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Hawaii rebrands itself as a place to do business:
A brand positioning that will
blow smoke out of any volcano.

HONOLULU, Apr. 22, 2002. Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism launched a new marketing campaign today to brand Hawaii as a place to do business, beyond the business of tourism, that is. The mood is upbeat:

"When you think about Hawaii, you don't think business because we don't have a recognizable brand," said Sharon Narimatsu, deputy director of DBEDT. "If we have a recognizable brand, what's going to result from that is investments will come here because people will see us as a place where critical business takes place because we got state of the art technology and we're on the cutting edge."

We got it too, or, we get it. All it takes is a branding campaign and poof, you're cutting edge. Ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, Hawaii produced the campaign

...and came up with the idea for the "Energy Flower" campaign logo, five multicolored intertwining circles forming a perfect circle in the center, after conducting interviews and focus groups with community and business leaders.

"Each ring represents a different business in Hawaii -- government, industry, private industry, people and culture -- all those things coming together and working together in a dynamic and yet beautiful form," said Cynthia Derosier, creative supervisor/art director at Ogilvy.

So remember, whenever you see The Five Rings, think of....er..um...that's ok, we don't remember either. Tonya Harding's henchmen knee-whacking Nancy Kerrigan will do. And next time you're in Hawaii, get off your ass and get some work done, for God's sake.