Another brand may be in the offing for the city of Columbia, the Free Times reports.
The city needs a more positive brand and image, according to two of the eight transition committees charged by Mayor Steve Benjamin with generating ideas for Columbia’s future, the publication reported.
“The current brand — “Famously Hot, Surprisingly Cool” — is “inferior for the capital city of South Carolina” and should be replaced, wrote the Government Operations and Efficiency committee in its report to the new mayor,” according to the Free Times.
The city’s current brand was developed by local company ADCO in 2008 for $70,000. Not surprisingly, it has been much maligned.
If the city were to go looking for a new brand, it would be at least the fifth since 1991.
“The previous effort, “Where Friendliness Flows,” was cooked up in 2004 by the Virginia firm BrandSync, which was hired by a city re-branding task force. The bill for that effort was $75,000, the paper reported.
Before “Where Friendliness Flows,” Columbia was known as “A Capital Place to Be,” adopted in 1991. The city briefly took on the slogan “It’s Happening Now!” in 1998, but abandoned it in 1999.
The Cotton Boll Conspiracy 
This is interesting, if only because Benjamin’s campaign guru, Adam Fogle, was so endlessly critical of the city’s previous branding campaigns. Presumably he will find this one laden with hidden merit.
I’d forgotten about that. And don’t be surprised if Fogle is somehow in on the action regarding the creation of the new slogan, as well.