Let it die.
Though the order’s not yet official, such appears to be the consensus of the City Council as to the fate of the Auburn’s time-worn and tattered, oft-snickered-at slogan: “More than you Imagined.”
A logo found on City letterhead and on City signs, even the one at the entrance to the City off Peasley Canyon Road and Highway 18.
But now the wording, the accepted and pricey brainchild of a hired consultant’s professional ponderings more than 10 years ago, appears doomed, abandoned, without a scintilla of hope for a last-minute reprieve from the powers that be.
“Something I want to make clear is that I don’t want to spend any money on creating a slogan,” Councilman John Holman said at Monday evening’s council study session.
“And I don’t want to spend any money on taking it down,” said Deputy Mayor Largo Wales.
“If a sign needs to be replaced, replace it, but don’t put the slogan back on it. Let it die,” Holman said to murmurings of agreement all around.
Until Monday, City leaders had been talking about replacing, modifying, or doing without a slogan at all. Now, only about doing without, except perhaps for short-term campaigns.
Such slogans that appear across the United States, said Councilman Bob Baggett, who researched the topic, are often corny to the point of embarrassment.
As the City’s Economic Development Director, Doug Lein, told council members, the era of slogans has passed, and they really don’t do a municipal body any good, anyway.
“In our economic development plan the consultant made mention of a slogan, and made the recommendation we move away from it – change it if we felt we needed one,” Lein said. ” … Our tourism consultants, our ED people, our Web developer and video production people, they’ve come back and highly recommended that we not have a slogan.
“A slogan can be used as more of an action word or a couple of words attached to an actual project or an initiative. That’s different. But a city-wide slogan is not really in vogue any more in the world of marketing,” Lein said.
Councilman Rich Wagner said research showed him that only 5 percent of the cities out there have slogans.
Wagner recalled that “Save Our Streets” began as a campaign slogan before its slow transformation into the name of an actual program to address such problems as potholes on local streets.
Daryl Faber, director of Auburn Parks, Arts and Recreation, said his department has found the slogan useful to advertise parks and arts programs, like Petpalooza, though perhaps modified to “More Pets than you Imagined,” or “More Art than you Imagined.”
“Years ago, we kind of personalized it a little bit, and it actually works for that purpose,” Faber said.
“I think a slogan can be around so long that people find creative uses for it,” said Wales, making reference to this particular slogan’s sorrowful second life as a punch line.
