August 24, 2005
A KINDER, GENTLER NEW HAMPSHIRE
NewHampshire.com (Shawne K. Wickham August 22nd, 2005)
The state’s director of travel and tourism development, Alice DeSouza, had an enviable problem when she tried to come up with a new marketing slogan: New Hampshire has too much to offer to easily sum up in a phrase. [...]DeSouza said she wanted the new motto to somehow encompass all aspects of New Hampshire life: “I keep using the expression, ‘live, work and play.’ You can’t put them in vertical silos and say someone who works here wasn’t once a visitor, and vice versa.”
Indeed, she declared, “The things people like visiting here for are the very same reasons we all love living here.”
The slogan the creative folks at Rumbletree, a Portsmouth ad agency hired by the state, came up with seemed to do the trick nicely:
“New Hampshire. You’re going to love it here.”
We'll let Mark Steyn do the comment on this one: A sign of decline: the Granite State has the all-time great motto and one very pertinent for our times - "Live free or die." It looks great on license plates and on signs on the state border. So of course the state's director of tourism couldn't wait to lavish money on the "creative folks" at some ad agency to come up with a new slogan. The result - "You're going to love it here" - is generic pap unworthy of a great state and almost on a par with the feeble license plate of my native province Ontario: "Yours to discover." Couldn't we have come up with some suitable compromise between rugged North Country self-reliance and bland tourist boilerplate? "Live free or die in America's four-season vacation playground"?
Posted by Peter Burnet at August 24, 2005 6:42 AMSome walk the walk, others talk the talk.
New Hampshire in the 27th in per capita death rate in the War in Iraq. That wussy next door, Vermont is Rate No. 1 in the nation.
Posted by: h-man at August 24, 2005 7:23 AMHere's my suggesttion
New Hampshire: We don't like you very much.
There's always someone who likes to theorize that Vermont's motto ("Freedom and Unity") is proof that VT is a little piece of Stalinist Russia and New Hampshire's motto proves that its a Libertarian Utopia.
Posted by: Governor Breck at August 24, 2005 7:40 AMI suppose "New Hampshire: We're Not Massachusetts" wouldn't have been considered creative enough for Ms. DeSouza.
Posted by: John at August 24, 2005 8:02 AM
I got a this weird message when I clicked the Steyn link. Anyone know what it means?
Error Executing Database Query.
[Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver][SQLServer]Line 3: Incorrect syntax near ' Debugging Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.
Browser Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Remote Address 65.1.6.30
Referrer http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/026046.html
Date/Time 24-Aug-05 05:34 AM
I guess "New Hampshire: Men of the Mountain" would be both outdated and sexist.
Posted by: pj at August 24, 2005 8:51 AMerp,
It was a mistake in the way the link was posted...it's fixed now. What you were seeing was a server error from the site because the link had n extra linebreak at the end.
Posted by: The Other Brother at August 24, 2005 9:37 AMThanks TOB. The Steyn article is about the Gaza pullout?
Posted by: erp at August 24, 2005 10:08 AMMountain? What mountain?
Posted by: joe shropshire at August 24, 2005 10:24 AMjoe - this one.
Posted by: pj at August 24, 2005 10:49 AMNew Hampshire: Why should we pick the President and not you?
Posted by: Chris Durnell at August 24, 2005 11:47 AMAh -- I thought you were talking about that little hillock up in North Conway.
Posted by: joe shropshire at August 24, 2005 12:14 PM"Vermont: Spooning with New Hampshire since 1796"
Posted by: Geoffrey at August 24, 2005 12:15 PM"New Hampshire: Kennedy free, for now."
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at August 24, 2005 12:53 PMSorry erp, thanks OB.
Posted by: Peter B at August 24, 2005 1:12 PMJoe:
We drove up that little hillock about a month ago and I got hit with a bad case of vertigo on the way up. (Down was no sweat). I haven't been so terrified in years.
Posted by: Peter B at August 24, 2005 1:16 PMPeter: better not try this then.
Posted by: joe shropshire at August 24, 2005 1:31 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE: There's a soft spot for you in our granite ground!
Posted by: Dave W. at August 24, 2005 2:01 PMThe Vermont license plate should show the Old Man's face lying on the road surrounded by police tape, with the motto "Vermont: nothing to see here, move along."
Posted by: Robert Duquette at August 24, 2005 4:50 PMFor Vermont: We have a soft spot in our Granite heads.
Posted by: erp at August 24, 2005 11:29 PM