Vox Veritas: One Magnificent Tagline.

There's no doubt that "I love NY" and "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" have been successful tourism campaigns. But that's not the issue being addressed here. I was living in Queens when the "I love NY" rolled out and can remember feeling a huge sense of pride with this campaign. But a tourism campaign is supposed to motivate people from out-of-state to visit. What's more, while this campaign was the first, it has been now used by hundreds of other cities and towns to the point where I saw a bumper sticker last week that said "I (heart) Niles." A good tag line, yes. But not fully unique to the state it was created for. "Only Vegas" suffers from this same issue. It's great because it follows the great line used in years past. But without that knowledge, it falls kind of flat. Could not Miami or San Francisco show scenes unique to its environment and tag it "Only Miami" or "Only San Francisco?" There are many great tourism tag lines out there. But I find Illinois' tag to be genius because I do believe it plays as well in Peoria, as it does in Galena, Springfield and Evanston. And no other state could use this line and have it mean the same thing.

It's one thing to examine tag lines as art pieces, in limbo and out of context. But that's not where they live. "I love NY" , as a campaign, is arguably the most effective tourism campaign of all time. It galvanized a city, a state, and all it's people. Still does, more than 30 years later. There are still 49 other states out there,and countless cities, that would kill for such a campaign that's all-encompassing and representative of the whole as well as the parts. I wonder how Mile after Magnificent Mile plays in Peoria, by the way?

True, taglines can be fun to work on, but they are also very challenging because they are expected to do so much with so little. I agree that this tagging of Illinois is smart, original and — most of all — true. It nods well to Illinois' main attraction while boasting the richness of the rest of the state. Hard to do in a thought; harder still in just four words. However, I would also say that it is well established that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." "Only Vegas" is a sharp line for that reason. New York, I think designers might argue, has owned its tagline through presentation: I "heart" New York is almost as accepted now as the smiley face. Also, if you've ever had the ice shatter off the guides of your rod as the flyline tightened with the strike of a steelhead, you know "Pure Michigan" means. Just saying.