Tuesday, August 12, 2008

More Good Ink for Ogden

National Geographic Adventure magazine jumps aboard the "high adventure" bandwagon

By Curmudgeon

More good ink for Ogden. Yet another national circulation magazine --- National Geographic Adventure this time --- names Ogden a high-adventure good investment, the Tuesday Standard Examiner reports.

From Brooke Nelson's story:
OGDEN -- Called the "Disneyland for adrenalized adults," Ogden made National Geographic Adventure's top 12 picks for the next great adventure town. Fifty cities nationwide were named, and 12 were selected for extended write-ups in the magazine hitting newsstands today....
The article mentions easy access for residents to river rafting, water skiing and park areas, specifically highlighting the newly built 148,000-square-foot Salomon Center. It also mentions the city's close proximity to Salt Lake City and Olympic venues like Snowbasin Ski Resort, and the city's plans to continue to improve outdoor opportunities.

The article does not explain how all this could possibly have happened without a flatland gondola whisking adventure seekers from downtown to Weber State and back... a curious omission... unless "the city's plans to continue to improve outdoor opportunities" is a veiled reference to the currently dormant gondola/gondola scheme.

Snark aside, this is very good ink for Ogden, and it's going to be a little harder to dismiss a National Geographic publication as some little magazine of no impact and few readers, etc. The simple fact is, the Administration's marketing plan, offering Ogden as a kind of High Adventure base camp is generating a great deal of good publicity for the city. And grumbling about it based on some kind of "if it generates good press for Godfrey, it must be bad for Ogden" assumption makes little sense to me.

All this good press in a variety of national magazines and newspapers, some with a very broad circulation [like The New York Times] and some with a more limited niche readership [like Rock and Ice Magazine] having been achieved without even one gondola in place, or now even one being proposed, much less two, suggests to me, very strongly, that Ogden can [and clearly has] achieve some significant appeal to outdoors oriented sportsmen and women, travelers and businesses without what Hizzonah used to claim was the vital lynch for the whole marketing campaign.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get why this is good to have all this attention.

If my girlfriend got named "sexiest woman alive" would that make her more use to me? Would the notereity and possibly VD made things better for me?

I live here. I know what we have. Drawing in the teeming masses may please the hoteliers but what do crowded streets and smog do for the rest of us?

You people who want crowds, SLC is only minutes away. What's so great about all this "good press?"

You are causing yet another paradise to be destroyed.

Anonymous said...

I have had a subscription to the National Geographic for years.

I have written to them that I no longer value their objective reporting and that they are to cancel my subscription immediately.

Talk about misleading information - this is it.

Anonymous said...

WT Woman:

Just out of curiosity, and presuming you've read the article [which I haven't yet], what information in it do you consider misleading?

Anonymous said...

West Texas, If you subscribe to National Geographic, you'll never see the fluff piece. This is more or less an advertizing specialty spin off. This is a high adventure way to help pay the bills. Bring in bucks from special interests to help subsidize the good work the have historicly done over the years.
Notice they still had the conscience to only list us in the middle.
Does this mean we're not yet the high adventure capital of the universe? God forbid, jackass dowse paid one hell of alot of money for that bit, apparently not enough.
As for kayaking, the Ogden River has an average depth of about six to ten inches of water this time of year.

Anonymous said...

Bill:

Had breakfast this AM at the Oaks, one of the tables right over the river. I think you may be a tad or so low on river volume and depth just now.

Anonymous said...

Curm, in the canyon there is a much narrower main channel, with quite a few deeper holes. That's why the fishing in the canyon is far superior to the fishing below.
Go down to where gadi and lying little matty are trying to get federal funds to drasticly alter the streambed under the guise of river cleanup, including artificial water feature, average depth is less than a foot. You'll only need to roll your pants up to your knees, or you could wear shorts.{grin}.

Anonymous said...

Bill:

OK. Point taken.

Have to admit, I don't much get down to the lower river these days. Lots of abandoned houses down there, I hear --- vacant lots, half-assembled parcels intended for shrinking big box stores. The sort of place out-of-state developers with legal problems might be encountered. I try to hang with a better class of people.

As for your suggestion about my wearing shorts in public... well, if there isn't a city "beautification" ordinance banning that, there damn well should be.

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