"My Houston"

Yet another bad idea is ripped out of taxpayer pockets by "Houston's 'official' marketing company."

(from Mike Snyder of the Chron)

After trotting out and discarding a series of slogans over the years, Houston's official marketing agency is taking a new approach as it prepares to launch a $3 million campaign to enhance the city's national image.

Instead of a snappy catchphrase, advertisements soon to appear in national publications will feature earnest testimonials from well-known current or former Houstonians such as singer Beyoncé Knowles, soccer star Brian Ching, heart surgeon Denton Cooley and former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara.

Starting in February, the campaign will feature ads in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Continental Airlines' inflight magazine, Texas Monthly magazine and other publications, said Lindsey Brown, marketing director for the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau. Broadcast ads also are in the works, she said.

The celebrities featured in the "My Houston" ad campaign, however, aren't being asked to recite slogans. The bureau has stopped using its most recent slogan, "Space City: A Space of Infinite Possibilities," Brown said.

"We feel that Houston is the word that's important right now — Houston is the word that needs to be at the top of the mind rather than a slogan," Brown said.

Uh-huh...great idea. To market the City of Houston lets use "testimonials" from a pop diva who no longer lives here, an athlete who only lives here during the season because his team moved here, and a former President who only lives here part time, spending the rest of the year in Maine. Which illustrates the problems that the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau has when marketing Houston to the outside world.

They think that the Bushes, Beyonce, and Ching are what Houston is all about. They couldn't be more wrong if they tried to forge a brand image from Idaho.

That's why the "official" marketing plans have ALWAYS failed, and why small, quirky slogans such as Houston: It's worth it resonate with the public.

Houston today is less about Shelby Hodge crashing funerals and more about Ken Hoffman eating in his car while driving to Humble to wrestle. It is what it is, a working class town with a now-vanilla upper class who spend more time reading their own (admittedly wild) histories than they do accomplishing anything worthwhile. But the GHCVB has star envy, a not unusual syndrome amongst movers and wanna-be shakers unfortunately. They WANT Houston to be about Beyonce and Brian Ching and former Presidents and heart surgeons, because those are the people they want to attend cocktail parties with.

Except that the rank & file most often finds themselves stuck in line at SPEC's trying to buy a fifth of imagination while stuck between the car mechanic and the oilfield services worker while they try to ignore that Houston, in fact, is standing right there in line with them.

It's worth it.