that life." The result was a stylized logo and the "Animated" slogan, a reference to Glendale as the home of Disney's 125-acre creative campus, Pixar Animation Studios and the headquarters of DreamWorks Animation. Maxwell noted that the tag line can be modified to reflect Glendale's many facets, such as "Your Business. Animated." or "Your Neighborhood. Animated. It's flexible, creative and dynamic," said Maxwell, who previously worked as marketing director for Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. "It's a way of articulating a brand personality at that moment in time."
Glendale City Councilman Dave Weaver, however, isn't sold on the idea. Calling the campaign a waste of money, he cast the sole dissenting vote last month when the council approved the slogan, as well as a logo featuring the city's name in lower-case letters and five multicolored curlicues. "There's nothing catchy about it that I can see," he said in an interview. "People are not going to go around using it. "I think we should just call Glendale `The Animation Capital of the World' and let go of it," he said. "Ask the animators of those three (local) studios to come up with a logo."
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said he had pretty much the same negative view of his city's marketing campaign when he was elected in 2008. The slogan "It's postively clear" accompanies a blue-and-green plus sign that is supposed to symbolize cloudless skies and verdant meadows, although Parris said it reminds him of a home-pregnancy test. "I hated it!" said Parris, a vocal proponent of solar power, who would prefer that his city adopt the motto "The Alternative Energy Capital of the World."
"I didn't think it meant anything so I talked to a psychophysicist I know from White Plains, N.Y. He tested it, and damned if this thing wasn't resonating with Generation X. The Gen-Xers loved it, and that's who we're trying to attract to the community."
Officials of other Southern California municipalities say slogans - official or not - help solidify their cities' identity and set them apart from their neighbors. After defeating a similar proposal in 1991, the Simi Valley City Council voted in 2004 to adopt "Home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library" as its slogan. It's since been used for economic development campaigns and in recruiting a new police chief. "The library is a very valuable asset to our community, and we value that association," said longtime City Manager Mike Sedell. "It's a quality-of-life issue. We want people to know that." Burbank uses "Media Capital of the World" in its marketing and promotional materials although it's never actually copyrighted or trademarked the slogan.
Agoura Hills' website boasts that it's the "Gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains" - the same slogan claimed unofficially by neighboring Calabasas (although it could be argued that each is a gateway, depending on which way you're headed on the Ventura Freeway). Santa Clarita's slogan is "Where the Good Life Takes You," a message affirmed in a city seal depicting a paseo linking homes, green space and businesses. Los Angeles doesn't have an official motto, either, but is most commonly known as the City of Angels - although a glance at any tabloid will tell you that is not the case.
Maxwell emphasized that the new "Animated" slogan and curlicue logo are only the first steps in rebranding Glendale, which for more than a century has been nicknamed "The Jewel City."
The Glendale Redevelopment Agency has budgeted $1 million for a marketing campaign, although that is on hold because of a court challenge to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed dissolution of redevelopment agencies statewide. Despite that, officials plan to push forward in persuading people to live, work and play in their city.
"Glendale is a great, livable, walkable urban environment," said Maxwell, the economic development official. "People can have a work-life balance here. It's a rich tapestry of life."
