WisBusiness.com
Gov. Jim Doyle has not yet taken a position on the state branding bill passed by a voice vote in the Assembly yesterday.
Doyle spokeswoman Carla Vigue said the governor “needs to take a closer look at the proposal and see how it interacts with what we are trying to do at the Tourism Department.”
At Tourism, Secretary Kelli Trumble is working on updating the Wisconsin brand that Doyle is slated to unveil at a state travel conference in March.
The next step for the Assembly bill, authored by Steve Wieckert, R-Appleton, is a referral to a Senate committee. A similar measure passed the Assembly last session and made it out of a Senate committee, but it never got a vote by the full Senate.
Wieckert’s measure would create what he called a “blue-ribbon commission” run by the Department of Administration to create a new state brand that would assist tourism marketing efforts and help attract businesses, investors and students to Wisconsin. The department’s recommendations would be due by year’s end.
Wieckert said the state, which spends roughly $20 million a year to market itself, needs to coordinate its branding efforts.
