Governor Gina Raimondo announced during a press conference on Friday that Betsy Wall, the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation marketing director, has resigned after what many experts have been calling the worst public relations rollout in Rhode Island history.
The public relations debacle began Monday evening with the unveiling of the incredibly uninspiring and confusing slogan, “Rhode Island – Cooler and Warmer,” and continued amid a series of missteps that included a Rhode Island video that showed footage of Iceland, a website rife with inaccuracies and omissions, and mounting public pressure to scrap the entire campaign and pick a new slogan and logo.
We’ve heard you Rhode Island, and we are making changes, getting some money back @CommerceRI
— Gina Raimondo (@GinaRaimondo) April 1, 2016
Governor Raimondo announced that they would be getting $20,000 back from the company that edited the “Rhode Iceland” video and that the state would recoup $100,00 in public relations fees.
Although the Cooler and Warmer tagline is gone, Raimondo said the state will continue with the new logo.
The tag line “Cooler and Warmer” is gone, five days after it was unveiled, per Gov. Raimondo. says campaign will help RI create jobs @NBC10
— Michelle San Miguel (@NBC10_Michelle) April 1, 2016
NBC10 has the story:
As does WPRI:
