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Among the tasks that have to be rated among the near impossible is the creation of a brand for a product or region that will be universally applauded. And when it's a place like Salem, a community that's as full of opinions as it is history, the job can be particularly hair-raising.
But count this space among those who like the new logo and tagline for the city unveiled last Thursday at Destination Salem's annual meeting.
The city's name is most prominent, as it should be; and the image that accompanies it evokes both a witch's hat and a sailboat. The tagline, "Still making history," speaks of a city that despite its storied past is still looking forward.
Indeed, there are things happening this very moment in Salem — an arts revival, the expansion of its university, the restoration work and new construction in the courthouse district along Federal Street, and the changes taking place on the waterfront — that are every bit as exciting as what has taken place in the previous four centuries of its existence.
The unveiling itself took place in the auditorium of a museum — PEM — that is one of the country's oldest such institutions, but also still on the cutting edge of the arts scene nationwide.
So congratulations to the creative team at Rattle, the Beverly-based marketing firm that was paid $25,000 to devise a new branding campaign for the city. The hope is that the message will be as effective at drawing people to spend an evening at a Salem restaurant or go to school at SSU as it is convincing those from far away to include the city in their vacation plans.
Their presentation showed they put a lot of thought into the process, and had plenty of fun too.
One suggested tagline that drew lots of laughs went something like this: "Voted nation's number one visitor destination 383 out of 385 years." Those familiar with the chronology of the witchraft hysteria can guess the missing two.
