Guest MINDSETTER™ Mellor: Invest in Our Own - Why Does It Appear to Be So Hard?

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Sunday, April 03, 2016

Guest MINDSETTER™ Colleen Kelly Mellor

Well we dodged a bullet. The ad campaign, hyping Rhode Island as a place to visit, whose logo and video were our recent entry into the public relations world, never got a chance to "go global."

Good thing, for it had serious inaccuracies.

But some wonder (in a state and world beset with major problems) why this whole issue of "Cooler and Warmer," with its minimalist logo, became such a hot-button issue to many Rhode Islanders.

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The answer? For what the campaign does say.

That we Rhode Islanders need go elsewhere for visionary folks....the artists...the crafters of words who make people sit up and notice.

Why? We apparently don¹t have any in our home state.

That's patently inaccurate.

What happened following the unveiling of the proposed logo was a natural reaction of local folks rebelling at that notion, as they took to social media. It followed that artists in the graphic design world would flex their creative muscles to deliver their own version of a proper Rhode Island logo.

And some were considered so noteworthy that a contest was established whereby people could offer their design, in competition against the one fashioned by the creator of the famed "I love New York" slogan.

That contest ran on Facebook.

Who won? Rhode Island graphic designer Missy Hardesty's design took top honors. She stated that she spent about 10 minutes designing her "Rhode Island: Sea to Believe" graphic.

When she posted it to social media on Tuesday afternoon, it was shared over 16,000 times, in the next 24 hours.

What's all the more noteworthy? The design hyping Rhode Island is from a Rhode Islander.

Why do we, in this state, always believe we must go elsewhere for our needs?

If we want to ramp up our game and play with the big boys of the advertising world, why don¹t we simply go to our own people‹our truest resource.

Isn't this what Governor Gina Raimondo's been touting all along as her mission?