Today’s RGJ reported that that the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority is changing their marketing slogan from "America’s Adventure Place" to “A Little West of Center”. See Reno-area tourism agency to change marketing slogan
What do you think of the new slogan? I think it’s sort of cool. A little intriguing. Perhaps causes one to take a moment to think about what it means exactly. Ultimately the goal is to drive tourism to the Reno-Sparks area, which the story above reports has dropped for eleven years.
Thoughts?
Gary
No one can claim the slogan isn’t ambiguous enough, and maybe this is one of those times when this is a real plus. Even to California, our single biggest market, Reno is east of their center, but we can always argue that “west” is a just a state of mind. The great thing about ambiguity is that whether or not you’re right, you’re never wrong.
I just hope the judges weren’t “high of center” when they made their selection 😉
Irv
Silly, meaningless, nothing catchy about it; it has no “hook.” Might as well have made a marketing slogan out the words Gevirtz or Dasgowp.
This marketing entity has no spark of imagination in its thinking if that’s the best they can do.
billddrummer
Well, “America’s Adventure Place” successfully drove away tourists. How much did that slogan cost?
This one cost $100,000 and nine months.
Will it work?
No idea. Another way to look at it is it’s just a quarter per resident.
DownButNot Out
I would have thought something with some action in it would be more attractive – Come ski, bike, swim and play – and stay! But I didn’t get the 5 million dollar contract.
Noze4thenwz
Do they really think tourism is down because of the “old” slogan – America’s adventure Place? NO – it’s down because downtown is dilapidated and scary!Look at the security guard that is posted outside the great new West Street Market each night to keep the homeless out of the courtyard. Look at the homeless using the new train tench platform as a begging platform. I know that every city has homeless, but our homeless population seems to be equal to the tourists population some days. The Silver Peak/Dreamers/Riverside corridor has become very gentrified and well-visited…too bad we can’t see that type of activity north. You can’t sell a dirty, unsafe widget.
NevadaH
It’s important to remember that the RSCVA has spent more than a year conducting comprehensive market research to identify the best way to grow visitation to Reno. Because the economy of our area is directly impacted by travel and tourism we need to support what the RSCVA is doing to get visitors here. When people visit they spend money. That money employs our family, friends, neighbors, supports our schools, etc. It’s also unfair to judge the new slogan without taking the time to understand the work that went into developing a new campaign.
A Little West of Center pays homage to a recognizable slogan of Reno as the “Biggest Little City” while providing a fresh perspective of the type of experience a visitor can expect from Reno Tahoe. That being something a little bit different than the norm or expected. It also conveys the history of the region as a true “American Original” steeped in western tradition, which has strong appeal for both American and international travelers.
Gary
I think the new slogan means that if tourists don’t know exactly where they want to go in the downtown area, they can simply tell their cab driver to drop them off “A Little West of Center” Street, which pretty well describes the location of the downtown casino core. Their second choice of slogans was “A Little East of Sierra.” I finally see how brilliant this is!
I hereby submit “Between Center and Sierra,” and I just hope I’m not too late to win that giant cash prize 😉
Worried Guy
How about…”A little West of Dumpville” ?
Cousin Itt
Y’know, I don’t hate it (though it instantly brought to mind the moldering, miasmic, detritus of a city east of Center Street to this local). It sure beats Sparks – “The Festering City”.
Seriously, it isn’t a bad tag line to try playing up what are the most popular (profitable) events here. But I see it as a subset of slogans (including America’s Adventure Place and others) that leads to reinforcing our nationally recognized identity as “Reno- the Biggest Little City in the World”. I realize that the RSCVA is supposed to be regional, but Sparks wants out to attract the masses on their own, god help them, and maybe the best strategy for all is to play to Reno’s existing marketing strengths.
noz4nws
Nevada H-
We’ll all just have to attend the presentation at the RSCVA on thursday at 9 a.m.! Saddle Up!
DownButNotOut
NevadaH- “It’s also unfair to judge the new slogan without taking the time to understand the work that went into developing a new campaign.”
Well isn’t that what every tourist is going to do?
