Great Towns Think Alike for Tourism Slogans

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 29, 2011 8:40PM

Yesterday the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau unveiled a new slogan that played off the city's nickname as "the Second City" - "Second to None." It's part of a major push by the Bureau to target winter sporting events, fight declining international visits to the city and overnight visits. It also replaces a perfectly working slogan attributed to Daniel Burnham - "Make No Little Plans."

If the new slogan sounds familiar to Illinois history and tourism buffs, it's because "A City Second to None" is the motto of the city of Aurora. Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner had some fun with the bureau's choice of slogan.

“Perhaps it's not totally original,” Weisner said. “But they're borrowing our slogan, which simply tells us that, indeed, we are ‘Second to None' if we have a big city like Chicago copying one of their smaller neighbors.”

Warren Wilkinson, senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Convention and Tourism Bureau, said that since there were no trademark or ownership issues, using the slogan was fair game.

We don't care about the slogan either way. What we do care about is that the Convention and Tourism Bureau will spend up to $6 million marketing this new slogan when their fiscal year starts Friday.