Mayor: Longview to fire North Star

Committee suggests use of local resources to create new logo

LONGVIEW — Longview residents together with local public relations and advertising firms will play a major role in the city's continued efforts to complete its branding campaign, while North Star Destination Strategies will not.

North Star's contract will be terminated, Mayor Jay Dean announced Thursday. The decision to fire the Tennessee-based firm hired to develop Longview's marketing campaign was the recommendation from the newly-formed Branding Process Review Committee.

"It is the opinion of the committee that North Star will be unable to regain the level of confidence from the Longview citizens necessary to deliver the branding product results we intended from the beginning," Dean said.

In March, the city unveiled a branding campaign developed by North Star that included the logo and tagline, "Longview, East Texas, Pure and Simple."

Though the logo was touted to be unique for Longview, within days of its unveiling at least two other U.S. cities were found to be using the same "pure and simple" phrase.

Longview and the sandy white Beaches of South Walton in the Florida Panhandle share nearly identical phrases, featuring the words "pure and simple" above the logo.

In Colorado, ski resort Gunnison-Crested Butte, has a trademark on its version of "pure and simple."

With the discovery, city officials opted to discontinue use of the tagline and began talks with North Star about the development of another logo and tagline that would be unique to Longview.

The firm submitted numerous proposals which were reviewed by the Branding Process Review Committee, but the committee decided instead to terminate the contract, Dean said.

"North Star admitted they made mistakes," Dean said. "We asked them to submit proposals on how they could help correct them, but it is our opinion what they provided us would not overcome the public's perception of what had already been done."

In addition to recommending that North Star's contract be terminated, Dean said the committee also suggested that the city use local firms and solicit opinions and ideas from the public to develop a slogan that will deliver the branding results originally intended.

The city plans for local marketing professionals to organize input before the list of possible slogans are reviewed by local focus groups.

"We will give our citizens the opportunity to express their opinions of the narrowed-down list of slogans utilizing various vehicles including Web sites, the mayor's office, etc.," Dean said.

Since June, when the North Star was contracted to create a marketing brand campaign for Longview, $57,000 has been paid for the company's services.

The city, Longview Partnership and LEDCO agreed to split the cost at up to $30,000 each.

Dean said the company had been compensated for the work already performed, but will not receive additional payments.

Though the city is moving forward with its efforts to develop a fresh logo and tagline, Dean said much of North Star's research and data would prove invaluable during the upcoming campaign.

"It is important to note that North Star is not an advertising firm, they are a research firm and they have provided a wealth of data and research about Longview," Dean said.

As to the the pure and simple phrase, Dean said he began to see problems even before the Longview News-Journal published articles about the duplication.

Almost immediately after North Star's work was unveiled March 8, Dean said he was inundated with e-mails and phone calls from Longview residents voicing their displeasure over the word "simple."

Dean said that once he explained the phrase's concept, people understood it, but he quickly realized if you have to explain "pure and simple," it's not right.

"They made a mistake in using something that had been used before. I made a mistake by not getting as much public input as we should have," Dean said.