Oregon, Things Look Different Here (Oregon slogan)

“Oregon, Things Look Different Here” is the Oregon slogan introduced in 1988 to replace the previous slogan (since 1984), “Oregon, You’re More Than Welcome.” The previous slogan had tried to remedy a problem about Californians who felt unwelcome in the state, but state tourism officials believed that the “You’re More Than Welcome” slogan was dated. The “Things Look Different Here” slogan attempted to differentiate Oregon from neighboring California and Washington as well as the other states.
 
The “Oregon, Things Look Different Here” slogan was replaced in 2003 with “Oregon, We Love Dreamers.”
   
 
Google News Archive
7 February 1988, The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), pg. 14D, col. 1:
State tourism slogan
focuses on difference
By The Associated Press
SALEM—The state Tourism Division has adopted a new slogan for its promotional campaigns.
 
“Oregon: Things Look Different Here,” is the slogan that will be used by state agencies and possibly by businesses and communities to promote themselves.
 
Google News Archive
13 February 1988, The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), “A different slogan” (editorial), pg. 16A, cols. 1-2:
State tourism officials plan to spend $600,000 on a promotional campaign to lure visitors from Washington and California this spring and summer. The centerpiece of the campaign is the slogan, “Oregon. Things look different here.”
(...)
But we’re willing to give the state’s new slogan a try. It’s more intriguing than the gushy slogan it replaces, “Oregon. You’re more than welcome,” which made the state seem like a puppy that would lick the face of whoever walked through the door.
 
Google News Archive
23 April 1988, The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR). ‘Underwhelming Neil” (Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt—ed.), editorial, pg. 16A, col. 2:
“The state even has a new slogan: ‘Oregon. Things Look Different Here,’ which means—well, what? A lot of us got the message years ago from bumper strips up there that read ‘Don’t Californicate Oregon.’”
(Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle—ed.)
 
Google News Archive
5 December 2003, The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), editorial, pg. A18, col. 1:
Dreaming of Oregon
State’s new slogan an improvement
Oregon has a new slogan, unveiled earlier this week at a second annual summit of state business leaders: “Oregon. We love dreamers.” Slogans, by their nature, invite ridicule, but it must be conceded that the new catchphrase is better than the one it replaces: “Oregon. Things look different here.”
 
There was always something slightly off-key about the old slogan. To be sure, Oregon is different from other states. Oregonians are proud that their state is not just Idaho with a coastline. But the slogan evoked the sense in which the word “different” is used as a euphemism for weird, as in “Cousin Cletus, he’s, well, different.”
   
OregonLive.com
Sequential identities
The process of branding Oregon that shapes and updates its image over the years continues as the state celebrates its sesquicentennial
Saturday, February 14, 2009
LAURA OPPENHEIMER
The Oregonian Staff
(...)
It begins with a slogan. Oregon has marketed itself as a “Pacific Wonderland” where “You’re More Than Welcome” and “Things Look Different Here.” In 2003, the team debuted “Oregon, We Love Dreamers.”