New downtown Phoenix marketing effort misses the mark

The Downtown Phoenix Partnership can’t seem to get out of its own way. After the partnership made the right call in abandoning the silly Copper Square “brand” for downtown, it followed up by unveiling an odd-looking logo and an unintentionally ironic billboard marketing campaign.

I won’t go into the logo (you can decide for yourself at downtownphoenix.com), but the billboards are an unfortunate waste of money. The signs are in several places around central Phoenix, and probably elsewhere, and show a panel of three pictures and the slogan “only in downtown Phoenix.” The problem is that the pictures are generic glamour shots of smiling kids and adults that look like they could be anywhere.

The Downtown Phoenix Partnership needs to scrap this first wave of billboards and roll out others that identify and depict the unique places and people of downtown—you know how many suburbanites still have never heard of Cibo, much less have no idea how to pronounce its name?— and stop trying to make downtown look like everywhere else.