Shores & Islands Ohio held a launch event on March 23 at Kalahari Resorts and Convention Center for their new brand, logo and new organizational direction. Shores & Islands Ohio will now include economic development support for the Erie County Economic Development Corporation, the Ottawa County Improvement Corporation and Firelands Forward.
Shores & Islands Ohio President Larry Fletcher provided background information on how Lake Erie Shores & Islands originally came to be.
“After discussion about how to effectively promote this region where we had two different brands,” stated Fletcher. “Lake Erie Islands Region in Ottawa County and North Coast Ohio in Erie County. Both were working but we thought they would work better together. In 2006, the destination name Lake Erie Shores & Islands was launched. Over the last 15 years, we’ve been using that brand.”
The branding process began in 2021. Shores & Islands Ohio brought in Roger Brooks to meet and speak with stakeholders and board members. There were 21 recommendations made. Four were chosen by Shores & Islands Ohio:
“We decided to take Lake Erie off and keep Shores & Islands, since we had more than 15 years invested in it,” commented Fletcher. “Next, we needed people to understand where is this place, so we added Ohio to it. To further help people understand where Shores & Islands Ohio is, versions of our logo include geographic identifiers: Cedar Point, Sandusky and Put-in-Bay. These three are the most often talked about locations in our region for travelers. We choose these three as the regional identifiers to put in our out of market advertising.”
Shores & Islands Ohio will be using these in conjunction with other efforts to drive people to the region. They will continue to promote every part of our region.
“We hope that everyone throughout the region embraces the new logo and uses it as it will help reinforce the brand,” stated Fletcher. “This will help us maximize our investment and all of us will benefit from it.”
Congratulations Shores & Islands Ohio!