We checked our Google alerts recently and discovered that Jean Gianfagna, founder and president of a marketing consulting firm in Cleveland, had nice things to say about the Unbridled Spirit brand New West created for the state of Kentucky in 2004.

More on that in a minute. First, though, Ms. Gianfagna wanted to talk about her home state’s new “Beautiful Ohio” plate. The plate, Ms. Gianfagna said, “makes a classic branding and marketing mistake: Obscuring the name of the product through ‘creative’ graphic design. In fact, it’s hard to imagine what else the designers could have done to bury the brand.” She complained about typeface that’s too hard to read, “clumsy” visual elements, an overly busy design, and positioning of the word “Ohio” in such a way that plate frame holders will cover up at least part of it.

Many other states have made similar mistakes, Gianfagna said. Kentucky, on the other hand, “designed a clean, attractive license plate whose main visual element is its ‘Kentucky Unbridled Spirit’ branding, the official logo of the brand strategy that applies to all of Kentucky’s tourism marketing and promotion – including its license plates.” This strategy has paid off, she said, noting that public perceptions of Kentucky have improved as a result.

“Imagine the impact,” Gianfagna concluded, “if Ohio officials had followed Kentucky’s lead and recognized the state’s license plate as a branding opportunity. Suppose they created a visually striking graphic design that showcased the brand in a readable, engaging, and memorable way and linked to the state’s tourism marketing campaign. Ohio would be making millions of powerful, positive impressions on people everywhere, every day. And that would be a smart branding strategy.”

Thanks, Jean. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

For the full text of Ms. Gianfagna’s remarks, see http://www.gianfagnamarketing.com/blog/2010/03/01/a-branding-blunder-averted-ohio-almost-makes-a-classic-marketing-mistake/