Twin Cities Rebrand: No Longer Twins?
January 24, 2008 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota have been known as the Twin Cities for a long time. Looks like those days are over. In a time when more products, brands, and cities are adopting clever, quantifiable names like tri- and quad, Minneapolis-St. Paul is looking to differentiate itself from the copycats.
First step – a rebranding effort that will hopefully generate interest in relocating to the former twin cities. It seems Minneapolis-St. Paul is seeing a reduction in the amount of skilled workers in the area and wants to attract a new crop of young leaders. The rebranding campaign is also intended to erase preconceived notions that Minneapolis and St. Paul are too cold and boring to visit let alone live there.
To support this rebranding initiative, Minneapolis-St. Paul has created a new logo. Ready to be wow-ed? Check it out after the jump.
Here it is. The new logo and tagline for Minneapolis-St. Paul. Don’t all jump on the next flight at once. I know it can be hard to resist after seeing this inspiring logo, but try to refrain.
Joking and sarcasm aside, what were they thinking? This logo is not just boring, but it’s also overly simple. First, the overused arrow. Next, the lackluster font. The list of logo don’ts could go on and on.
My husband grew up just outside of the Twin Cities, and I’ve been there. It was June and I wanted my winter jacket it was so cold. Now of course, you have to take that with a grain of salt. I moved from New Jersey to Florida because Jersey was too cold for me, so I’m certainly not the target audience for the Minneapolis-St. Paul rebranding campaign. However, I can say that I thought Minneapolis and St. Paul were cute cities that seemed to offer their own cultural and social activities. Being originally from the New York City area, it’s hard for me to think other cities are really all that great, but I’m 100% biased and I freely admit that. Even with that bias, I thought Minneapolis-St. Paul was cute.
Do I think this new logo conveys even 1% of what Minneapolis-St. Paul has to offer? No. I think there is so much more the cities could have done with this logo to communicate their brand image and message effectively. I’m actually hoping to learn that this is all a big mistake, and in fact, this is not the new Minneapolis-St. Paul logo.
What do you think?
Tags: Minneapolis St Paul, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Twin Cities, Twin Cities logo, brand image, brand message, branding
I currently have an office in Minneapolis and have been located here for the past four years. The two cities located in this area offer a lot great opportunities for young employees (Headquarters: Best Buy, Target, US Bank, Cargill, General Mills, etc) Also, the culture located here is very rich for the small size of the two cities in comparison to Chicago, LA, or NYC. There are many wonderful things that could be carried over to the logo, but none of these were achieved.
I am a Gen-Y person and this does not appeal to me at all. The logo is a terrible logo. The typeface is boring, the words are too long for good production at small sizes, and the color is warm (not Minneapolis/St. Paul).
What is even worse, is that there are a lot of wonderful design and advertising firms in Minneapolis/St. Paul such as Fallon, Carmichael Lynch, and Campbell Mithun to mention a few.
I’m surprised that this logo was approved and used to try and reflect the culture here.
I completely agree, Austin. This logo is not getting the job done. I’m still hoping someone will stop by and tell me it’s a joke.