Wadensten: ‘Whose baby was this?’

COMMERCE RI board member Karl Wadensten said  Gov. Gina M. Raimondo did the right thing in dropping the widely panned slogan “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer.” / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
COMMERCE RI board member Karl Wadensten said Gov. Gina M. Raimondo did the right thing in dropping the widely panned slogan “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer.” / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

(Updated 1:40 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – R.I. Commerce Corp. board member Karl Wadensten on Monday said Gov. Gina M. Raimondo did the right thing in dropping the widely panned slogan “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer” from a $5 million tourism marketing campaign, but added there needs to be “a post mortem” on the process that led to its adoption and error-filled rollout.
The governor on April 1 accepted the resignation of Betsy Wall, Commerce RI’s chief marketing officer, announced the new slogan would be dropped, but said the new logo, designed by Milton Glaser Inc., the creator of the “I Love NY” campaign, will be kept.
In addition to widespread confusion over the intended message of the slogan, Wall had come under fire for a promotional video that included footage from Iceland and an error-filled website.
Raimondo “found Rhode Islanders are passionate about Rhode Island. ‘Cooler and Warmer’ didn’t resonate with anyone here,” said Wadensten, CEO of VIBCO Vibrators in Richmond.
He added he’d like to see the public involved in selecting a new campaign slogan.
“This is the perfect opportunity to unite Rhode Islanders and get all their passion and energy around this,” he said. “It might be a defining moment.”
But Wadensten said it is also important to understand why there were so many mistakes made in the rollout and who decided to go with the ill-fated slogan.
“Whose baby was this?” he asked. “If we don’t have clarity on this, how are you going to go forward?”
Wadensten said he’s not sure who should conduct the review but said it “should be someone unbiased” and who does “not have a big ego.” The Commerce Corp. board, he said, “should have dialogue” on the question.
Gary Sasse, founding director of the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University, said the missteps with the campaign rollout call into question “how Commerce RI is being run.
“That department is responsible for tens of millions in tax incentives,” he added. “It’s about time [Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor] stands up and explains” what happened with the marketing campaign.
Pryor didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Raimondo last week announced that Seth Goldenberg, CEO of Epic Decade of Jamestown, will assume temporary leadership of the marketing campaign. Epic was one of three firms hired by the state to create and disseminate the marketing campaign.
A spokeswoman for Raimondo said there is no replacement yet for Wall, and the administration has not yet begun the process.
Marie Aberger, Raimondo’s spokeswoman, said Goldenberg is a Rhode Island School of Design graduate. She said in an email that he will open a workshop in Providence in the coming weeks to “encourage people to join him to create their own version of the logo and keep the engagement going.”
“This campaign was always designed to be a dynamic and evolving process – we’ll see how the logo is being used, what our results are, and go from there in determining what’s next for a slogan or tagline,” Aberger wrote.
Goldenberg could not be reached for comment.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Karl is 100% on target. There needs to be a thorough review of the entire process to see just how this evolved, where it got off track and why it was “allowed” to happen. This outcome reminds me of people who have a brand logo designed before there is sufficient research done to generate a strategic brief and then they go to market with it prior to doing any testing. It looks an awful lot like the same 4 (3?) people in the room at each point of the process.

  2. Karl is 200% correct!! In addition, the CC Board should have an emergency meeting with Stefan Pryor to answer the tough questions? Make it an open meeting so we get to see 1st hand what happened.

    Note that according to the Havas PR firm: Another $150,000 of the state’s $4.5 million contracts for the new tourism and business-attraction campaign paid for research and “concept testing” of the logo, said Marian Salzman, CEO of Havas PR North America. Havas paid a subcontractor to do that work, Salzman said.

    $150k should have produced a very detailed report that will help answer more questions. Let’s see it.