Okay, here’s the deal. For those of you who don’t know, or don’t care, Rhode Island recently did an overhaul of their branding and image. The government, specifically the governor’s office, spent and obscene amount of money on a new logo, slogan and website update as a part of this new look for The Ocean State. The slogan: “Cooler & Warmer”, which doesn’t really have a ring to it at all, i’m actually not even sure what it means. Cooler like “hey man that’s cool”, or is it cooler like temperature? Regardless of whatever the meaning or double meaning might be that’s just way too much thing for a slogan. If it needs to be explained, then it probably isn’t going to work. If I was a family ready to pick a spot for a nice summer vacation and I happened to discover that Rhode Island’s state slogan, the thing that is trying to draw me in, is “Warmer & Cooler” I probably would avoid it at all costs. No way I’m exposing my family to a state that picked that kind of BS as their catchphrase. So what should be the new “new” slogan? Here’s our hot take and new slogans for Rhode Island.

Rhode Island: An Ocean of Possibilities

Not bad, right? That cost me $0 and took me literally 7 minutes to come up with. Before I get into my slogan, I want to take some time and bash the new official slogan. Cooler & Warmer. You know what’s ‘cooler and warmer’? Literally everywhere. Every place on this god damn Earth is at one time cool or warm. Those are really the only temperatures things can be. Technically yes places can be ‘cold or hot’ but it’s pretty much the same thing. Not only are we the smallest state, but apparently our Governor has the smallest brain. If you’re spending $5 million on something and that’s what you come up with, you’re an idiot. You could have bought a $5 million car with that kind of money.

Back to my slogan: I was going to go the funny route, but I kind of wanted to prove how easy it is to come up with a slogan for a place that used to be called The Ocean State. Do you know how many people living in the middle of the country are jealous of Rhode Islanders? We have beautiful beaches 45 minutes away, and that’s if you live on the other side of the state. That’s the main reason people come here and that’s the main reason summers here are so great. It’s not the perfect slogan, but there’s no such thing as perfect, so why not just go with the obvious and then put something about hope in there? People love hope. Now, no slogan is complete without a picture that sums up that slogan, and luckily I came prepared. Read it and weep.

Rhode Island: Not Long Island

I can’t tell you how many times i’ve introduced myself to someone, told them where i’m from and they respond “oh yes, New York”. No, actually there is a pretty sizable state separating us from New York. Am I taking crazy pills or is everybody outside the northeast just writing our tiny state off? I know we haven’t been known for the best things (maybe our slogan should be “Mobsters and Lobsters” [saw that somewhere, not my own]) and maybe those things have sent us into such a deep downward spiral that no matter how hard we try to change our image we are always going to fuck things up. Case and point, the awful slogan we just came up with. It’s hard to believe that we hired the same media company that did New York’s mega popular “I Heart New York” campaign. Things must have gone downhill since then, because this slogan is just crap. Not to mention we have one of the most prestigious art schools in the country, why not pull some ideas from there? I’m pretty sure RISD could have come up with a better logo than the shark fin/sail with Easter weekend pastel colors. It looks like a bad bank logo.

If nobody outside our own citizens were vacationing here before, they definitely won’t be now, so let’s at least change our slogan to something useful. Rhode Island: Not Long Island.

-Matt the Rat