A few months ago, we wrote about Colorado Springs' pursuits of creating a brand. After many months of research and many dollars spent, the brand, "Live it up!," has been born. The accompanying logo depicts Pikes Peak using the colors green and purple. The purple color appeals to our local history of Pikes Peak and the "purple mountains majesty."
The team's goal was to come up with a slogan encompassing something true, something new, and something to differentiate Colorado Springs from its competitors. The hope for the brand and logo is to help improve the image of Colorado Springs in hopes of attracting businesses to relocate here. But many others will benefit from a successful brand, including local business and the local economy as a whole. The EDC will use the brand to attract businesses, the local convention center and visitors bureau will use "Live it up!" in all of its advertising. They even have a website set up for this purpose: liveitupcs.com.
However diligently those assigned to this project worked, whether or not their efforts created a success depends on who you talk to. The end result does not seem to have had a favorable outcome, at least with the local design and marketing community. Some do not feel the brand and logo encompasses what Colorado Springs is about. They do agree with the qualitites that the team identified about the Springs, such as vibrant, rugged, and exceptional. In any situation where many areas need to be satisfied, there will certainly be some backlash. But the local marketing community feel that the team could have come up with something better. One argument against the brand/logo is that "Live it up!" is a cliche that is used in other cities and Colorado Springs needs something that is unique to our city.
The design firm, which considered over 100 taglines and three potential logos, defends their process. The brand and logo they chose were clearly the winners, after having tested them with the local community. They needed to choose a logo that would work for a vast variety of community members; families, businesses, tourists, etc. Whether or not "Live it up!" will work for Colorado Springs may depend upon how it is launched into the community. However, the design firm is willing to take another look at the brand and logo to see if it may be improved upon. Maybe you can have a second chance to make a first impression.