There’s talk, about every six months or so, about launching a comprehensive marketing plan for Whitewater. (This must be version 17.0 by now.)
I’ll set aside the problem of past efforts at marketing the city dishonestly, as though prospects were too dim to see through blatant exaggerations or omissions about life in town. (See, The Failure of Marketing (and the Marketing of Failure)).
There’s another problem: to market the town to good prospects requires presenting it both honestly and differently from the way in which declining town squires insist it must be presented.
Present effectively, and a waning old guard will be alienated or insulted; present as that old guard insists, and few prospects will find the presentation persuasive (or even credible).
Aging insiders would have to set aside their own pride to present Whitewater both honestly and effectively to newcomers. They’d have to learn new tricks.
Even if they’re able to imagine a campaign that would be effective to outsiders (and that’s doubtful), they’ll never launch it as the content of that effort would undermine years of smug insistence that they’re masters at all this.
So, here they are: waste money on a futile effort that appeals only to insiders’ pride, or commit to an effective program that abandons insiders’ tired method in favor of an appeal to motivated newcomers.
It will be nearly impossible for them to overcome their own pride; it would be easier for them to flap their arms and fly.