New Slogan: "Madison: You Can Sell Us Anything"

Marketing must be the easiest job in the world. You get paid big money for demonstrating almost no creativity whatsoever.
Yes, it’s another big week for Madison. Paulsen Marketing of Sioux Falls has finished the positioning lines (i.e., slogans) that our city commission has seen fit to pay $2500 for. Our three choices:

• “The Great Little City Between the Lakes.”
• “Two Lakes. One Great Town.”
• “Madison. Your New Favorite Place.”

I am underwhelmed. I expected to be underwhelmed, and I am still underwhelmed. Perhaps I can say I am over-underwhelmed. $2500, and that’s all Paulsen Marketing can come up with? Again, for those kinds of results, why couldn’t the City Commission have just just held a contest for community members to think up slogans? Why couldn’t the City Commission have simply held a one-hour brainstorming session and made up their own slogans? Town slogans are cheesy, if not outright embarrassing, no matter what, but I would find our town slogan less embarrassing if we at least had the chance to make our own. Instead, we prove our business rube-hood by paying big-city outsiders thousands of dollars to label our town with uncreative garbage (which I suppose could boost our economy by drawing lots of outside businesses who realize we are rubes ripe for the picking... though there must be an easier way to foster economic growth).

I am dismayed by the utter blandness of the slogans offered by Paulsen Marketing, especially when I compare their thoroughly researched and focus-grouped offerings with our existing positioning line. Apparently the Chamber of Commerce already has this winner on its letterhead: “Hometown Hospitality. Tomorrow’s Technology.” Again, cheesy as almost any slogan is wont to be, but this slogan at least has some content. It emphasizes two specific aspects of our community that we claim as an advantage over other places. If nothing else, the existing slogan should score points for alliteration.

This existing slogan, though, obviously isn’t good enough for Paulsen Marketing. As explained by Bryan Bjerke, Paulsen Marketing’s PR director, in testimony before the City Commission Monday night, our existing slogan isn’t unique to Madison. (Amazing—someone else thought of our alliterative slogan, but no one has used the milquetoast rah-rah lines Paulsen is offering?) “It’s not a unique positioning of your city,” said Bjerke, “and we thought you might be at a better advantage if you uniquely position yourself with your logo to say something more, something that would be more compelling.”

Bjerke went on to recommend the third slogan — "Madison. Your New Favorite Place" — as his favorite. “I like it because it’s very upbeat... and invitation to discover” Madison.

He says we need something more compelling, and that’s the slogan he recommends, the most contentless of the three? Wow. I guess marketers really can be creative... if not when selling Madison, then certainly when selling their slogan for Madison.