Commerce RI board member: Throw ‘Cooler and Warmer’ out

THE STATE'S new marketing campaign and logo has received plenty of criticism.  / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND
THE STATE'S new marketing campaign and logo has received plenty of criticism. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND

(Updated 2:41, 4:10 and 4:56 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – Reaction to Rhode Island’s new slogan, Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer, has been anything but lukewarm.
One R.I. Commerce Corp. board member, Karl Wadensten, said he thinks it should be thrown out completely.
Wadensten, CEO of VIBCO Vibrators in Richmond, said he has received between 50 and 100 phone calls and emails from people who dislike the slogan. Not one person has spoken in support of it, he said.
Wadensten made his feelings about the slogan known on Monday night at a Commerce RI board meeting where it was unveiled – he said he saw “no emotional connection” and “no personal brand to the state or the people.” He said Betsy Wall, Commerce RI’s chief marketing officer, launched into an explanation of what it meant, but he said if it has to be explained to people, the message is lost.
Wall could not be reached for comment.
While Wadensten said he supports the promotional campaign that goes along with it, something he called the best he’s seen in years, he said the slogan has to go.
“The program is awesome. Get rid of the stupid logo and the slogan,” Wadensten said. “If it was my business, I’d throw out the damn logo and chalk it up to experience.”
Wadensten said he knows not everyone will agree on a logo or a slogan, but the reaction is so overwhelmingly negative that he thinks it would be best to start over. He said people grabbed him after the meeting and said, “Thank God Karl you said something.” Wadensten said he also asked at the board meeting who the test group was that they worked with on the slogan and wasn’t given an answer.
He even threw out an alternative slogan – RI 365, meaning “we are open 365” days.
Another Commerce RI board member, Michael F. McNally, said he disagrees with Wadensten.
“I love the logo and I think the ‘cooler and warmer’ is great,” McNally said.
McNally, who recently retired from Skanska USA, a global construction firm, said whenever logos change “you hear the same kind of noise.” McNally said the idea behind a logo is to “separate yourself from the crowd.”
“It already accomplished what it set out to do, which is get attention and it certainly has,” McNally said.
“I think it will do Rhode Island a lot of good,” he added.
McNally said people seem to be under the impression that anyone could have designed a logo and come up with a tagline. McNally said other slogans circulating on the Internet “will put you to sleep.”
“‘Sea Rhode Island’ or ‘Beautiful Rhode Island’ won’t get anyone’s attention,” he said.
McNally said he’s heard from a lot of people who actually like the logo and slogan.

“I can’t get over the cynicism and the negativity. It’s what keeps us from moving forward,” McNally said.
Jennifer A. Howard, a communications and marketing associate for Commerce RI, said there are no plans to change the logo.
“With any subjective, artistic, creative project reaction is bound to be widespread … It is subjective and people are certainly entitled to their opinions and we welcome that,” Howard said.

Meanwhile, several marketing officials weighed in on the issue.
Paul E. Fleming, owner of Fleming & Company Inc. in Newport, a marketing and graphic design agency, said the slogan “doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“On the surface people are going to take it for what it is, a statement about the weather, or the temperature which seems to conflict with itself. I read an explanation of it, but when you’re advertising to people outside of the state, if you have to explain it, it won’t be understood,” Fleming said.
Fleming said if state officials are targeting their marketing efforts to people in New York and Massachusetts, they already know what the weather is like here.
“In order to create a good tagline you have to have a brand strategy. I can’t imagine what the strategy would have been that would have resulted in warmer and cooler unless the strategy had to do with the weather,” Fleming said.
It doesn’t help that a video made to coincide with the slogan’s rollout featured a skateboarder in Iceland, prompting more criticism and another new nickname for the Ocean State: “Rhode Iceland.” Iceland, after all, is known as the land of fire and ice, sort of like “cooler and warmer.” The video can be found HERE.
The slogan and video were released along with a new tourism website, visitrhodeisland.com. Howard said the video has since been removed, and is being fixed to remove the Iceland footage.

Michael Mota, CEO of ATOM Media Group in Providence, was one of the companies that submitted a proposal for the tourism and business attraction campaign. He said he’s also received many calls criticizing the new slogan.
The contract ultimately went to Milton Glaser Inc. of New York City, which created the “I love NY” campaign of the 1970s. Milton Glaser came up with the “cooler and warmer” slogan. Havas PR based in New York, but with an office in Providence, and Epic Decade of Jamestown, also are involved in the campaign. Mota took issue with a firm outside of Rhode Island landing the contract.

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Mota said it isn’t so much that he dislikes the slogan, but that he thinks it’s difficult to understand. He had offered “Whatever you do … Rhode Island.”
”If you have to explain a slogan it’s probably not as impactful,” Mota said. “You need something that’s going to be catchy. … The message means nothing if nobody hears it.”
Mota said he thinks people are disappointed in the campaign. The website was filled with errors, from the Iceland footage to a profile of a deceased chef, and links to restaurants in Massachusetts, he said.
“Everybody’s joking about the footage from Iceland,” Mota added.

A Commerce RI press release said “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer” aligns the state’s best resources — its “unparalleled quality of life, tourism appeal and business-friendly environment — to drive economic growth.”

Howard said it’s important for people to know that the slogan is a small part of the overall marketing and branding campaign. She said it may not be included on everything, but that will be determined as the campaign moves forward.
“What’s important is the story that we tell,” Howard said.
Howard explained that the themes of “cooler and warmer” speak to the “essence of Rhode Island and the diversity and sometimes contradiction that is here.”
“We’re cooler than you think and warmer than you know,” she said.
“Cooler” refers to the arts and attractions such as beaches, everything that draws tourists, Howard explained, while “warmer” reflects the warmth of the people and culture.
Howard also said Milton Glaser was paid $400,000 for the logo/slogan art and market research.

Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, in a statement, said, “Rhode Islanders know our state is a great place to live, work and visit, and now we are moving forward with an exciting plan to make sure everyone else knows that, too.”

Daniel Sheinin, professor of marketing and area coordinator of marketing for the College of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island, said logos can play an important role, as they can immediately provide visibility and recognition for a brand. While he said this logo uses interesting mixes of symmetry and contrast, its message is not direct.
“Cooler and warmer, what exactly does that mean?” Sheinin said. “Most of the time you want symbols and logos to be as self explanatory as possible.”

Widely derided on social media, the slogan has prompted people to come up with their own taglines for the state, which can be found on Twitter and Facebook through the hashtags #betterrislogans and #weareri.
Some alternatives are funny, while others are serious:
Here are a few:

  • Brianna Rooney: Potholes & Dunkin’ Donuts
  • Olneyville New York System: Big Hair & Little Necks
  • Matt Haronian: We’re Not Messing With You, Coffee Milk Is A Real Drink
  • Pawtucket Life: We Miss Buddy
  • Michael Dupuis: Come sea our state – Rhode Island!
  • @designermissy: Sea to believe
  • Lori Maiello: Welcome to Rhode Island — Big fun in a little state

If you have an idea for a new state slogan, send your submissions to webeditor@pbn.com. Depending on the quality of the submissions, PBN.com may publish a collection of them.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Doesn’t everyone know that nothing outside of Rhode Island is any good. We are the perfect State we do everything so well that even a renown NY agency can’t measure come up to our standards. We are the Magic people – little Rhode Island with an awesome 1 million people in 1000 square miles, better in all respects than the 300 million other Americans.