The Cincinnati Dealer - Cincinnati's Branding Initiative

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Cincinnati's Branding Initiative - All Together Stupid

By Burt Safer | Dealer staff writer

Wed, Mar 23, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - The first commercial featuring Cincinnati's new marketing catchphrase is doing poorly in its initial test run on the west coast. The TV commercial features CCV's Phil Burress and Sheriff Simon Leis talking up the city's "Christian family values" and "homo-unfriendly atmosphere". Not only are many Californians scoffing at the testimonials from two of the Cincinnati area's most prominent citizens, but some also find the city's new slogan, "Cincinnati, USA - All Together Surprising" a bit perplexing.

"Umm.. 'Cincinnati, USA'? Cincinnati's a state now?" said Keith Maritime, a freshman at Golden Gate University, "I thought Cincinnati was a city in uh.. wait - it'll come to me.. Indiana? Michigan? Arkansas?"

UCSF English Professor Wilson Cartwright said, "If the city is hoping to lure visitors and residents, they may want to fix the slogan so it reads 'Altogether Surprising', with one 'L', instead of the grammatically silly 'All Together Surprising' - but who knows? Maybe they want to attract high school dropouts to their midwestern burg."

"Actually, it doesn't sound that bad," said Cartwright, "Of course, it's pretty hard to do worse than the Rice-A-Roni jingle."

Quick Poll

After Ike's damage to Cincinnati, how are you taking precautions against future hurricanes?

	Purchasing a windbreaker
	Cutting down every tree within 150 feet of my house
	Practicing dialing Duke Energy's phone number in the dark
	Looking for Duke Energy technicians who are willing to accept bribes
	Reading "Fixing Broken Power Lines For Dummies"
	Making sure my Bengals season tickets next year will be far away from the "wind tunnel" section
	Moving to the Gulf Coast, where people are actually warned in advance about hurricanes

What Grinds Your Gears?
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