Articles
9 February 2012

Governor’s Office of Economic Development Begins West Coast Business Recruitment Campaign

by PR or News Wire

09 February 2012—

 For many years now the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), through its Utah Office of Tourism, has touted Utah’s quality of life with the “Life Elevated” brand to potential tourists along the West Coast. The award winning tourism advertising has generated an impressive number of visitors from the west coast making their way into Utah on vacation.

Now it’s the business side of the GOED office, which is beginning to promote the benefits of not just visiting the state of Utah, but in ads that began running Tuesday in the California edition of the Wall Street Journal,  promoting the fact that Utah is open for business.  The first ad declares, “Instead of Looking for Good News in the Financial Section, Try Looking in Utah.”
“Salt Lake City based Richter7 created a very innovative and target business marketing campaign for the State,” said Spencer Eccles, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. “This West Coast Initiative is a very specific marketing plan designed to target those companies on the West Coast that have an interest in expanding or moving.”
The series of eight ads, will run in the West Coast edition of the Wall Street Journal, and will highlight positive business aspects of Utah such as its young, educated and growing workforce, high quality of living, competitive tax incentives, State-debt management, and being the “Crossroads of the West”, as well as the fact that Utah has weathered the recent economic upheaval better than most.
Eccles indicated that with the help of Richter7, GOED’s advertising agency for the west coast campaign, and economic development consultants from Development Counselors International (DCI), other ads have been created with headlines such as, “From Up Here, You Can See the Economic Recovery,” and, “You Know the Saying “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going”? Here’s Where They Go. Utah.”
“The ads were created with executives and business owners in mind,” said Clark H. Caras, GOED marketing director. “The text in them will specifically address what those people want to know first and foremost; and how a move to Utah is going to help increase their bottom line.”
Three months into the West Coast Initiative GOED has identified 164 companies mainly from the Southern California area that it is working with in hope of seeing some of the companies bring a presence to Utah. “The goal of the campaign is to grow that list to 1,000 companies and executives to whom we will specifically market,” Caras said.
“The creative side of the campaign that started this week is a move to brand Utah as not only the right place to bike, hike, ski and play golf, but it’s also the right place to invest, expand or relocate, which will ultimately provide great jobs for the citizens of Utah,” said Eccles


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