Let\u2019s face it: Great Barrington, we opened the door for them. You can\u2019t really blame them. Times are tough. With two years of Downtown Redevelopment coming up, it\u2019s time for the other towns to try and take our tourists.<\/p>\n
What did you expect, GB? Did you think Lenox was going to fold its tourist tent? Did you expect Lee to walk away? Downtown Hartsville to throw in the towel?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fantastic opportunity. Two summers of excavation then re-paving, dump trucks, and cars stuck in traffic past the Fairgrounds to the south and Barrington Brewery to the north. <\/p>\n
A chance to find another reason besides a fantastic bassoon solo to lure folks to the Land of Lenox. An opportunity for Lee to get them to American Eagle Outfitters at the Outlet Stores.<\/p>\n
You open the door; the odds are someone\u2019s going to bust through.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s probably because the stakes are so high that Lenox is willing to throw $70,000 into the pot. <\/p>\n
Nowadays it\u2019s all about the pitch. The pros call it branding. Finding just the right words. The perfect phrase. To stop you in your tracks. To get you to American Eagle.<\/p>\n
It seems like Lee is willing to stick with \u201cGateway to the Berkshires.\u201d Personally, I\u2019m not so sure that\u2019s going to do the trick. Not with Lenox bringing in the Big City Boys. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s right, they decided to go Big Time. Couldn\u2019t afford Madison Avenue but they\u2019re committed enough to go off-off-Madison. Smidley, Crump & Crump are an all-purpose, one-stop shopping PR machine. They\u2019ll brainstorm, pre-brand, brand, then post-brand. Plus fix your website.<\/p>\n
Smidley wasn\u2019t available but the daughter of one of the Crumps was. Abigail Starkfield-Crump spent several hours walking around town, had a cup of coffee, and it came to her: \u201cLennoxx: We\u2019re More Than We Were; We\u2019re More Than You Expect; And We\u2019re More Than You Imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was lucky enough to attend the meeting of the Lenox Branding Sub-Committee. Starkfield-Crump explained that the inconvenience and expense of re-painting some of the signs in town would quickly be forgotten as townspeople were adapting to, and profiting from, the expected increase in tourist traffic: \u201cOur slogan highlights that Lenox, as a town, as a community, yes, as a people just wasn\u2019t content to stand still. In today\u2019s global economy, one \u201cn\u201d and one \u201cx\u201d isn\u2019t going to cut it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can be frank,\u201d she continued, \u201cI think the decision to go faux colonial with your streets and sidewalks was a step backwards. There\u2019s a reason you looked to us. You knew you wanted more. You knew you needed more. Well, if we at Smidley, Crump and Crump believe in anything, we believe in more!<\/p>\n
\u201cNow some people think the slogan is a mouthful and I\u2019m not going to argue that point. In fact, that is the point! We\u2019re giving you more. Remember, this is an all-purpose sell. You can sell Lennoxx in all kinds of ways. You can go with one, or the other, or all three. For example, \u201cLennoxx: We\u2019re More Than We Were.\u201d Can\u2019t you just feel the magic? From the get-go, it\u2019s got you feeling good about your choice. I mean don\u2019t we all want more than we were? More than we got the last time. And really, isn\u2019t more what we all want?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m sure of you have heard the rumors that some Lenoxians, or should I say Lennoxxians, aren\u2019t happy with the slogan. Some folks say they just don\u2019t understand it. Others just feel more comfortable going back than forward. But Starkfield-Crump convinced me. So I just want to say, watch out Great Barrington, Lennoxx is out to get your visitors. And now they have more than they had before.<\/p>\n
So don\u2019t say you weren\u2019t warned. Lately I\u2019ve heard from friends of friends that Downtown Hartsville has it own Sub-Committee hard at work. They\u2019ve been working several angles. Some old-timers want to stick with what\u2019s worked so well for them in the past. And there\u2019s no quarreling with success: \u201cHartsville: Where Fish Hatch.\u201d Some of the young bucks, though, are ready for something new, something a little more spiffy. They\u2019ve been test marketing \u201cHartsvillable\u201d and if you\u2019ve seen the bumper stickers at the Big Y parking lot and the lawn signs on lower Corashire Road, you know the slogan is already catching on.<\/p>\n
So GB, there are threats from the north and from the south, but do you know that even the folks from Alford might have a horse in this race. The other day at Fuel I overheard a certain well-respected second-homer with a track record as a former Mad Man. You probably know who I\u2019m talking, but he was bragging over a gluten-free scone that with fifty grand for an \u201cAlfordology\u201d campaign, he could put Alford on the map. <\/p>\n
The Berkshire Record, Thursday June 30, 2011 \u00a9 Mickey Friedman 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u2019s face it: Great Barrington, we opened the door for them. You can\u2019t really blame them. Times are tough. With two years of Downtown Redevelopment coming up, it\u2019s time for the other towns to try and take our tourists. What did you expect, GB? Did you think Lenox was going to fold its tourist tent? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5,"menu_order":942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-443","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P5pvz8-79","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/443\/revisions\/447"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mickeyfriedman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}