Reno Ignoramus
How about “A bubble off Plumb”.
bondstevenbond
I’ll give it a shot…
“Reno, we got nice tooth”
bob c
if reno legalized a dui driving lane it would
double tourism
Downtownjunkie
“Reno, we got nice tooth”- Thanks for making my day:)
Great slogans convey the whole message in just a few words and are very rare. I would take a great execution plan before a slogan any day. Unfortunately Reno/Sparks is not so good with the whole execution thing….
How about “homes for 60% OFF”
cheez o
How about “We’ve got some decent job opportunities out here …. something besides working in a warehouse or waiting tables or pushing R.E.”
Paul
I like this better than “America’s Adventure Place”. We can’t compete with Utah as an adventure place or with California and the local activities that are near there. Reno needs to embrace what it is good at, namely being a little odd but still fun. Nope, we aren’t Las Vegas but you can gamble and have fun at our old school casinos. No, we aren’t Utah and have absolutely amazing mountain climbing. Nor are we attracting folks from California who can be less than a day’s drive to Tahoe and experience that. That doesn’t draw people to Reno. Drawing people to Reno with our weirdness might be what is needed. After all, Burning Man is basically in our backyard.
billddrummer
To Paul,
How about “Reno, Burning Man Gateway”
Or “Biggest Little Citifare”
Or “ArtTown of the Sierras”
Grand Wazoo
I don’t care if the new slogan is “Free Beer 24/7”, until the core of Virgina Street downtown is cleaned up any marketing campaign is useless. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a tourist trying to take a photo of the Reno Arch so that the vacant Fitgeralds and the panhandlers don’t show up in the picture – not an easy thing to do these days. The block on the west side of Virginia between Fitgeralds and Second Street is just a filthy dump – what on earth must a first time visitor think when they see that?
bob c
when i visit (and don’t stay with family)
i’ve stayed downtown but used the over-street
enclosed crossing that connects all the casinos,
but usually i’ll stay at atlantis, peppermill
or hilton ………. i just realized that i
do that, even though i’m a gruff type guy that
could fit in with the sidewalk crowd (i took
my son to watts in LA as a youth during daytime
to play real streetball–to see what the world is
all about and i just realized i subconsciously
avoided reno’s downtown)
billddrummer
To Grand Wazoo,
That downtown Reno is a festering, moldering dump.
Oops, I used my outside voice.
Sorry.
Raymond
Oh man, Downtown Dude and the 3 people who have bought at the Montage are going to show up any minute now and launch into the standard ritualistic incantation about the baseball stadium, and the museum, and the two great blocks on First street, and how when there are 12,000 people living in downtown condos there will be a grocery store, and just give it a little while longer and it will be absolutely fabulous.
You are right Wazoo. Tourists come to downtown Reno and are appalled.
Carlo
I don’t think the reason the tourist count has dropped for the last 11 consecutive years is because the slogan was wrong.
Maybe, just maybe, Wazoo nailed it.
Last year, my sister and her family went to Reno for the first time and stayed at the ElDorado. One night she and her husband and their two teenage daughters decided to take a walk around downtown. They were back in their room in 30 minutes. She has said she will never stay in downtown Reno again.
Perry
I’m not a defender of the RSCVA or the city planners etc. I”m also not a grand stander for Reno but it seems there’s a lot of criticism going on about the direction Reno is going be it housing or employment opportunities etc. I know that jobs don’t pay much in the area and houses are far too expensive based on that lack of pay. Having said this, I have two questions and I’m being sincere not sarcastic.
1. What if anything is going right in the region?
2. If not Reno, where is better and why?
I often think about the second question but haven’t come up with any really good alternatives. Maybe I’m not traveled enough.
billddrummer
To Perry,
Some things are going right here.
Most schools are good.
Crime rate is low in most parts of town.
The cost of living isn’t outrageous.
The weather is terrific.
People are friendly.
I moved here in 1979, after living in Washington DC, Boston, Connecticut, North Carolina, Oakland, South Lake Tahoe and San Francisco.
I’ve visited 33 states.
I don’t foresee myself moving away.
