Tourism leaders urge marketing chief to “C” light

Aaron Kennedy, the state’s marketing chief, estimates he has presented the state’s new branding campaign and logo about 200 times during the past couple of months. Wednesday’s 30-minute presentation to Colorado’s tourism-marketing leaders might have been the most antagonistic.

Attendees at the meeting called it “passionate,” “lively,” “contentious” and even “an ambush.”

For sure, Kennedywas lambasted. But as the dust settled and Colorado’s tourism boosters realized the state’s new triangle logo and long-term branding effort would

not replace the wildly successful “Come to Life” tourism campaign, Kennedy’s meeting with the Colorado Association of Destination Marketing Organizations— which kicked off the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Telluride— was brushed off as a “miscommunication.”

“Yeah, it was a lively conversation until they realized they had come into the meeting with a big misperception,” said Kennedy, the former Pepsi marketing whiz who founded the Noodles & Co. restaurant chain before Gov. John Hickenlooper tapped him last year to lead a new branding effort for Colorado.

“We all went in there believing there would be something forced on tourism that could disrupt the momentum that has been built in the last two years with both this campaign and more than 50 years of marketing promotion,” said John McMahon, president of the Breckenridge Resort Chamber.

The Colorado Tourism Office’s “Cometo Life” television and print tourism campaign is the best in decades, say boosters. Its compelling imagery and music were designed to inspire potential Colorado visitors.

And it’s working well. The winter campaign helped fuel a record 2012 for Colorado, with 60 million visitors spending $16.7 billion and filling local and state tax coffers with $918 million.

The Colorado Tourism Office in July released a trio of visitors studies showing the “Come to Life” campaign delivering a $17 return on every taxpayer dollar invested.

“It’s the best marketing campaign we’ve had in 30 years,” said Jim Clark, president of CADMO and chief of the Fort Collins Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We are leading all 50 states with our marketing gains. There is concern that we will have to change all that because of the new branding campaign. Certainly, I think Aaron heard loud and clear from all the destinations and travel organizations that we really need to keep one of our best campaigns going.”

Kennedy, whose green triangle “CO” logo has harvested a colorfully critical response since its unveiling in late August, said “Come to Life” and the venerable, state flag-inspired C logo are not being replaced. They both have important roles under the state’s new branding umbrella, he said.

But the “it’s all good” message wasn’t clear until deep into his slide show Wednesday in Telluride. By that time, the state’s top tourism marketers in the room were poised to burst Kennedy’s branding bubble.

“They sat through my presentation trying to figure out how to poke holes in it so they could defend ‘Come to Life’ at the same time Iwas trying to say that ‘Come to Life’ is a fine way to express that Colorado is the placewhere you can live the life youwant,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy is used to passion from brand loyalists. He was behind the early1990s rebranding of Pepsi. He knows what happens when you fiddle with brands. The green triangle will eventually eclipse the state-flag C logo, “but the state seal and the state flag aren’t going anywhere,” he said.

He called the licensed triangle “a state watermark or small signature” for the state’s 22 agencies and said it eventually will be incorporated into advertising, tying campaigns to the soonto-be ubiquitous mark that will represent all things officially Colorado. Time will tell if it ever fully replaces the state flag’s C logo, he said.

“It’s something that unites all the efforts that are going on. A common element,” Kennedy said, noting that his team’s research showed most people associated theCwith Chicago, not Colorado. “The C is just not that expressive. It doesn’t tell you much. It doesn’t signify much.”

Still, the C has its loyalists, and Kennedy heard from them last week.

“He might have been somewhat surprised by the amount of focus there was on preserving this mark that has so much equity,” McMahon said.

“He might have been surprised by the longevity behind this brand. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars has been behind that mark over the last 50 years. We just don’t want to lose that momentum.”