In the News

In a darkened warehouse in the Distillery District yesterday, a crowd including hoteliers, sports team owners, public relations professionals and government officials offered a big round of applause as Tourism Toronto launched the city's new brand: "Toronto Unlimited."

Tourism promoters intend "Toronto Unlimited," joined by a T and a swirl that looks like a drop of water, to compete with such successful lines as "I Love New York" and "Bonjour Montreal."

Brand developers spent about $1.3-million to develop the city's new logo and will spend about another $2.7-million to market it, with billboards in subways and bus shelters in Toronto as well as newspaper ads in Toronto and in Chicago, New York and Washington.

"Our new brand is modern, flexible and adaptable," David Miller, the Mayor, told the crowd. "It's able to grow and change. It is time for us to show the world and show each other why it is that we love our city."

After he spoke, organizers rolled a video on a big screen, depicting a musical note on a white background that transforms into a fork, then a paintbrush, a movie camera, a strand of DNA, a tree, then a series of balloons that burst in fireworks.

"Insulin was discovered here," intones a sultry voice. "It is a city of infinite potential. As well as potential realized."

Two ad agencies, Brand Architecture International and TBWA Toronto, spent a year poring over 4,500 local survey responses and conducting 230 in-depth interviews, along with 14 focus groups in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, to develop the new brand.

Tourism Toronto said it needs the new brand as it begins to flex its marketing muscle, its coffers brimming with cash from a new 3% "destination marketing fee" that it levies on most hotel room stays in Toronto.

Thanks to the new fee, Tourism Toronto has $24-million to spend this year on marketing the city, compared with $7-million in 2003. Tourism Toronto contributed $2-million to the brand identity project. Ontario put in $1-million, Ottawa put in $500,000. Toronto's five big banks, plus Holt Renfrew and Sears Canada, together contributed $500,000.

But even as the partners trumpeted their teamwork yesterday, hints emerged of a coming struggle over who will control the city's tourism marketing dollars.

Tourism Toronto, run by the tourism industry itself, wants to hang on to the 3% levy, the first steady, substantial source of funding it has had in years. The Mayor, meanwhile, wants Queen's Park to give it a hotel tax as part of a new City of Toronto Act, which would give the city control of the cash.

"The destination marketing fee is good, we can finance this kind of stuff [like branding], but we couldn't use it to support getting Live 8 here," Mr. Miller said.

Lyle Hall, chairman of the board at Tourism Toronto, said he fears that, if the city gets a hotel tax, it will siphon away the money for "the very valid financial needs the city has" rather than on tourism marketing. "With us managing the money and accountable back to our members, it works well," he said. "The destination marketing fee is our life blood; for the city it is a drop in the bucket."

The tag line "Toronto Unlimited" won mixed reviews yesterday.

Bob Hunter, general manager of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., which owns the Toronto Raptors and Toronto Maple Leafs, said of the new brand, "I like it. There is so much to do in this town -- diversity and variety. They've done a tremendous job."

But Albert Nerenberg, an independent filmmaker developing a documentary about people's feelings for Toronto, does not like the new tag line.

"It sucks," said Mr. Nerenberg, who attended the brand launch. "It's bland and unfocused. Couldn't you substitute any city in North America with that tag line and make it work? It doesn't say anything at all about Toronto. Toronto is anything you want it to be."

Marketing efforts have already born fruit, Tourism Toronto says. A television commercial and an insert in The Times, in England, led to a roughly 10% increase in bookings from the United Kingdom to Toronto in the first quarter of 2005, marketers said. Promotions in China, Japan and Korea have also led to increased visits; overall, overseas travel into Toronto jumped 26% in the first three months of 2005, compared with the same period a year ago.

Tourism Toronto has also poured $2-million into the marketing of the stage production of The Lord of the Rings, which premieres in Toronto next year. The tourism industry contributes about $4-billion to the local economy and employs about 100,000 people.

Juerg Sommer, a managing partner at the Holiday Inn on King Street, told those assembled yesterday he likes the new campaign but wants Toronto modernized, with new streetcars such as the ones on the streets in his native Switzerland.

"I want to see new streetcars," he said. "Here it's like rolling museums."