Carlo
Perry,
I don’t think the criticism is of Reno as a city. I think the criticism is of the condition of the downtown core. People like my sister come to downtown and leave vowing never to return because it’s mostly a walk past pawn shops, tee shirts shops, and divey bars. Yes, you can walk to the art museum from the El Dorado, but to get there you have to walk past urine soaked abandoned casinos and long decaying storefronts, and an array of homeless people, some of whom due to their mental illness are screaming into the air. Not exactly what a nice tourist family from the east Bay really wants to do at 8pm on a summer evening.
My sister has not said she will never again come to Reno. She won’t go downtown. She will stay at the Peppermill.
DownButNotOut
Downtown. The first stage will be for the Montage to get settled and occupied, Retrac to have the promised kiosks built, then for the Fitz to get up and running like was recently. It was a great plan two years ago. Unfortunately it may be 5-7 years away at this point.If that.But it has to start with the core, and now that’s it.
DowntownMakeoverDude
Raymond, I found your comment pretty rude, especially since I ‘nailed it’ weeks ago in this article, describing the exact scenario and issue described above. http://www.downtownmakeover.com/9-12-09-Priority-Projects.asp You guys continue to misjudge me but whatever.
Carlo brings up a good point in a round about way. The RSCVA is not responsible for marketing ONLY downtown. Their stakeholders include the Peppermill, Atlantis, Grand Sierra Resort, and some rural areas, in addition to the downtown casinos. Also they are responsible for booking conventions as well. This campaign is REGIONAL, not ‘downtown Reno.’
We all know the downtown casino area can use some serious TLC. But is that a reason for RSCVA to just throw their hands in the air and stop marketing the region as a whole? Why make the entire city suffer because of a few blighted blocks downtown? That’s not fair to the stakeholders of RSCVA outside of the downtown area, nor is it fair to the small businesses outside of the downtown casino area depending on tourism.
This entire region’s primary economic revenue source is tourism. Detroit’s unemployment rate is now at 30%, because they lost their primary economic revenue source. Guess what’s in store for Reno if we just sit back and do nothing?
For the first time in a looong time, people are starting to see the light that the 5+ million people who came to Reno last year didn’t come here with gambling as their primary goal (imagine that!).
There is a new generation of tourist out there who remembers their grandparents taking a bus to Reno to gamble…and these new generations of tourists don’t want to go to a city known for that, and according to national research it will be this 35 and uner generation doing the most travelling in years to come…There is so much more to Reno than playing in the mountains or gambling in a casino, which is why I, and probably most of you, live here. I think, and hope, that’s what this campaign will accentuate. I feel like you can’t market ‘The Biggest Little City in the World’ to a tourist under the age of 50. It just won’t work and catch their attention. You can’t market ‘America’s Adventure Place’ to regions in California already surrounded by dozens of spectacular national parks far closer than us. So I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
Snowman
It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it Down? Just fill up the Montage, then get a bunch of merchants to open kiosks, then just get the Fitz renovated and open. Uh huh.
Remember the Kings Inn. We are now heading into the 34th consecutive winter that the Kings Inn has been abandoned. 34 years. It all seemed so simple….just do some renovations, and get it open for business. In 1976, and 1978, and 1981, and 1985, and 1989, and 1993, and 1996, and 1999, and 2002, and 2005, and 2009, and ……….
Grand Wazoo
“There is so much more to Reno than playing in the mountains or gambling in a casino”.
Like what? Sparks Legends or Summit Sierra shopping? These destinations are not unique. West Street Market? UNR? Good restaurants? I eat at La Famiglia almost weekly and it is great – but not something that would make me get on a plane and come here. Small city markets are everywhere, as is a University close in to an urban core.
What is unique about Reno is a couple of things:
– Great weather. That does not make a tourist destination however.
– Lake Tahoe. That should make us a tourist destination, but somehow it has not in a way that would make downtown happen as we all wish it would. This area is one of the best places on the planet to live and ski, if only the downtown didn’t look like Flint Michigan (where I have also lived).
– Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I am always surprised that our location so close to the Bay Area isn’t more of a draw for technology companies. As we have seen here first hand, Diane Cohn left the area so her husband Ted could take a tech job with Barnes & Noble – even though they have their warehouse here, they apparently don’t do their software development here. Figure that puzzle out and come up with a fix, and then Reno will move forward.
Norton
What makes Reno competitive? Major tech companies like to be close to serious universities with leading edge scholarship and research facilities. Not a coincidence there is so much major tech in California where there is, let’s see….Stanford, Cal, CalTech. Boston has some serious tech companies, where there is, let’s see…..Harvard and MIT.
Reno has, uh……….
As far as second level tech………well, every city in America is chasing that business. Hard to compete with Austin Texas and Raleigh-Durham, which, gee, also have some pretty decent universities nearby.
It’s really pretty simple, Reno does not provide the caliber of research institution that major tech companies want nearby. Now if you are talking about “tech companies” that employ 25 people, well, Reno has a couple of them.
RenoRetiree
Gee, I guess none of you ever visited San Francisco, because I’m sure you would have died of fright at the homeless situation there, which is infinitely worse than that of Reno…
Anyway, as I see it, Paul is on the right track. As the gateway to Burning Man, Reno has enormous visibility among an extremely influential group of people. Don’t underestimate the effect of some artistic counter-culture types moving here and bringing along a bunch of Bay Area tax refugees in their wake. Think Taos, NM. A city with basically nothing except some glamour attached to it, so that people with money now want to live there. For that matter, Austin is what it is today mostly because of its long-standing image as being a place where people from California, who are otherwise appalled by everything associated with Texas, can plausibly relocate. The University there was of minor importance in comparison with this glamour factor. Long ago, in fact, Texas A&M emphasized science, while U Texas emphasized humanities. The big growth of U Texas in engineering and computer science mostly followed the growth of high-tech industry in Austin, rather than preceding it. So glamour (maybe that’s not the right word, I’m just brainstorming here) can be very important.
I don’t know what specific steps to suggest to make Reno more of a counter-culture glamour city than it already is, to some degree: Burning Man gateway already mentioned, Reno 911!, older fame as the home of the quickie divorce and Mustang Ranch. One piece of advice is for city officials to be acutely conscious that they need to be careful about distinguishing counter-culture types from true criminals, because the two often resemble one another. Also, there are situations where it might be advisable to look the other way at minor violations of the law by certain types of individuals or groups, and instead wait until the scandal becomes intolerable and then make the bust, so as to maximize the resulting publicity. The sort of thing I’m thinking of is those Mormon polygamists with child brides down in Texas. That would have been great publicity if that had happened here on the outskirts of Reno. Ideal would be a series of these religious scandals, so that all the hip young kids wanted to visit Reno to see the excitement. Eventually, this will lead to high-tech businesses discovering that they can easily attract talent to Reno, because of the city’s reputation as being exciting and as liberal-minded as San Francisco or Berkeley, but yet much less expensive. We’re entering an age of slow growth in which high costs can no longer be justified as a necessary price to pay for participating in a boom economy.
I think appealing to the whitebread crowd is losing proposition long-term. They’ve already got Branson, Gatlingburg and the whole of Idaho and Reno can never compete with these, no matter how spic-and-span downtown is made.
CommercialLender
Here’s my 2 cents. Reno has: lower sales taxes (could use improvement though), no state income taxes, great weather, outdoors beauty, access to world class Tahoe and skiing, proximity to massive population with generally higher disposable cash (CA), an easy access and clean regional airport, a university, more diversified employment than in years past, great ‘small town’ events throughout the year, and a lower cost of living than many areas. Basically, it has ‘potential’ if only it could continue to be realized. Not one of what I list is well sold or has reached max potential. Sell this list to more tourists and to out of state employers. Attract the mobile and up and coming crowds of 25-40 types who represent peak employment, family formation, those soon to be in their peak earning years, energetic workers and those who also want to play hard. I think retirees are already well represented. Reno needs to get away from busses full of gambling old ladies, vastly reduce its gambling presence including in the airports, downtown and in every retail location, work to import a higher talent base and profile of its university, step up its marketing to CA businesses to attract better jobs, and work to market to higher socio-economic stata of migrants. Then, the country can begin to take Reno seriously. If Reno continues to tolerate garbage like Mustang Ranch and old has-been casinos with their associated riff-raff, and way too many downscale bars, then the young families who are the future life blood of the area, the employers necessary to employ them, and the tourists with their disposable dollars stay away.
