Well here is another in a long line of examples of feel-good, waste of taxpayer money by a municipal Visitor and Convention Bureau: Brownsville now wants to make you say “WOW!”
The Brownsville Herald reports that Mariano Ayala, the CEO of the Brownsville CVB “wants people to feel the same way about Brownsville [as they do New Orleans], thus the CVB’s new slogan: “Always a Fiesta.” Ayala, Mayor Tony Martinez and other officials inaugurated the new campaign Monday evening … with an official dedication of February as “Brownsville WOW!” month. The idea is to keep the WOW! going through the entire year, with help from events such as the Latin Jazz Festival and Air Fiesta.”
“We are a city that has for the longest time been promoted as ‘On the Border, By the Sea,’ and now we’re adding WOW! and its accompanying slogan ‘Always a Fiesta,’” Ayala told the Herald. And in case you were worried, Ayala said the new slogan won’t replace ‘On the Border, By the Sea” but will augment it.
I have a lifelong background in marketing, I go to the Rio Grande Valley often, and I know quite a bit about Brownsville. And guess what? Always a Fiesta and WOW!, in all caps with an exclamation point, does not make me want to spend a dime or a minute in Brownsville.
When are taxpayers going to put a stop to this stuff? I’d bet that Brownsville will get more spill-over business from the new private Schlitterbahn development on South Padre Island, at no cost to taxpayers, than it will get from a lifetime of City spending on silly slogans. Empower the private sector and minimize local government – that actually works. WOW!
