SNOW HILL – A new branding campaign would promote Worcester County as “Maryland’s Coast.”
The Worcester County Commissioners Tuesday unanimously gave conceptual approval to plans for a branding campaign that highlights the county’s position as Maryland’s coast. The approval came despite initial concerns that the logo brought to mind Ocean City but not the rest of Worcester County.
“My position is I feel like I can go out and get something done…,” said Tom Perlozzo, the county’s director of recreation and parks, tourism and economic development. “We want to find the Harris Teeters, we want the Bass Pro Shops. I want the 90-room independent hotel to come here. I need sales collateral that makes sense. We just started that process.”
Perlozzo said his departments had spent the last six months working to find opportunities to promote Worcester County, particularly in the area of tourism.
“In December, I asked myself about the county and how I could make a difference in my new role,” Perlozzo said. “One item that became blatantly obvious was the apparent need for a unified cohesive identity to make us more competitive in the marketplace.”
He engaged Choptank Communication to help develop a marketing identity.
“Our goal here was really to identify and explore a unique position,” Choptank Communications’ Andrea Vernot said. “The purpose of place branding, it’s so much more than a logo. This is not a logo. This is strategic planning. We’re trying to identify what makes Worcester unique. A brand, a place brand, allows you to think about how to identify and harness your unique strengths. How to leverage your assets.”
Vernot said she met with community members and talked about what made the county special. With their input, she came up with the “Maryland’s Coast” logo and said it could be enhanced with a tagline such as “Naturally Cool.”
“This gives you that platform to strengthen Worcester’s reputation as a year-round destination,” she said. “It inspires interest.”
Commissioner Chip Bertino said he liked the idea of giving the county an identity but thought that the word “coast” conjured an image of Ocean City.
“It doesn’t conjure up the rest of the county,” he said.
Perlozzo said that the citizens interviewed as the logo was being developed always said they lived “at the beach” no matter where in Worcester they lived.
“The point was Worcester County is the only county that has a coastline in Maryland,” he said. “It’s easily identifiable.”
He added that he wanted Worcester County to be able to compete with other jurisdictions.
“We’ve got an exciting place we need to figure out to go out and sell it,” he said. “That’s going to be our job, my job. I think that with a little sizzle, which we’ve got, it gets us going in the right direction.”
Commissioner Bud Church said he liked how the concept focused on the coast.
“That’s what it’s all about,” he said. “That the hub of why people come here.”
Bertino said Ocean City was already promoting itself and asked how the proposed campaign supported the rest of the county.
“Our ultimate goal, because we don’t have the funds to do the things we need to do in advertising, is we do need to take advantage of the buying power that Ocean City has,” he said. “When they have a $6.5 million budget for advertising, we’ve got, if we’re lucky $600,000. From that perspective there’s a lot of different ways we can react creatively with Ocean City identifying itself being on Maryland’s coast.”
Perlozzo said the county would work with each of its towns on promotion to bring in some of the hundreds of thousands of people who passed through Worcester County on Route 113.
“We don’t want tour buses in Ocean Pines,” Bertino said.
Commissioner Diana Purnell said she liked the proposal.
“Ocean City’s going to draw the people anyway so we might as well have something to say,” she said.
Commissioner Jim Bunting said he hoped the campaign would include off-season promotion. He said he shared some of Bertino’s concerns.
“Ocean City is really doing a fantastic job with their advertising, they don’t need any more help,” he said. “We need to get it out into the county.”
Commissioner Ted Elder pointed out the word “coast” could be used as a verb as well.
“You could play off that word, coast on down to Snow Hill to the river, coast on down to Pocomoke,” he said.
Perlozzo, who said the county was also developing a “Go Coastal” app, assured the commissioners he would take their thoughts into consideration going forward.
“If you trust me just a little I can assure you we’re going to engage Pocomoke and Snow Hill,” he said.
