Social media campaign takes aim at city's new logo, slogan

A blossoming social-media campaign is trying to play down the city’s push to “Live it up!”

Colorado Springs’ newly unveiled slogan and the logo of purple mountains atop a green swoosh isn’t proving so popular with some in the Pikes Peak region, where people have taken to Facebook to voice their displeasure with Tuesday’s announcement.

A Facebook group asking residents to “Rebrand the Springs” attracted 214 “likes” by 9:15 p.m. Wednesday. Another resident, Randi Hitchcock, started an online petition to do away with the newly-minted insignia.

“Well, I’m a native and for somebody to try to brand about what I am — a native — it really felt cold and disheartening,” Hitchcock said.

“Graphically, I think it’s outdated and it doesn’t really speak to who we want to be as a city,” said Marcus Haggard, who created the Facebook page and is chief strategist for Magneti Marketing.

The results of the branding effort, which was spearheaded by the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, were unveiled Tuesday, ending six months of meetings involving hundreds of people and organizations.

It includes the tagline “Live it up!” and features several themes that will be included in advertising and outreach for the city, including “alive,” “living means doing” and “rugged, vibrant and exceptional.”

The branding process cost $111,000 and was led by Stone Mantel, a Colorado Springs-based branding agency. The agency also came up with “Big Wild Life,” for Anchorage, Alaska.

No city funds were used to come up with the brand, said city spokeswoman Cindy Aubrey.

The visitors bureau and the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp. paid for the effort, according to Mayor Steve Bach's Facebook page.

“We support it,” Aubrey said. “We participated in it. But we did not fund the new logo and the tagline, but we were involved with it. There were members of the city who participated.”

On Wednesday, City Council President Scott Hente said, “I hope it’s successful.”

Val Snider, council member at-large, had mixed feelings about the logo, but added that he wants to hear more from residents.

“The tagline makes sense,” Snider said. “’Live it up.’ That’s a big reason why I moved here.
“The mountain, to me, doesn’t look like Pikes Peak,” Snider added. “Pikes Peak is flatter on the top. I don’t think it’s a good depiction of Pikes Peak.”

Haggard said he hoped his Facebook page would spur a new effort to brand the city, perhaps through a competition of Colorado Springs graphic designers, costing far less than the original project’s budget.

He also criticized a nearly four-minute video released Tuesday as part of the branding effort.

“We should be able to get a lot more for that kind of investment,” Haggard said.

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Gazette reporters Daniel Chacon and Maria St. Louis-Sanchez contributd to this report.

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Contact Jakob Rodgers: 476-1654
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