Find Yourself In Tacoma

16 comments

• C City of Tacoma Media and Communications Office May 13, 2015

  Hello, We are happy that people are noticing the ads at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. These ads were actually produced by the City of Tacoma's Media and Communications Office as part of efforts to promote Tacoma during the U.S. Open. The "Find Yourself in Tacoma" ads that the City of Tacoma placed were designed to complement Travel Tacoma's "Fearless Exploration" ads that also appear throughout the airport. In addition to the ads the City of Tacoma placed, the City of Tacoma's Media and Communications Office also created a "Top 10 Things to Experience When You Visit Tacoma" training video for frontline service and hospitality staff in Tacoma who are preparing to welcome U.S. Open visitors. The City of Tacoma's Media and Communications Office also created an interactive story map which you can check out at http://cityoftacoma.org/Top10StoryMap that incorporates this video. The City of Tacoma's Media and Communications Office intends to build on the "Find Yourself in Tacoma" concept that it created as it works on a more comprehensive strategy to market our great city to the rest of the world! The tech recruitment ad that appeared in the Silicon Valley was not produced by the City of Tacoma's Media and Communications Office, but rather independently by the City of Tacoma's Community and Economic Development department.

• E Evelyn May 13, 2015

  I like it! This features one of the less-known sides of Tacoma (for those who just drive by on I-5)--the incredible waterfront.

• J Jim May 13, 2015

  Tacoma is on the up and up!!!

• R RHTCCComedyfan May 13, 2015

  It's going to happen anyway. Southern California is already under severe water restrictions and it's predicted that Los Angeles along with most of the Southwestern United States will become mostly uninhabitable sometime in the 2030 decade due to climate change.Mexico city will become uninhabitable before then by the year 2028. Basically that means all those climate change refugees will be coming up north with all their climate disaster creating mobile fossil fuel machines.What does that mean for Tacoma well expect more motor vehicle traffic and gridlocked streets,murderous smog pollution and the ruination of the local environment at the expense of economic expansion and a much larger population.However fortunately worldwide fossil fuels will become depleted by the 2040 to 2050 era so those motor vehicles will become immobile. Tacoma will be forced to follow a human powered transportation model along with its streetcars and enter into a sustainable car free city model.There just is not enough electricity for electric cars to replace the fossil fuel cars once their fuels are depleted.Also due to climate change electicity will become scarce as hydroelectic dams (where Tacoma gets most of its electric power) will be lacking the water from disappeared glaciers to feed them. O.k so this means that by 2040 or 2050 Tacoma will become hugely overpopulated and the population will become forced to ride bicycles (or walk for the less fortunate)

  • T thackerspeed May 13, 2015

    REJECTED CAMPAIGN PHRASES 1) Find Your Way Out Of Tacoma, Before It's Too Late 2) Lose Your Innocence In Tacoma 3) FOUND: Your Favorite Roach Clip In Tacoma

    • R RHTCCComedyfan May 14, 2015

      When South Tacoma and the East side are completely densified (with ugh rental units) in the future it will be the Central district,Hilltop,North End (starting to happen already in the Proctor district ),North East end and West Tacoma's turn to be redeveloped.No wonder that people want conservation disctricts but the more well to do will have just be next on the list.Sorry but all the private homes and classy properties won't exist anymore,It will all be densified Stalin era type apartments (you call call them condos too or townhouses whatever).

• S Stu May 13, 2015

  Ripoff of California's long running "Find Yourself Here" ad campaign. Plenty of examples on YouTube. Or is the lack of originality intentional?

  • J JDHasty May 14, 2015

    Precisely! If the powers that be here have ever had an original thought it is a well kept secret.

  • M Mel May 14, 2015

    I like Find Yourself in Tacoma. I was actually at the airport when I saw it. It is concise, it just works for a young, growing city like Tacoma and it doesn't make us sound like some desperately sad oldperson at a bar experiencing a mid-life crisis who is trying too hard. You can't copywrite the term "Find yourself" because it isn't a gimmicky phrase. It's simply two words in the English language.

