Toronto Tourism CEO David Whitaker is one of a handful of Destination Marketing execs that are voicing what we've been saying for some time now...
That ain't a brand.
In the summer of 2005, the organization launched the Toronto "Unlimited" brand to a fair degree of public and political derision. In an unnecessarily picky Star article about David's knowledge of his new city (leading with the fact that he got the name of his neighborhood wrong), Whitaker makes a fairly bold (for our industry) statement:
"I respectfully question whether Toronto Unlimited is a brand. It's a tagline."
And Bingo was his name-o. He goes on to say, "Destination marketing isn't targeted at us. It's targeted at our customers."
True again. And that's why developing a single destination "brand" with lots of community participation isn't easy (or, some would say, possible).
Looks like the new man in town will have his work cut out for him up in Toronto and I'd encourage him to quickly learn the what the various parts of the city are called, especially the one he lives in! The city once was called by Peter Ustinov "New York run by the Swiss" As a Swiss, having lived there, I still don't know if that was meant as a compliment or not! All I can say it's a great place and the quality of life is very high, however, often that doesn't translate into making it a great city for tourists as well.
I totally agree with his statement that Toronto unlimited is not a brand but a tag line and a logo - and at 4 million bucks to come up with it, I would personally also call it a waste of money.....
He'll face the age old DMO problem that anyone in his city will think they could do a better job marketing it than the professionals do and judge any advertising based on whether they like it or not, which is mostly irrelevant.
Good luck my man - you need it!
Posted by: Joe Buhler | June 19, 2007 at 19:35