07/21/2026
More news on our recent multi million dollar water-wind sports park and its irresponsible naming procedure and city council vote. This is a city funded park. The name chosen, as you can see in the data pic below, is not going to bring the island as much recognition nor business through wind sports tourism. The council made this decision in a bubble, without asking others in the community, without listening to marketing experts, and decided to name it after one guy whose name they cannot even spell or pronounce.
Here is a breakdown of major marketing implications behind the city council members' decision to not properly brand this multi-million city funded park.
Venue tax dollars are being used to fund this project and these funds are reserved/allocated with the stated intent to drive MAXIUM tourism/visits to the island.
Properly branding the park would have maximized the return on investment, but instead they voted for the lowest ROI branding option, simply because they wanted to recognize a single individual without community input or by completing a standard branding impact study (marketing/branding 101).
When you have a council in place that refuses to listen to a logical approach from marketing and wind sport experts, you end up with this dumpster fire of a decision. Simply put, ignoring proper branding best practices will result in the city needing to spend incremental marketing dollars to reach the intended audience.
Here is a quick visual of how their naming decision will lower the potential impact of our venue tax dollar investment and another example, of many, for why they should be voted out at your next opportunity.
P.S. Councilman Ricco suggested that the "best marketing is NOT SEO, but is word-of-mouth." How do you feel about that ?
Check the comments for the video of the former President of AOL, our local constituent, Brendan Jennings, who gave his expert opinion about naming the park after Jibber and the branding and marketing implications.
