Two Brands, One Umbrella: Visit Jackson Focuses on Visitors and Locals

Visit Jackson has announced a smartly focused brand differentiation strategy, one that serves those visiting the capital city and one for those who call the city home.

Beginning last week, the organization officially rolled out its new “City With Soul” campaign with changes to its website and social media channels that once carried Visit Jackson’s corporate identity.

“Over 10 years ago, research was at the forefront of adopting the brand, City with Soul. This campaign has been a long time coming,” said Visit Jackson President and CEO Rickey Thigpen.

The City With Soul brand is being fully embraced by Visit Jackson in logos, merchandise and signage, evoking the spirit of Jackson’s people, food, music, literature and culture.

“When visitors to our city see the words ‘City With Soul,’ it is our hope that they would feel a connection to our people,” Thigpen said.

For locals – city dwellers and suburbanites alike – who embrace the city’s possibilities and celebrate the diversity of culture in Jackson, Visit Jackson will continue to promote the moniker, “My City.” The concept was first introduced through a music video and song, “My City” by AJC and the Envelope Pushers, in 2017 and My City commercial in 2019.

That concept grows with implementation this week of the official launch of jxn.ms, the My City blog featuring people, places and events of Jackson (Friday); a podcast – Soul Sessions (Thursday, available on iTunes); and a new song and video by Teneia Sanders featuring 5th Child, “City With Soul (My City),” released today (watch the video below).

For locally-focused marketing efforts, the possibilities of cross-pollination between the City With Soul and My City brands are endless.

“We looked at the success of I Love Memphis, a blog that just turned ten, and their successes with helping Memphians embrace city pride,” said Visit Jackson Vice President of Marketing Johnathan Pettus. “After years of considering the idea of a more locally-focused effort, we felt this was the right time in our history to push that effort. There’s so much good happening in Jackson and we need to tell that story.”

Social media users will notice changes to content in the next few weeks as well, said Paul Wolf, Content Marketing Manager for Visit Jackson.

“Our City With Soul accounts will focus on long-range, visitor-centric content while our My City accounts (@MyCityJxnMS on Facebook and Instagram) will cater to local interest events and positive Jackson news,” Wolf said. “We are building that local audience, those believers in Jackson, because they are our front line tourism staff. Our people are the very first impression visitors get.”

In 2015, the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau, following the trends of destination marketing organizations nationwide, changed our name to Visit Jackson. With the differentiation of Visit Jackson’s own in-house branding, the organization will further define its public face in hopes of exhibiting its relevancy to stakeholders and the community at large.