DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Tim Anderson, creative director, and Cynthia Derosier, creative supervisor and art director at Ogilvy & Mather, unveiled some of the TV ads this morning for the upcoming "Hawaii branding" at the Hawaii Convention Center.

Hawaii business
puts its mark
on ad campaign

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Retailers have learned they can charge higher prices by slapping the label "Made in Hawaii" on their coffees and chocolates, and now the state wants to do something similar by sticking a "Business in Hawaii" brand on local companies.

The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism today unveiled a print and television advertising campaign designed to promote the local business environment, the result of a nine-month effort.

The official "Business in Hawaii" brand slogan is: "Hawaii is the one place on earth to do business where life and aloha are part of the bottom line."

The "Business in Hawaii" emblem is a group of five colored intersecting rings called the "energy flower." Each ring represents an element of business. They are: research, government, people, industry and geography.

"Together they form a visual that depicts a spirit of partnership and integration. It is both dynamic and stable, sophisticated yet simple," according to the promotional package.

"It's been proven that strong brands that command loyalty are more profitable brands," said Shelly Lazarus, chairwoman and chief executive of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.

Ogilvy & Mather Hawaii donated services to help define the "Business in Hawaii" brand. More than a hundred written audits and personal interviews, as well as six focus groups, were conducted with business people as part of the process, the state said.

As part of the campaign, local companies are being encouraged to buy packages of 30-second advertising spots on television station KHON.

Firms are invited to support the program by adopting the brand and sharing success stories that could become part of the campaign.

Local companies that have adopted the brand include the Oceanic Institute, which is a federally funded marine research organization, and federal contractor Science & Technology International.

Another organization that has signed on is the quasi-governmental Hawaii Health Systems Corp., an agency that runs Hawaii's state hospitals.

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Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism