Adams, Hochul ad campaign features whole lot of ‘heart’
Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul launched a $20 million, privately funded “We [Heart] NYC” ad campaign on Monday that’s aimed at boosting tourism and civic engagement to bring the city back to its pre-COVID-19 vibe.
The campaign, which Adams and Hochul announced in Times Square before throngs of curious tourists, will include efforts to have straphangers select musicians for a revamped MTA-sponsored “Music Under New York” program and to recruit volunteers to help take care of city parks and participate in “community cleanups” led by the Sanitation Department.
The public relations push is being bankrolled through corporate donations organized by the Partnership for New York City and features a variation on the iconic “I [Heart] NY” ad campaign from the 1970s, which was launched when the city was struggling with fiscal crisis and enormous spikes in crime.
The new twist on the classic Milton Glaser logo is intended to convey to the world that New Yorkers “are in this together,” Adams said.
Adams, who offered a quick solo on a busker’s drum kit before speaking Monday morning, ticked off several examples of the city’s resilience — from the Great Depression to 9/11 to the pandemic — before declaring that with more civic engagement, “we will turn around this entire city.”
“No one will ever beat New Yorkers down,” he said. “We took the ‘I’ out of ‘I love New York,’ and we brought the ‘we.’ We’re in this together.”
Aside from the officially organized voluntarism that’s being encouraged as part of the campaign, Adams suggested New Yorkers should take some of their own initiative to lend a helping hand to the city recovery.
“When we go to a homeless shelter and help a young person who does not have a home and
housing insecurity, you walk out of that place and you turn your key and you feel better about the fact that you have a home,” he said.
“When we go to a senior center and seniors are lonely and they want you to come and read to them, you start to reflect on your grandmother and grandparents. When you donate time to each other, you are donating into the social bank of life and you will be able to enjoy the equity when you need it.”
Monday’s announcement comes as both Hochul and Adams are locked in respective negotiations with state and city lawmakers to hammer out their budgets — and as the city contemplates cuts to services like the public library system.
Asked about such proposed cuts, Adams said the city is working on “finding efficiencies” and that “we will get through this together.”
“We’re going to get through these challenging times like we have done so many times before,” he said.
Adams’ call to altruism was met with cheers from some quarters of the city’s business community, but also jeers from those who panned the revamped “We [heart] NYC” logo as amateurish.
“It looks like a 5 year old made this with clip art using Microsoft Office 1997,” said one Twitter user.
Speaking on CNBC ahead of the formal announcement with Hochul, Adams said that while the city is moving in the right direction — with most crime categories trending downward and job growth and tourism improving — not everyone is perceiving the shift.
That, he said, is where the campaign comes in.
“Now we’re dealing with how people are feeling and bringing that positive attitude back to this amazing city,” he said. “We’re resilient. This is New York.”
He and Hochul both drew parallels to the 1970s ad campaign, which remains ubiquitous in the city to this day.
Hochul suggested the new campaign will remind the world of what the “I [heart] NYC” logo conveyed five decades ago, that “We are the coolest place on the planet to live.”
“This is our chance in this post-pandemic world to be defined by how we meet this moment,” Hochul said.
“This campaign is not just about words — although they look fabulous. It’s not just a slogan. It’s not a logo. It’s a spirit. It’s a spirit that needs to come alive to every one of us and how we treat each other.”