It’s official. The state has a new brand.
The state has a new tagline, "Imagine That," and a new logo a group of volunteers spent nine months creating. The logo is a white star outlined by six two-toned chevrons in green, red, orange, and dark and light blue. It nods to the state’s pride in the military and its natural environments.
Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell spearheaded the months-long process of rebranding the state. He said the phrase "imagine that" came from a wide collection of unexpected facts about Oklahoma.
"World’s largest collection of American Western art. Imagine that," Pinnell said, listing some of the facts. "No. 1 city for entrepreneurs. Why are we not talking about this? Imagine that. … More languages spoken here than any other state. Imagine that."
Pinnell said you can expect to start seeing the new Oklahoma brand on highway welcome signs, merchandise and online, where he’s bemoaned the lack of a cohesive look to state agency websites.
"The earliest changes you will see is on the new Oklahoma-branded OK.gov, which is now oklahoma.gov. We’re done saying, 'OK,'" Pinnell said.
Boeing Director of Government Affairs Steve Hendrickson said a new brand will help recruit new businesses and workers, most of whom he talks to either know nothing about Oklahoma or got everything they do know from stereotypes in books, movies or TV shows.
"And I can never have one of these conversations without somebody bringing up that person from central casting during one of our unfortunate weather events that shows up — through both of their teeth in front of their former single-wide trailer — talking about what life is like in Oklahoma," Hendrickson said. "We are not — I don’t mean to disparage anybody who’s had unfortunate things happen to them, but that is not who we are."
While volunteers did much of the work on the rebranding effort, The Frontier reports Oklahoma paid a Canadian firm nearly $260,000 for help with the process.
