GREEN BAY, Wis. — Since 1969, the Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) has served as the region’s destination marketing organization. Far removed from its many years of operating out of the original Brown County Veterans Memorial Complex, the CVB is positioning itself to improve the visitor experience and increase the economic impact of tourism in the local communities.
Today, the internationally accredited organization previously known as the Greater Green Bay CVB is reshaping itself with a new name, a new brand, and a new temporary Visitor Center.
The CVB’s new name? Discover Green Bay.
“An emerging trend in the tourism industry regionally, nationally and worldwide is how the brand of a destination influences destination decisions,” said Brad Toll, Discover Green Bay President and CEO.
“Tourism organizations such as ours have responded, starting with their organizational identities,” Toll continued. “Names have seen a major shift from what the organization does to what the visitor can experience. Today’s tourism groups lead with an action visitors can do and leverage the largest city’s name in the region to showcase where they can have these experiences. With that, we are now simply, but excitedly known as Discover Green Bay.”
And what’s behind the creation of the new name, for which Toll and his team spent the last year working with De Pere, Wisconsin-based strategic marketing communications consultancy O’Connor Connective?
“We monitored the evolution of the names of tourism groups across the country, such as Destination Madison, Visit Milwaukee, and Choose Chicago,” Toll explained. “We have made our own name change to best position this area’s tourism experience to today’s audiences. This simplifies the call to action to attract tourists to our region and allows us to curate their expanded understanding of all that is here to discover.”
And with the new name comes a new identity for the organization.
The rebranding of the CVB to Discover Green Bay includes a tagline of “Beyond Legendary.”
“We have the benefit of people around the globe knowing something about Green Bay,” Toll said. “Yet, the name ‘Green Bay’ is synonymous with football, and the charge before us is to build on the name awareness and expand the understanding of what’s available here to visitors and residents for entertainment and experiences, including and beyond what people think they know about our area.”
The underlying components of the new name and brand are incorporated and highlighted in the new Discover Green Bay logo. O’Connor Connective created the logo along with the development of targeted messaging to support the new brand so to engage visitors and locals alike.
“These primary components take what’s understood and links it to something beyond the average visitor’s initial perception, creating a distinctive understanding of the experiences available here,” said Bridget O’Connor, Owner and President of O’Connor Connective. “One factor that is known best — football. And one that research tells us is less understood — that we are surrounded by rivers, a bay, and Lake Michigan.”
A “waveball” icon in the Discover Green Bay logo captures those signature elements of football and water. The stacked logo features lower-case letters for an informal and fun look. The ‘g’ in “green” has a distinctive curve that reflects the gentle meandering of the Fox River as it leads to and empties into the “bay” below it in the logo. Each of the three words is distinguished by bright shades of blue, green and gold, symbolic of the colors of the local environment and what people associate with Green Bay.
Temporary Visitor Center Opens
In conjunction with today’s reveal of the new brand, Discover Green Bay unveiled its temporary Visitor Center with an open house throughout the day. This temporary Visitor Center is located inside the Discover Green Bay office at 789 Armed Forces Drive in Ashwaubenon, across from the Resch Center.
“As we look forward to the day when we will open the Experience Greater Green Bay Visitor Center, as we’ve planned for some time, this new temporary space will help tell our local stories and share with the world all that is great about Green Bay,” said Cameron Teske, Discover Green Bay Vice President of Visitor Experiences.
Features of the in-place Visitor Center include a historical timeline for the region, as well as photos, artifacts and digital displays commemorating a sampling of the industries, attractions and achievements that have made Green Bay beyond legendary. During its hours of operation, the Visitor Center has a staffed information desk and racks filled with brochures for numerous points of interest in the region.
The Discover Green Bay Visitor Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. each day.
Previously announced in September 2018 with an anticipated opening in summer 2020, Teske said the delayed Experience Greater Green Bay Visitor Center project is in Discover Green Bay’s short-term plans. The organization has secured most of the funding for the projected $6.5 million visitor center with a lead gift of $1.5 million from the Oneida Nation. Discover Green Bay is awaiting state approval of a $2 million interest-free loan for the project before breaking ground and starting construction on the center in the Green Bay area.
About Discover Green Bay
For over 50 years, Discover Green Bay, formerly known as the Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB), has connected people to fun, family-friendly destinations. Green Bay is famous for football, but countless treasures abound that make the Green Bay region a special place to visit. Discover Green Bay points millions of visitors each year in the right direction to a multitude of attractions, restaurants, entertainment, and places to stay in a vibrant region that spans several counties, has over 300,000 residents and extends to Lake Michigan. In a readers’ poll, Wisconsin Meetings magazine named Discover Green Bay the “Most Helpful CVB in Wisconsin” for 2017. Learn more about Discover Green Bay at greenbay.com.
