Bloglanta

Bill Moyers often asks people: “What’s the big picture?”  He asks this to try to get a the major issues that define what we are to become.  Right now, Atlanta is looking at this squarely in the face.   The city mothers and fathers are working on a new branding campaign for Atlanta.  They want it to be positive and to help identify the city. 
The big question is what kind of city do we want to be?  Clearly there is not one answer, but there need not be.  All New Yorkers are not alike, and yet all of them identify with the city, its nature as the center of everything and to them, the most important place on Earth.  Be it Woody Allen or Darryl McDaniels, they share something of New York together. 
What then do Jermaine Dupri and Kathy Ashe have in common?  In what ways do they see Atlanta as the place they take pride in calling home?  There isn’t a lot to unify them and the way the city has developed has contributed to that. 
Al Ries thinks that the unifying idea should be ‘Hotlanta‘,  because people keep moving here despite traffic problems etc..  It’s a place to be.  The problem is that it says nothing about the character of the people or who we aspire to be.  Also, Kathy Ashe saying “Hotlanta!  We’re hot!” is just silly. 
Perhaps something like “Atlanta, the city where all people rise!” might work.  Though catchier language would be nice, this evokes both the idea of post civil war growth and the civil rights success.  It evokes the notion of class mobility and to entrepreneurship that will help keep Atlanta successful.  Jermaine Dupri and Kathy Ashe can both buy into that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 7th, 2005 at 2:09 am and is filed under Stupid Development Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.