Brand X

Reeling after being branded America's 9th Most Miserable City in a peer-reviewed CDC confidential scientific survey -- and leaked by Forbes magazine -- Lake County is now pushing back with some re-branding of its own. According to the Sun-Times ...

A pair of Lake County towns are following an emerging trend and "branding" themselves as part of their economic recovery strategies. Experts say creating a brand that markets a product's — or now, a town's — positive features is a timeless business philosophy that only recently became a public sector tool. Mundelein and Lake Bluff are the newest Lake County suburbs trying this approach to attract new residents and businesses.
Local towns join 'branding' bandwagon

Your LakeCountyEye has learned that this is just the opening salvo of a long-term coordinated effort to make Lake County inhabitable once again. A high ranking but unnamed elected official recently told your LakeCountyEye: "Right now people call Lake County the Arm-Pit of Illinois. But if everything goes to plan, those same people will soon be calling Lake County the Six-Pack Abs of Illinois!"

The first phase of the plan, he told your LakeCountyEye, will be to re-brand every town and village in Lake County. Villages cannot easily be renamed -- that requires costly pre-approval from the International Star Registry. However they can be given some bitchin new town mottos. Here are ten, freshly vetted by an independent blue-ribbon County one man focus group:

New Municipal Mottos for Ten Lake County Villages

Antioch Rescue Me! Waukegan Come for the Casino Stay for the Snows Gurnee Stop (at the red light cameras) and Shop Buffalo Grove Just a Stone's Throw Away Long Grove Conveniently located under the Route 53 Extension Barrington Hills We Light Up the Night Highland Park A Park District second to none: Priceless For everything else, there's MasterCard Port Barrington Not your father's Fox River Valley Gardens Old Mill Creek A One Horse Town Island Lake A Community of Friendly People

Look for your LakeCountyEye working the lot at a used motto dealer near you.