We happened to run across this post from April 30 of last year and thought it’s worth remembering (former Denver Mayor Hickenlooper is now current Colorado Governor Hickenlooper): Smithsonian Travel has written a peaen to...
Read MoreIf Memphis was an actor, it would be looking to be cast against type. We’re like the actor who has only played light comedy roles that takes on a casting call as a serial killer just to shake up his image and how...
Read MoreEveryone who cares about cities is talking about Chrysler’s commercial during the Super Bowl, which was more of a pean to Detroit than to its new car. Talk about city branding. Chrysler did it by walking toward the truth,...
Read MoreIn light of conversations that seem to be occurring all over Memphis, we’re reprising this post from February of this year: Possibly the only thing more disconcerting than the self-loathing that is such a regular feature...
Read MoreWhat do you do with a gritty city lagging in economic growth and with a legendary music heritage as its main claim to fame? No, not that one. We’re talking about Liverpool, England. If we were in charge of putting together a...
Read MoreSmithsonian Travel has written a peaen to Memphis that pays tribute not just to the city but to some of our extraordinary landmarks like Henry Turley. That follows by only a few months a lovefest in the New York Times about the...
Read MoreThis is the second part of our post about our case study in city branding: Milestone 7: Preliminary Strategies As a result of the insights by the Smart City Consulting/Stone Mantel team and the input of the public, a recommended...
Read MoreFollowing the last two posts about city branding, we were asked about any work that we’ve done in this area. To respond, we begin today a two-part post about our work in Pensacola/Escambia County, Florida: Pensacola, a...
Read MoreWhile we’re on the subject of city branding, we want to revisit a speech by Paul O’Connor, former executive director of World Business Chicago and someone who led the process to shape his city’s brand. In a speech...
Read MoreBranding a city is hard, and although so many cities do it poorly, that does little to discourage cities like ours from continuing to try to do it right. Since we can remember, Memphis has flirted with branding, but...
Read MoreCan we now turn the page – not one in Forbes magazine of course – and quit talking about the miserable cities rankings? We’re becoming like the guy who knows he’s having an affair so he continually tells his friends how happily...
Read MoreHopefully, now that we’ve all worked through the catharsis brought on by hitting the list of miserable U.S. cities by Forbes magazine, maybe we can now follow it up with an epiphany. Most urbanists and public policy types have...
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by Bill Day. Memphian Bill Day is two-time winner of the RFK Journalism Award in Cartooning. His cartoons are syndicated internationally by Cagle Cartoons. Cartoons Archive →