A Canadian City Scrapped A Tourism Rebrand After Its Slogans Featured A Major Sexual Innuendo
"Show us your Regina." 😬
An aerial view of the Saskatchewan Legislative building. Right: A sign for Saskatchewan.
A Canadian city's tourism board has announced that it will be rebranding after receiving backlash for its extremely suggestive slogans that played on the sound of the city's name.
Tourism Regina has confirmed it will be ending its "Experience Regina" experiment, which saw the city introduce slogans like "The city that rhymes with fun."
In a statement shared online on April 13, the city's tourism board announced that it will be "opting back to the Tourism Regina brand until a possible new brand is identified."
The message comes after Tourism Regina's CEO, Tim Reid, apologized for the "negative impact" of the agency's recent rebranding.
The rebrand saw Tourism Regina change its name to "Experience Regina" and introduce new slogans as part of the campaign that played on the city's name.
\u201cDMOs are transitioning to engaging concepts such as "Visit", "Explore", and "Discover".\n\nWhile visitors wont find mountains, the Eiffel Tower, or the grandest bridges, they will find amazing people, places, events, and experiences that will live in their memory for a lifetime.\u201d— Tourism Regina (@Tourism Regina) 1679164817
The slogans made light of the fact that the city's name rhymes with female anatomy, with catchphrases like "Show us your Regina" and "The city that rhymes with fun."
The slogans appeared on the tourism organization's website and on hoodies, the New York Post reports.
\u201cOnce you notice it, it's hard to imagine this made onto the internet. As Experience Regina's inaugural public engagement campaign no less.\u201d— Paul Dechene (@Paul Dechene) 1679067450
However, it was met with intense criticism, with some calling the slogans misogynistic and many saying it took the city backward in advancing women's rights.
"There was such positive feedback around Experience Regina," said Reid. "However, it was clear that we fell short of what is expected from our amazing community with some of the slogans that we used."
He said the tourism organization "crossed the line on some of the poking fun at ourselves around our city name," CBC reported last month.
The "Experience Regina" rebrand is said to have been an attempt to capitalize off of a viral video posted on YouTube in 2008 with the same name, a humorous advert for the city, in which a man sings "Experience Regina" to the notes of a catchy synth tune.
The video gained even more attention when the song was played during an episode of The Tonight Show by Jimmy Fallon.
The city's tourism board rebrand was meant to lean into the crude joke, Reid told CBC in March.
Tourism Regina has said that "all content that is offensive or inappropriate" has been removed in response to feedback from the community.
It also said that it would be "more stringent," making sure its brand "aligns with the standards of [the] community," and is "committed to involving more diverse stakeholder groups" in future decision making.
Unfortunately, it looks like it's now lost its former handle, @tourismregina, on Twitter to a parody account.
"Maybe you could ask @tourismregina nicely for your account name back," a commenter tweeted in response.