Alright ladies and germs, a tremendous mea culpa on my end — these past few months have been nothing short of a hellacious experience. Four hurricanes (Katrina, Ophelia, Rita and Wilma) had the fam moving here and there for a dry place to sleep. Work has kicked up into hyperspeed because of hurricane relief efforts, and I’ve been working more, sleeping less, and trying to blog somewhat in between.

Now about that Brand Atlanta campaign….

How extremely underwhelming is this new motto? “Every day is an opening day”. I just can’t get behind it. Really…I am trying to embrace it, but I can’t. When I think “opening day”, I think baseball. In Atlanta, that’s the Braves. So besides that opening day…what are the other 364? And when I think of Atlanta, I think of Coke, traffic, and homos. Even when I asked friends of mine in NYC, Chicago and California what they thought of when it came to Atlanta, the answers were the same (well, the Cali friend threw in peaches, but I think that’s more a Georgia thing). So why didn’t Brand Atlanta try to include those elements in their campaign?

Actually, the site does look a mite Cokey….

You remember the Jets game at the Dome when the new “Atlanta Anthem” was released? I was there, and not only was the song met with unpleasant comments, but folks were saying “what the hell is this, and who the hell are these people trying to say ‘this is what you are'”? I think it would have been better to actually ask the people of Atlanta what the city is to them. Let them tell the story, don’t tell it to them. Oh yeah, and that new anthem? It’s not free…why should it be? Download it for 99 cents at the Brand Atlanta site and see how much blood your ears leak.

The current motto smacks of commercialism and big business efforts — every day is an opening day because Atlanta businesses want to bring in the big bucks. It’s the Georgia Aquarium and revitalizing downtown. It’s closing down clubs at 2am and making panhandling against the law in the “tourist triangle”. Actually, that area may be the only place in the city where the motto really applies. With all the hotels and the new “family-friendly” downtown being put together, Atlanta tourism now has the face of a revolving-door industry. Put the heads in the beds and the dollars in the till. Move ’em out and get more in. Every day’s an opening day, after all.

The thing is, I could understand if the brand really meant something in even the smallest way. The roads are still crap. There’s still tons of traffic on the highways. There’s ITP vs. OTP. And MARTA still doesn’t go anywhere. The branding campaign reminds me of this quote I’m about to butcher from Tommy Boy: “Look, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.”

Folks, I give you your dump.

Guaranteed.

P.S.: Who in the hell is T-Box?
P.P.S.: Did you notice the Atlanta.net/ACVB site had an extreme makeover as well? It looks nice.