• J joe-nate May 14, 2015

  "Welcome to Seattle", with an image of the Emerald city skyline and the Space Needle in the backdrop is what travelers on foreign flights first see when they enter the U.S. Customs waiting area at the South Satellite at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Will Port of Tacoma Commissioner Don Meyer who has recently become cranky about the proposed maritime alliance with the Port of Seattle that operates Sea-Tac gain concessions from his King County peers that Tacoma be given more recognition in public display areas at the airport, like the one at the South Satellite that are not temporary ads but part of the permanent décor that now solely promote Seattle? The reason there is a Sea-Tac is that United Airlines, which operated commercial flights at Tacoma Field (now McChord) in the 1930s, sought a single new airport in the 1940s to serve the Puget Sound region, thus encouraging the Bow Lake airport site over the alternative Port of Seattle airport project proposed near Issaquah. The Port of Tacoma's decision to forgo building its own commercial passenger airport after World War II meant Seattle controlled that regional operation and all the profit gain. Yet to commemorate Tacoma's support of that airport (that included small outlays of Pierce County taxpayer funds) which is named to recognize the Pierce County city's early importance to United Airlines, there should be demands that an image of Tacoma on the wall should be part of the permanent décor at the South Satellite customs area even if the Port of Seattle does not share flourishing airport revenues with the proposed maritime alliance Tacoma but rather forces Tacoma to help shore-up financially-lagging Elliott Bay maritime shipping terminals in the larger quest to preserve waterborne shipping market share for Puget Sound. In general, the city of Tacoma should always have ads at Sea-Tac. Perhaps Toyota might advertise its Tacoma-brand pickup at the central terminal security clearance waiting area ad space at Sea-Tac with an image of the Lemay Auto Museum in the background. Regardless, the Port of Seattle Commission should be compelled for show more deference to Tacoma at Sea-Tac.

• J JDHasty May 14, 2015

  I talked with a relative in Missoula Montana a few days ago whose neighbors had visited Tacoma recently. What impressed them most about Tacoma and was most memorable (at least this is what they shared with their neighbors when they returned home) was the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries. Sometimes up to four on one city block. They stopped in Tacoma for a couple of days on a return trip from the Oregon coast because they wanted to visit Bass Pro Shops and the Lemay Auto Museum.

• B BKing May 14, 2015

  Exactly! The memory that my relatives had of a visit to Tacoma was the number of marijuana shops too! Those are far more prevalent than Starbucks, which visitors expect but don't see many of. I wander if the city has licensed that many shops, if so, they REALLY need to cut down if you want to improve the image of Tacoma. Likewise, the image people driving by on I-5 see is of abandoned buildings covered in graffiti. One specific example is at exit 135. Why is all that blight allowed to stand along E 28th St right at the entrance from Portland ave to I-5? Visitors to the dome drive by that and that is their image of the city.

  • C ckinney May 15, 2015

    That area off exit 135 is part of the Puyallup Indian Reservation and owned by the tribe. It's sacred tribal blight and there's nothing anyone in Tacoma can do about it other than tribe.

• A Altered Chords May 14, 2015

  @BKing - I have often wondered about that area near portland ave and I5 too. Will the freeway/HOV expansion project cause that area to go away? Is that why nothing has ever been done about it?

  • B BKing May 19, 2015

    I sure hope that area gets razed and cleaned up as part of the I-5 widening, but if ckinney is correct and it is Tribal land, then I'm sure the land won't be touched. The freeway will just be closer to it. Maybe the city can have talks with the tribe and grant money to persuade them to clean up. Seems like such a cheap thing to do to improve the image of Tacoma for visitors which is what the subject of this article is about. And this is certainly not the only area near highway and exits that visitors see and think what a dump this place is...

• S Sid May 20, 2015

  Correct, like exit 132 East and West. The very first thing people see now off of exit 132 East is a big wall that could have been used for a welcome mural, but instead has terrible graffiti on it. I just don't get it, it is a perfect welcome wall into the Lincoln District. What the heck is Marty Campbell thinking every time he drives by this wall?