LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz.
Arizona’s Lake Havasu City, which rose out of the desert 50 years ago this month and is perhaps best known for the iconic London Bridge reassembled there in 1971, has formally approved its first official logo and flag, two important components of the city’s first branding campaign. The effort will heavily emphasize a new tagline, “Play Like You Mean It.”
The new branding initiative, the result of two years of surveys and consumer testing, is designed to attract active residents and visitors who are serious about having fun in a “rare escape born of desert, mountain and the Colorado River.” The new full-color logo is rendered in an impressionistic style that symbolizes the southwest Arizona sun, mountains and water, while at the same time also conveying a sense of activity.
Working under the auspices of the Lake Havasu City Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB), a blue ribbon panel of community leaders invested nearly two years in developing the brand, logo, flag and new marketing tagline. They solicited bids from 17 destination branding agencies in the U.S. before selecting North Star Destination Strategies of Nashville, Tenn., to help focus the initiative.
