State picks three firms to create, disseminate new R.I. branding

(Updated 10:02 a.m.)
PROVIDENCE – Three firms, including the developer of the “I Love New York” slogan, a global public relations firm and a Jamestown-based company that will engage the public, have been selected to create a tourism and business attraction campaign for Rhode Island.

The board of the R.I. Commerce Corp. approved pursuing negotiations with the three firms for branding, marketing and public engagement relying on a $4.5 million budget in fiscal 2016.

Gov. Gina M. Raimondo noted she’s held off on moving forward with a new license plate so that Rhode Island can brand itself on a new plate the way Michigan has done with its slogan “Pure Michigan.”

“If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to be all in,” Raimondo said. “Whatever we’re going to [do], it’s going to be on the license plate.”

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Milton Glaser Inc. of New York City, the brains behind the New York state branding campaign of the 1970s, will design the brand identity, Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor said.

HAVAS PR based in New York, but with an office in Providence, will deploy the brand across social, electronic and traditional media, CEO Marian Salzman said. And Epic Decade of Jamestown will use storytelling and other techniques to leverage civic engagement and create events that draw people to the state, CEO Seth Goldenberg said.

Raimondo and Pryor noted that the state’s regional tourism districts and chambers of commerce were involved in whittling down 51 candidates to a handful of firms for final interviews.

The new brand must be incorporated into regional brands and there will be continuing cooperation with the tourism districts, they said.

“We need to continue to grow that circle: hospitality, the business community,” Raimondo said. “I’ve asked the chambers to raise more money.”

The budget is “not enormous” but will get the state started, she said.

Of the three-team collaboration, Salzman said, “We all have to come together as collaborators, and the state becomes the beneficiary because the three agencies are going to share their best thinking.”

Michael Mota, CEO of ATOM Media Group in Providence, issued a press release Thursday saying the state erred in not selecting his firm for the work. Referencing the “People’s Campaign” component of his “Whatever You Do … Rhode Island!” campaign, he said his firm generated more than a quarter-million dollars in pledges from in-state firms to augment state funding and would have created at least five new jobs at the company.
The portion of the contract awarded to the Jamestown firm is “a patronizing gesture almost certainly designed to give cover to an otherwise blatant disregard for local talent,” he said.

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