And it seems that history repeats itself again with this new re-branding effort for “Live it Up” (which works great if you want to emphasize our growing MMJ community, but blows big time when you are trying to create a lasting impression and brand for a proud city). This is key… only 550 people were involved in the “Empirical Research” for the review of the Live it Up campaign according to Doug Price, president and CEO of the CVB as stated in the online CSBJ article published yesterday, (Nov 16th). So who were the 550 ? How many sample logos were “Seen” by the public before this version was selected… I’m sorry but this logo and tag line is a bush league, first-year-rookie graphics-artist inspired EPIC FAIL.

I am in total support of the “Re-Rebrand The Springs” effort, as I have seen first hand and have participated directly in a successful local grass roots effort called “DreamCity2020″ that reached out to over 3,000 local citizens with a volunteer team of 300 to take a snapshot of what our community would like to see in the year 2020. And we put ALL OF THE RESULTS ONLINE for the world to see… (Go here: www dot dreamcity2020 dot org) had to post this way because of Facebook’s aggressive URL conversion feature). Why do I know this… Because I worked with Leadership Pikes Peak, and the Gazette and a large number of motivated local volunteers to originally develop and to this day continue to host the site online. We proudly took it over from the Gazette Telegraph to make sure it was an independent effort and shows exactly what this community can do when it works together LOCALLY. And it has not cost the city a dime !

We have immense talent in this community and deserving small businesses who should be receiving contracts for this kind of work… not outside consultants who get insider deals. How do I know this… I am the Chair of the Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Group… A local grass roots entrepreneural meetup group with over 350 members that has been quietly growing for the past couple of years that has allowed me to gain insights and perspectives on what the challenges and issues are facing our local small business community, and what we need to do to address our local problems. Enough is enough. Time to pull this process back from the EDC and CVB and “crowdsource” this process and let the local small business community speak for itself.

So the 550 people included current and FORMER residents? Plus another 200 people who planned to visit this place? Former residents and folks who plan on visiting don’t sound like ‘current residents’ to me. So some percentage of the so-called representative sample didn’t live here after all………it would be interesting to know if any of these folks currently live in a community that has this same ‘slogan’….er, sorry, I mean: ‘brand’ ………

Doug Price may be polite, well spoken, and a gentleman….I have also found him to be evasive and defensive when asked a direct question that he doesn’t care for, like how the CVB spent the money from the mayor’s office……….

And Ms. McCurdy is correct: Thank goodness there is only one Tim Leigh.

Love the idea of branding our city. Why don’t you actually get some creatives who know what they’re doing? Are we shooting to promote our city as a retirement village or a place for young families and innovators to reside? Once again the institutions ooze while the real vibrancy of our city gets buried underneath it all.

Just goes to show you: government will screw just about everything up eventually.

Solution?Listen to the STRONG feedback. Let the locals help save this. It can and should be done.As an ex VP of Mktg at a large brand, II once spent $50k for logo/name work. The results were terrible. I had to accept the fact I wasted $50k. It happens. I wouldn’t gun this guy down for trying, but if he maintains this, he’s nuts. Accept the fact it didn’t work and use the energy (from our YOUNG guns) to fix it. If not, this will do more damage than good. I firmly believe that. The people in FC, Boulder and Denver will just be laughing at us.

For now: EPIC FAIL.

Well, if you knew either of these two personally, you would not ask this question. There can only be one Tim Leigh (thank goodness) and Doug Price is a polite, very likeable and well spoken gentleman. No relation!

Total of over 1,000 people were involved in the entire process including the 550 people who were randomly surveyed. The 550 people surveyed were 200 current and former residents, 200 people who had visited or plan to visit Colorado Springs and 150 businesses who matched the profile of the businesses recruited to relocate here.

http://www.visitcos.com/brandfaq

He is ‘unwaivering’ in his support. The process had ‘great integrity’ . Of course he’s going to defend this boondoggle:….he just spent $111,000 for, as it now turns out, a slogan reportedly used by other communities elsewhere. And, yes, the $111,000 was at least in part, from tax dollars from the city, despite the city representative comments to the contrary.

Did any of the 550 (down from 1,000 previously reported….) people he claims were involved actually live here?

And, meanwhile Stone Mantel and it’s owner, Dr. Rhetoric, are laughing all the way to the bank.

Is it possible Tim Leigh and Doug Price are brothers? There must be some kind of ‘goofy’ bug in the water downtown…….

These are questions that are ignored consistently and need to be addressed in order for any sustainable, long-term growth to occur. Geez! What a waste! Give me a break!

Brands are built through advertising/design agencies — they are built through CONSISTENT actions, behaviors and experiences.