A New Face for Fayetteville

The Fayetteville A&P Commission has decided to re-brand its logo along with a new tagline with the goal of attracting more visitors to the travel destination in Northwest Arkansas.

Fayetteville is a great place to visit and we want everyone to know what the city has to offer. Because the Razorback brand dominates recognition throughout the area, we determined during the GOST planning process that there was no better way to attract tourism to Fayetteville than by leveraging Razorback red.



The new logo features “Fayetteville,” the most important aspect, in a red collegiate font and the tagline “Are You Feeling Fayetteville.” The Fayetteville A&P hopes that this logo redesign will help highlight what gives the city its unique feeling:
• Fayetteville is a stand-alone getaway experience
• There is a loyal following of the Razorback brand
• Fayetteville is a destination beyond sporting events

This classic logo design combined with the new ad campaign captures the essence of Fayetteville that includes art admirers and football fanatics. See the logo for yourself here, and check out the campaign on our home page under “Recent Work.”

If a Tweet falls in the forest

To marketers, the appeal of social networking isn’t hard to recognize. A quick and usually free opportunity to promote your product may sound like a great idea, but too often, marketers get what they pay for. The effectiveness of these efforts still falls short when compared to that of well-executed creative and well-timed media.

We’re not saying there’s no value to social network marketing. It can be a powerful tool when used to reinforce existing impressions and brand loyalty. Users may want to follow upcoming Riverfest events on Twitter, or Facebook fans might look forward to news about the Race for the Cure in their area. Established brands like these can easily keep devotees up-to-date through social networks.

But capturing the attention of new followers still presents the biggest challenge. Even the most intricate fan page can’t replace the original impression that only a campaign makes. If you’re looking to make such an impression, let us know. We’ll have a solution that’s not limited to 140 characters.

Beautiful car. Shame it won’t go.

Auto shows are places where manufacturers show off their latest ideas with what they call ‘concept cars.’ They’re sleek, pretty and most always completely impractical. Because these vehicles are never meant to be driven, they often don’t start or even offer the potential to propel themselves in any kind of forward motion.

Unfortunately, many advertising campaigns work the same way. They are great ‘concepts,’ but they’re never meant to actually do any of the work that’s required of a campaign.

We’ve all seen an ad that fits this description – it’s clever, it’s entertaining, you even tell your friends later. But when someone asks you whom the ad was for, you have no idea. At best, you may know what category, but you aren’t sure which company or product specifically.

Think about ads you’ve seen and liked. It’s easy to remember that the ad during the Super Bowl was for an employment site, but was it CareerBuilder, Monster or HotJobs? Was the energy drink on the outdoor board Red Bull or Rockstar? Was the ad in the fashion magazine for Diesel, Lucky or Gap?

As we’ve said before, clarity of message is important if you want to build a brand. You need to visually separate yourself from the competition and then reinforce that with a unique message. Advertising must do all of these things, not simply entertain people. Look at your current campaign. Is it readily identifiable as your brand? If not, then you may have a problem. Could its message apply to any of your competitors? If so, then you definitely have a problem.

It doesn’t matter how entertaining of an ad you have. Just as concept cars are interesting, so are the concepts behind these types of ads. But until they’re fleshed out with a driving message that propels people to take action for your specific product, then they’re nothing more than flashy smoke and mirrors that will never be seen outside of the auto show. And, these days, is the auto industry really worth emulating?