Myers: Who writes these dumb slogans?

Three years ago when Gov. Brian Sandoval and other state officials announced the state’s new slogan was “A world within. A state apart,” I printed it on a card and took it to a post office. I asked people to read it and tell me what it meant. The most common reply turned the question back on me: “What DOES it mean?”

Responses around the state in reader comments were pretty caustic, too, and became more so with word of the $9 million marketing campaign to spread it by videos and other techniques.

Reno: “A world within Satan’s armpit - a state apart from all decency, humanity, ethics, and compassion - I love it!”

Las Vegas: “Just lame – any good ad agency WOULD NEVER [have] released this tripe so you know the wives were involved.” (I don’t know what THAT means.)

Laughlin: “The slogan is ridiculous because it is meaningless unless you watch a video. Slogans have to stand on their own. … Finally, frankly, as long as R&R didn’t get the contract, I am happy. That agency has had a stranglehold on the state for decades.”

Actually, R&R Advertising at least knows the state. To come up with the slogan, Sandoval and company hired Burson-Marsteller, an international public relations firm that had handled accounts like Philip Morris, Three Mile Island, Union Carbide in Bhopal, and dictatorships in Argentina, Romania, and Indonesia. What could possibly go wrong?

Burson-Marsteller explained the slogan this way: “We are unwavering, we go about things our own way. We’re a hearty bunch, unyielding and diverse like the land itself. We’re mountains and snow and valleys of fire. We’re characters. We live in our own world. When other states restrict, we allow. We’re silver mines and pickups on long, lonely roads. But we’re also artists and oddballs and one-liner kings. Yes, we’re Vegas, but we’re also Tahoe and the Hoover Dam and wide-open country. We are enterprising. We are future focused. We’re unlike any other state in the union. We are Nevada. A world within. A state apart.”

Whew. That’s a mouthful. But I have read that slogan over and over and I cannot see the language that suggests “When other states restrict, we allow.” In addition, state officials have tried to get away from that notion of Nevada as a renegade state, so B-M’s mention of it was doing no favor to Nevada.

Clark County Latino leader Andres Ramirez wrote, “While the tag line’s value as a tool for economic development and tourism is debatable, it does offer a fitting description of how the state prioritizes K-12 and higher education between Northern and Southern Nevada.”

Sacramento Bee writer Dan Morain pointed out that, in order to announce the slogan and the $9 million, Sandoval had emerged from hiding where he had been avoiding news crews who wanted his comments on the state’s just-revealed policy of dumping mental patients on other states. Maybe that mental health policy was a reflection of B-M’s “We’re unlike any other state in the union” approach.

The Las Vegas Sun editorialized, “The real crime of the branding campaign is that it minimizes, if not ignores, Las Vegas.” To be fair, that is regional chauvinism. The slogan did the same to every part of the state. Indeed, the slogan could have been used unchanged by Vermont or Oregon or Arkansas.

Last week a contest ended in which Nevadans voted for possible designs for welcome-to-Nevada signs that will feature the tenebrous slogan. The contest was supposed to suggest that the public is being drawn into the process, though there was no write-in for those who wanted to vote for the state’s popular current sign with the miner in profile. It was like a Soviet election – only government-approved candidates.

Five years ago, a slogan almost as unintelligible as B-M’s was proposed for Reno tourism promotion: “A little bit left of center.” No one seemed to know what it meant, and the confusion was heightened by the fact that one of Reno’s main streets is Center Street. Unlike Sandoval and company, Reno officials listened to the public and rejected the vague, nebulous phrase. Unfortunately, its replacement wasn’t much better: “Far from Expected.”

Dennis Myers is an award-winning journalist who has reported on Nevada’s capital, government and politics for several decades. He has also served as Nevada’s chief deputy secretary of state.