The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
September 18, 2007
NO LONGER BEYOND HOPE
Television commercials.
Any idea what they are all about anymore? It seems that the loudest one that says nothing about the product it was meant to promote ends up doing a far better job of promoting the product no one remembers by getting people to think about 'What was the commercial about?'
One of our favourites was the 'Zoom-Zoom' ad that took us months to figure out what it was about. Sure, we knew it was a car ad but WHICH car?
So it was in front of the television the other night when we thought it would be interesting to come up with a catch phrase that could be used in promoting Princeton.
The catch phrase, logo, slogan or tag line would have to be simple and upbeat and say something about Princeton that would be deeper in meaning than "Peter Pine slept here" yet have a sense of humour about it like "Peter Pine slept here until the Mountain Pine Beetle moved to Town" yet it had to get the message across in fewer words.
"BCs best kept secret" a slogan used off and on since the 1980s just didn't cut it anymore. Mostly because whatever the secret was, nobody told us and wellSit just didn't seem to be such a good secret as residents we polled in an unofficial opinion poll in our office thought the secret rested somewhere between gas wars on the highway and grow-ops in Area H.
This was enough data to confirm for us there was indeed a need for a different, updated slogan to identify the place we call home.
We wrestled with it for hours and tossed in the towel on the first night when we couldn't get that little kids 'zoom-zoom' voice out of our head.
Night number two wasn't much better as all we could come up with was "Princeton's our home, where the deer and marmots roam."
The third night we analyzed, scrutinized, criticized and jazzercised our way into a slogan frenzy coming up with dozens of catchy sayings, quips and sound bites for virtually every community in the province except Princeton.
What was it about this place that created such a hurdle for what should have been such an easy task?
It was beginning to look hopeless, and then it hit us.
Princeton was once identified as being 'beyond Hope' but in actually fact, this was no longer true. The community has potential.
And then we had it: welcome to 'Princeton, BC No Longer Beyond Hope.'