In many ways Reno needs to have a vision of something better. I suggest the vision is that of Boulder, CO, more than Bend, OR, but realistically never as large or diverse as an Austin, TX. Never a metropolis, but a higher quality of life around higher paying jobs, more educated populous, great tourism, lower crime, and one that plays to its natural resources strengths in the foothills.
Finally, I’ve suggested to my wife to move up there for a few years in large part due to the massive tax savings and great lifestyle. She won’t have a word of it for reasons of not wanting our kids to grow up there in what she perceives rightly or wrongly as a generally under-educated area. I encourage those in Reno to examine reasons why a young mom might not want to relocate there, and work to change those reasons. Sorry to sound so ‘big headed Californian’ or even arrogant, but Reno has a choice to make of either moving forward and competitively upward or being left behind as a sleepy town passed over for decades and lacking ambition.
DowntownMakeoverDude
UPDATE: RSCVA Board nearly unanimously rejects most of the concept Mortar came up with. What a shame. Back to the drawing board I guess.
DowntownMakeoverDude
They rejected the tagline, but accepted all the research that was done, but weren’t hip on the actual creative stuff shown today (i.e. print ad concepts). They want some new tagline choices.
Norton
Your wife is right, CL.
1 out of 10 Nevada 9th graders graduates from college.
DownButNot Out
CL I was with you until you came to disparaging the Mustang Ranch. Some things are just too Nevadan.
Seriously, your never going to sell Reno to the masses until downtown gets cleaned up, no matter what your slogan. The City should absolutely make this the #1 priority.
Unfortunately, with places like the Fitzgerald closed with no future, a vibrant, connected downtown is probably many years away.
MJRap
I’ve always liked:
“Reno, so close to Hell you can see Sparks.”
Irv
The winner is MJ Rap!
Gary
Whether or not you like the slogan, here’s the capper. Just for fun, I did a Google search a few seconds ago on this phrase, and I discovered that there was an article by John Fischer in the December 1945 issue of Harper’s Magazine, titled “Truman: A little west of center.” I’m thinking that a certain P.R. firm may not have done its due diligence for originality, or else they simply lifted the phrase.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/1945/12/0032569
Gary
And here’s a lovely young lady who blogs about her life in Utah:
http://alittlewestofcenter.blogspot.com/
Noze4thenwz
Gary – great work!
51%
What’s the slogan for Key West, Fla?
What’s the slogan for Marthas Vineyard, Ma?
What’s the slogan for Park City, Utah?
Vail, CO?
Sun Valley, Idaho?
Kuaui?
Hilton Head, SC?
Do these places even have a slogan? Do these places even need a slogan?
DownButNotOut
So if i have this straight – $5M was put forward to a group to come up with this slogan, but they didn’t bother to vet it via the internet???? (or did – which is worse!) This is going to go on longer than even I imagined. 2018.
Slash prices on the Montage!
Snowman
Back to the drawing board indeed. Of course, of course. No hurry here. Let’s take another year and do it right. What’s another year in long, long decline of downtown Reno? Nothing really. Maybe as the Kings Inn prepares for its 35th consecutive winter of abandonment and decay, a new slogan can be unveiled.
So utterly predictable.
Gary
(thanx, Noze4thenwz)
51% — you make a good point, so here’s my entry…
“Slogan? We don’t need no stinking slogan!”
What we needed all along wasn’t a slogan, but a non-slogan to reflect the fierce independence that makes us special. I feel more special already 😉
RockieRob
CL, you know what’s the really nice thing about Boulder, CO? as opposed to Reno?
No casinos.
Only in its wildest dreams of delusion will Reno ever become a Boulder.
jnj
RENO! “junk hole west of scumbag”
jnj
RENO! “we got DIRT!”
jnj
RENO! –were going to revitalize downtown! Really, we ARE! —