'Honest-to-Goodness Indiana' too wholesome? Wait and see, officials say

Restart Your Engines is out, after a memorable eight-year run.

Indiana will now promote itself to tourists — minus a verb — with the slogan "Honest-to-Goodness Indiana."

And the early reaction is: decidedly mixed.

While state officials described the new slogan as "forward-looking" and representative of the whole state (unlike Restart, with its borrowing of the famous Indianapolis 500 driver command), some of the instant analysis on social media Wednesday was, honest to goodness, a bit cutting.

"In the true Gomer Pyle tradition, eh?," wrote one commentator on IndyStar.com's Facebook page. "Can't we think of something that reflects 'North of the Ohio River' and not the South of 1816?"

Wrote another: "Golly gee-wilikers Pa! Can we really go to Indiana? It's so WHOLESOME."

Jake Oakman, spokesman for the Indiana Office of Tourism Development, which paid $100,000 for the slogan and a soon-to-start branding campaign that will run through summer, aimed to point out to the early critics that the new four-word slogan isn't meant to stand alone. Wait until the billboards and the print ads and the TV commercials come out, Oakman suggested, and the new slogan will take on a fuller meaning.

"The initial reaction that it's too 'Mayberry' or whatnot, that can be tamped down when put in context with the whole branding campaign," Oakman said.

And besides, the tourism spokesman said, "You're never going to get 100 percent approval for anything."

The new slogan is the result of a monthslong search for the right words to market Indiana. The effort was headed by the Indianapolis marketing agency Williams Randall. The final choice of the new slogan was made by a panel of marketing and tourism types and state officials, Oakman said.

Mark Newman, executive director of the tourism office, said the slogan launches a new era of promotion of the state. "'Honest to Goodness Indiana' is reflective of the entire state, and for the first time in many years, our brand incorporates all regions of Indiana," he said in a statement.

Tourism is a big moneymaker for the state.

Travel, tourism and hospitality ranks as the sixth-largest industry in the state. It's responsible for 140,000 jobs and $10 billion in revenue, according to a December tourism report.

The new slogan will appear on billboard, radio and TV advertising, focused primarily on Indianapolis and St. Louis at first, and in regional and national magazine advertisements, including ones in Midwest Living, Food Network Magazine and Cooking Light.

The advertising will feature Indiana residents and businesses, such as Roanoke restaurant Joseph Decuis and Borden-based Huber Winery. Indiana's claim as the place where Abraham Lincoln spent much of his youth also is featured.

Tourism slogans tend to evoke controversy, sometimes because people get attached to the old one. When Colorado came out with a new tourism branding campaign and logo last year (a green, snow-capped triangle with the letters CO), tourism leaders at first "lambasted" the new effort, concerned that it would replace Colorado's longtime "Come To Life" tourism pitch, the Denver Post reported.

There's no need for people to get too upset with tourism slogans, when what really matters is not sloganizing, but people's perception of a place, said Roger Brooks, a Renton, Wash., tourism and community development expert.

"Do you go to Disneyland or Disney World because their slogan is 'The Happiest Place on Earth?' Of course not. We go there because of our perception of it," Brooks says in a video he did on branding.

McKenze Rogers, manager of client services for Williams Randall, which has offices Downtown, shrugged off the early criticism.

"We are confident in the new brand. We are focused solely on moving forward."

Oakman said tourism officials knew they didn't want to launch their new tourism campaign using the 8-year-old Restart Your Engines slogan.

"It had definitely run out of gas, if you want to restate the metaphor," he said.

Call Star reporter Jeff Swiatek at (317) 444-6483. Follow him on Twitter: @JeffSwiatek.