Head Tale

The City of Regina announced a new marketing campaign/brand/slogan earlier this week – “Regina: Infinite Horizons“.  As you'd expect for anything like this, reaction was mixed with some people (eg. the mayor) loving it and some people (everybody else) hating it. 

I gotta admit – I kinda like it.  I like the Web 2.0-y logo.  I like that the web site has lots of bite-sized goodies about the city I call home (although a broken video link three days into the campaign isn't a good sign!)  I like that this new slogan isn't cheesy like our last one, “I <heart> Regina” (although the mayor is saying that one will stay too – not sure how that works?)  I especially like how “Infinite Horizons” ties in so nicely to our provincial motto of “Land of the Living Skies”.  (Next up: “Saskatoon: City of Bridges (Er, And Clouds)”)

There are some legitimate criticisms – the City used a Winnipeg firm when perhaps preference should've been given to a Regina company (plus the cost of the whole endeavour which was somewhere around $300 000.)   For some, “Infinite Horizons” reinforces stereotypes of Saskatchewan as flat and boring.  And of course, I always find things like this pretty funny in that they're trying to convey that Regina is Dynamic ™, Unique ™ and Independent ™ – all marketing buzzwords that couldn't possibly be used to describe, well, pretty much every other mid-sized city in Canada.