Last call for “Big Things Happen Here” jokes. Visit Dallas is rolling out a new marketing campaign under a new slogan: “Find Your All.”
It’s a needed rebrand for the city’s tourism and convention bureau, which distinguished itself under the 16-year stewardship of former CEO Philip Jones as a “well-run trough for piggish top executives:” wasteful, poorly managed, unaccountable to taxpayers. Jones, who pulled in $700,000 a year, expensed a $543 backpack, for Pete’s sake. And that’s just what was going on behind the scenes.
The public image of Visit Dallas—whose business is Dallas’ public image—wasn’t much better. “Big Things Happen Here” was a terrible tagline. Suburbs like Grapevine seemed to get more play than Dallas in the operation’s marketing materials, which often relied on hoary and outdated cliches about cowboys and big hair and size. It was all pretty embarrassing.
So consider this extremely high praise for the campaign that new Visit Dallas CEO Craig Davis (who, as far as I know, does not even own a $543 backpack) showcased to a City Council committee last week: It’s not embarrassing.
The new campaign goes heavy on the city’s cultural strengths, a big tent that includes food, theater, the arts, and music. And it more accurately reflects the Dallas of today than any lines about how things are big here. We live in a diverse city. Most people go without cowboy hats and boots. And the people who live here are doing a lot of creative, compelling things.
The new campaign from Visit Dallas also encourages people to visit Dallas. Not Grapevine. (No disrespect to Grapevine, but it’s not Dallas.) The list of “Dallas neighborhoods” on Visit Dallas’ website is a list of actual Dallas neighborhoods. “Find Your All” is even a pretty good line, as these things go.
This is a much better look for Visit Dallas, which has taken some other steps to get its house in order in the last couple years, and for the city.
Now, do we really need to spend all that money on a new convention center? Is tourism—such as it was in Dallas—going to fully rebound post-COVID? Will Dallas put its money where its mouth is and invest in the creative community it’s now touting in marketing materials? “Find Your All” won’t tell us all that.
