In a 2013 campaign titled “The Perfect Climate for Business.” Enterprise Florida targeted the Sunshine State’s vast opportunities for financial and economic success at everyone who wears full windsor neckties.
Enterprise Florida is a public-private partnership heavily backed by Governor Rick Scott, intended to entice national businesses to expand to the Florida marketplace. “I am constantly calling on CEOs to let them know why Florida is the best place in the world to start, grow or expand their business,” said Scott. “Now, we will be able to have an ongoing initiative and brand to reinforce what we’ve been saying.”
However, when the campaign unveiled its new logo back in 2013, featuring a bright orange men’s necktie in place of the “i” in Florida, the organization almost immediately received backlash for their sexist interpretation of the corporate world. The Huffington Post reported that the advertising campaign cost $380,000, a high price to pay for a widespread media failure that took over two years to pull from circulation.
The Miami New Times pointed out the obvious contradiction within Enterprise Florida’s logo geared solely toward male business leaders: “Florida is fourth in the nation for female-owned business, and those businesses contribute more than $77.4 billion a year to our economy. The number of female-owned businesses is also growing considerably faster in Florida than in the nation on average.”
However, Melissa Medley, the agency’s chief marketing officer, referred to the logo as “a hit.”
With 7.8 million women-owned businesses in the United States today, a 20.1 percent increase from 2007, it’s safe to say Enterprise Florida’s logo has quite a few opposers.
As of recently, it appears that Enterprise Florida is gradually retiring its old logo and utilizing this much safer option. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely that the subliminal white “F” being formed by contrasting shapes stands for Feminism, but it’s a step in the less sexist direction.
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2015.