Walton TDC Presents New Branding

Welcome to SoWal? ;-)

I would vote for that one too.

Or as Mama Scooterbug knows it geographically during hurricane season "to the left of the bump in the armpit of Florida." :lol:

Or less politely, the taint of America's wang.

Or less politely, the taint of America's wang.

I can happily say she would not understand that phrase! :lol:

I know it ain't politically correct but I still like Redneck Riveria.

Coming from a long line of North FL rednecks it doesn't bother me a bit.

Of course, mama fell for a brown-eyed handsome man from Georgia...it happens.

Ok, so let us compare and take a vote:

Old Branding: Beaches of South Walton - Northwest Florida's Gulf Coast

New Branding: SOUTH WALTON - TO EACH, YOUR BEACH.

Which do you vote for?

I keep reading this as "to eat your beach", which seems vaguely sexually perverted. :lol:

I say we go ahead and "rebrand" all our TDC media properties as "South Walton", keep all the useful things the TDC does (like public beach access projects), dump 90% of the other advertising crap they do (do we really need a phone app and a twitter feed?), and drop the tax rate down using any savings.

Didn't we recently replace the head of the TDC with someone who was supposed to know what the heck they were doing?

I keep reading this as "to eat your beach", which seems vaguely sexually perverted. :lol:

I say we go ahead and "rebrand" all our TDC media properties as "South Walton", keep all the useful things the TDC does (like public beach access projects), dump 90% of the other advertising crap they do (do we really need a phone app and a twitter feed?), and drop the tax rate down using any savings.

Didn't we recently replace the head of the TDC with someone who was supposed to know what the heck they were doing?

that was my exact thought, and my exact words on the subject! I didn't want to say it out loud here, but since you did, I will.

that was my exact thought, and my exact words on the subject! I didn't want to say it out loud here, but since you did, I will.

My exact words on the subject was it's a dumb slogan. It still is.

The problem is variety and diversity of towns and resorts. But the problem is a good one to have - very strong resorts and towns that are well known and marketed - i.e. Seaside, Sandestin, Rosemary, etc.

Any marketer worth a darn will play to our strengths, promote what makes us really unique. It's not hard to make SoWal stand out from all the other destinations.

I agree the TDC should be for infrastructure, taking care of beaches, education and safety, accesses, trash removal, funding events during off season, and promoting programs like ecotourism and weddings.

There is plenty to do. Leave advertising and branding up to the people who are always ahead of them. No offense to the fine people who work at the TDC but they are in a governmental bureaucracy - they have one hand tied behind their backs so no need to criticize people caught in the system.

The problem is variety and diversity of towns and resorts. But the problem is a good one to have - very strong resorts and towns that are well known and marketed - i.e. Seaside, Sandestin, Rosemary, etc.

Any marketer worth a darn will play to our strengths, promote what makes us really unique. It's not hard to make SoWal stand out from all the other destinations.

I agree the TDC should be for infrastructure, taking care of beaches, education and safety, accesses, trash removal, funding events during off season, and promoting programs like ecotourism and weddings.

There is plenty to do. Leave advertising and branding up to the people who are always ahead of them. No offense to the fine people who work at the TDC but they are in a governmental bureaucracy - they have one hand tied behind their backs so no need to criticize people caught in the system.

Amen! The TDC should be working to make this place a great place to visit, not advertising it's a great place to visit. There are plenty of large private businesses taking on the role of advertising the area.

Sly as a Fox, I commend you on your observations. But they did hire a non local marketing firm to come up with a new slogan that really doesn't fit. They are spending 1.3 million dollars for someone to say: "To Each Your Beach". I went to a few meetings heard the presentation, didn't like it didn't say anything didn't know that I should. I haven't taken a survey on this topic. I did for the Arts Complex Feasibility Survey and my opinion did not matter there, nor would it here.

I haven't spoken to anyone who likes this slogan, which is snippy.
They didn't intend it to be, it just comes off that way. I don't have a better slogan for our Scenic 30A area I failed at Marketing. We do need a brand it is part of the future of South Walton no matter what we call it. I am sticking to SoWal!

In fact, the whole set of "statistics" presented by the ad firm should have been called into question. At a BCC meeting, it is easy to skip over such "business" details.

I would have posed these questions at the meeting, but before I knew it, the vote was being taken without any public comment on the matter being requested.

Seriously; but the hired advertising consultant firm knew that with mountains of graphs, pie charts, aggregate data, opinion poll and survey results, Powerpoint presentations, and the nifty little visual aids like the one comparing the umbrellas to nuclear fallout warnings, they could make an indisputable pitch to the governing authorities with no need to be bogged down or delayed by public input.

Atlanta - to each, eat a peach.

I'm going to fire off an e-mail to the local Visitors & Convention Bureau the following suggestion for re-branding the Magic City:

Birmingham - to you, some bar-b-q.

In fairness to LKM they did not make the visual comparison graphics - those were my effort.

The presenter made the verbal statement.

Also in fairness to LKM, LKM presented many example ads which nicely tied the tag-line together and made perfect sense. I haven't seen anyone post anything about that on this thread.

Also in fairness to LKM, LKM presented many example ads which nicely tied the tag-line together and made perfect sense. I haven't seen anyone post anything about that on this thread.

Here is what I have.

These were the two print ads they showed on Tuesday morning. If they wind your watch OK.

I found them less than spectacular, but I guess they are just mock ups.

Pardon the quality but they are cellphone photos taken from the screen as they were projected. If I remember correctly there were 28 panels in the PowerPoint presentation.

I didn't photograph all of the panels.

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