Comments on: Utah’s New Brand

By: Jeremy Votaw

Jeremy Votaw — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:53:38 +0000

Yeah – W is in Utah – and there only real account is the tourism account and they had some political pull for a while. Have you noticed most of their portfolio work is spec work? I guess they have done a pretty good job branding themselves to be much larger than they actually are…

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:35:29 +0000

If Utah had to go to New York to see W Communications it must be because they were on vacation out there or something. Aren’t they headquartered here?

By: eran

eran — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:05:54 +0000

Believe me I understand what goes into Branding and Advertising... It’s been a day or two since I fell of the turnip truck. My point is: if you start with a piece of poo no matter what you do to polish it up, deep down it's still a piece of poo. The logo immediately reminded me of the boxing equipment company Everlast. Not very good in my mind... especially from an ad agency that is so… “Renown”. The Trib wrote that W Communications was so high and mighty that they didn’t travel to Utah to get the account but Utah had to go to NY. Don't you think Nike would be angry if the swoosh reminded you of another company? The number came from the SLTrib... "Deserve has got nothing to do with it", William Munny in the movie “Unforgiven”. Doesn’t everyone deserve to make a $1,000,000 an hour? There is little justice in life or business. And all I have to say is if there is no money in the project, why do it? It just doesn’t make much sense. I don’t know many people who work for free especially on $14 million projects. Is the government a pain to work with? Yes they are but that is “our money” and they should be careful with such.

By: Jeremy Votaw

Jeremy Votaw — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:05:09 +0000

To Eran: There is so much more that goes into advertising than a logo. Including media buys and printed materials distributed to convention marketing and then traditional tourism marketing. 14 million will go pretty fast. (I am not sure where that number came from?) And so W might net about 20 to 25% of that number. In my experience they deserve a lot more than that having to work with government – who in mind are the toughest client to work with. Attorney fees alone probably dropped that 20 – 25% guestimate to 18 – 21% net.

By: Joshua Steimle

Joshua Steimle — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:27:55 +0000

I don’t usually post comments without censoring them, but I let this one pass. The one thing I would point out is is that I think the $14M is the entire marketing budget for the year, not just the brand itself. But aside from that issue you may have some valid points.

By: eran

eran — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:03:13 +0000

What Cost Utahan’s $1,166,666.67 Per Letter? Utah’s new slogan: “Life Elevated”. Are you kidding me? We spent $14 million bucks to hire W Communications to revamp Utah’s Travel and Tourism slogan and this is what we get. Hell, I can think of a better slogan how about "Cash Evaporated" or "Money Alleviated"! We should have hired Dave Werner...Who thinks this crap up? It seems every Governor gets to pick a logo. Governor Huntsman had "Seek Higher Ground" but that was too close to Colorado's, and which had replaced former Gov. Mike Leavitt's "Utah! Where Ideas Connect," which had replaced former Gov. Norm Bangerter's "Utah, a Pretty, Great State”. I think maybe Utah should follow the Australian tourism slogan bandwagon. Australia is boosting its advertising dollars by being controversial and getting world-wide free press, radio and TV advertising and Bloody hell: Australia swears by new ad campaign. The Australian commercial in Britain is being edited to include a beep where they say bloody. So why doesn’t Utah do something viral like “Utah Damn Hot“? And focus on Utah's Hot Skiing, Hot Outdoor Life, Hot Business Community, Hot Film Festival, and Hot Nightlife (ok maybe not that one).

By: Clifton

Clifton — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:13:07 +0000

I like it a little better than the Utah! campaign.

Will they launch a new website, or just have new printed materials? Will there be a new license plate option? Is black and white our new state color pallette?

Not bad for a state with the seagull as our state bird. Gotta love the animals that hang out at the dumpster.

By: Joshua Steimle

Joshua Steimle — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:44:58 +0000

Like GB says, the work you see being produced by an agency doesn’t necessarily represent that agency’s best work. Sometimes an agency produces several options, one of which may be just to provide the client with more options even though the agency knows which one is best, but then the client chooses the worst option and messes up the whole plan. Not that this brand is necessarily bad, it just doesn’t seem good. Again, I’m feeling totally neutral about this new brand.

By: gb

gb — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:34:04 +0000

I have some buddies at W, and I’ve done some work for them before, so I generally have a very high opinion of the stuff they put out…. but… I’m underwhelmed. I’m wearing a hoodie right now, and I could fully see this mark emblazened across my chest right now, with some swoopy U of U hawk underneath.

Apparently, “Life Elevated” wasn’t the first choice. When I first heard the slogan, my first thought was “life elevated… to something more than 5 years at the point of the mountain?”