The Weird Thing Is, as a Slogan, It's Pretty Darn Catchy
Originally published at The NewsTribune on March. 23, 2005

America’s No. 1 Weird City.

That’s no typo. It’s the latest coveted title, and it’s up for grabs.

When the University of Washington men’s basketball team takes the floor Thursday for its Sweet 16 matchup, it will battle a team from a Kentucky city trying to make a name for itself as a weird place.

“Keep Louisville Weird” marks the latest incarnation in a trend of city image campaigns aimed at getting local support for small, independent retailers struggling against the so-called big-box national retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Home Depot.

Who thought associating the word “weird” – meaning strange and unusual – with a city’s eclectic mix of small businesses would translate into a good thing at the cash registers?

“Seems weird, doesn’t it?” said Leslie Stewart, a public relations consultant advising Louisville on its campaign.

Yet that hasn’t stopped a host of weirdsvilles – Erie, Pa.; Amarillo, Texas; Lawrence, Kan.; Boulder, Colo.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; Portland, Ore. – from trying to capitalize on their own weirdness.

One city has tried to distinguish itself from the pack with this variation: “Keep San Antonio Lame.” An unweird city wants so desperately to become weird that it adopted the hopeful slogan, “Make Cincinnati Weird.” There’s also “Cleveland Weirdness” and “Weird L.A.”

Inexplicably, Las Vegas hasn’t jumped on the weird bandwagon.

In Austin, Texas, credited with launching the pro-weird trend in 2002, the strategy has spawned a backlash campaign: “Keep Austin Normal.”

So what’s up with all this weirdness?

“It’s all about raising consumer awareness of the economic impact of shopping locally, of the importance of supporting our independently owned businesses,” Louisville’s Stewart said.

“We could have said ‘unique,’ ‘special,’ ‘independent.’ But none of those make you think,” she said. “‘Weird’ begs the question, ‘What does it mean?’”

OK. I’ll bite. What does it mean? "People are tired of having everything be the same,” Steve Bercu, co-owner of an independent Austin bookstore and co-originator of the campaign.

“Why would I want to come to Tacoma, for example, if all you had there is all the same stores we have here in Austin? What’s interesting for any of us is to go somewhere and see something we don’t have at home.”

Increasing dependence on look-alike, absentee-owned chain retailers with bland formulas that make their presence identical from city to city destroys the unique character of individual community shopping experiences and draws local dollars out of the market, according to the American Independent Business Alliance.

In Austin, the city fathers had offered more than $2 million in incentives to attract national chain retailers downtown, including a Borders bookstore, near Bercu’s store.

“We didn’t want to have our tax dollars spent on wiping ourselves out,” Bercu said. So he and the owner of a music store across the street printed up 5,000 bumper stickers proclaiming, “Keep Austin Weird. Support Local Business.”

A consultant’s report on the Austin debate showed that $100 spent at Borders would generate $13 in economic impact to the city, while $100 spent at Bercu’s store would generate $45.

“We’re not just a bunch of guys whining that you should shop in our stores because we’re local guys,” Bercu said. “There’s actually an economic value for the community more than just feeling good about it.”

Eventually, the city withdrew the incentives and Borders opted out. But the campaign stuck. There’s even an annual Keep Austin Weird 5K Run.

Now, other cities have turned to T-shirts, bumper stickers, temporary tattoos, baseball caps, mugs, bus ads and billboards to forward their “Keep (Insert City) Weird” messages.

In most cases, the grass-roots progenitors of the weird campaigns bubble up from a community’s entrepreneurial music scene, building on the independent-mindedness of its youth to buy into the message.

“Some people get (the meaning) right away,” Louisville’s Stewart said. “The kid with the Mohawk, who’s tattooed and pierced, didn’t really care what it meant on a business level. He just liked to wear the shirt.

“The weird thing is we’ve got over 107 participating businesses now,” including coffee shops, pubs, a pizzeria, a wine shop, a cutlery shop, a day care and a funeral home, she said.

Weird, huh?

So far, no Washington city has adopted the campaign theme. Not Twisp, Pe Ell or Sequim. Not Ritzville, Des Moines or Omak. Not Montesano, Pasco or Vader. Not even really weird places like Pullman, Walla Walla or Humptulips.

Even though, on first thought, you might like to surreptitiously stick Spokane with the label, it doesn’t fit any city better than Tacoma.

For years Tacoma has touted the unique character of its neighborhood business districts – Proctor, Dome, Stadium, South Tacoma, Old Town.

What’s weirder – in a good way – than the emerging Sixth Avenue entertainment district?

Get this: Ryan Petty, Tacoma’s new economic development director, served as vice president for Economic Development for the Austin Chamber of Commerce. He’s still got some weird contacts there.

Spookier yet, the thought of being weird (officially) has crossed Tacoma’s mind once before. Back when Tacoma adopted the marketing slogan “America’s No. 1 Wired City,” it reserved a number of Web domain names. At least two of those remain in the city’s ownership, yet unused: www.weirdcityusa.com and www.weirdtacoma.com .

In the dictionary, and real life it seems, there’s not much distance between wired and weird.

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785 dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com.