Connecticut wants you to know that it's more than a highway between NYC and Boston

If you were going to rebrand Connecticut, what would you emphasize?

That’s a question the state is asking as it attempts to spiff up its reputation.

Research cited by Gov. Ned Lamont found that even though 73% of Connecticut residents like living in the state, only 50% would recommend it to others.

The state retired its previous slogan, “Still revolutionary,” created in 2012, and has unveiled a new campaign: “Make it here.”

It's an attempt to update Connecticut's image, distance it from the Greenwich vibes, and help residents and visitors think of the state as more than a place you drive through between New York and Boston.

That rebrand was the focus of a recent New York Times article by Amelia Nierenberg looking at how Connecticut is attempting to remake its reputation.

Nierenberg joined Alison Stewart on a recent episode of “All of It” to discuss this effort. Below is an edited version of their conversation.

Alison Stewart: Why does Connecticut believe it has an image problem?

Amelia Nierenberg: It’s a funny question. When I moved to Connecticut in August, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what Connecticut was. And everybody in state government I talked to would often start with saying, “Well, I know that you probably think that Connecticut is this, but actually it's this.”

I think just the realization that everybody thinks that Connecticut is sleepy and stuffy and preppy has been affecting their ability to recruit new families, to start lives there, to seem like an attractive destination and to draw new businesses.

So this is more about business and long-term residents than tourism?

I think it's about making Connecticut feel like a place to people in Connecticut, which makes them want to invest there and set down roots there — either by starting a small business or buying a home or choosing to raise their children there.

Who does Connecticut see as its major competition?

Connecticut sees Massachusetts as its major competition. I think that Massachusetts is a bit of a sore spot in Connecticut.

There’s a kind of Northeast competition, which is that if you're gonna be someone who sets up your life or your business in the Northeast, why would you choose Connecticut, the state that has the least-defined reputation of them all?

Massachusetts to the north is, I think, double in size and much more known for having some chutzpah.

What's another state that's undergone a successful rebranding?

California is an example. It's not a perfect comparison because California is enormous and Connecticut is tiny.

But California has really moved past its “sleepy surfer granola vibe” of the ‘80s and is now seen as kind of a “future of America, future of climate tech powerhouse.”

I think New Jersey's in the middle of a renaissance. The New Jersey Twitter account remains one of my favorite government Twitter accounts ever. And New Jersey's ability to own its bravado, its brash “we do it our way-ness,” is part of the reason that Hoboken is becoming the new Queens for people my age to move out of the city.

The use of social media must be important in a rebranding like this.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I think just the idea that if there's no embodied stereotype about where you're from, you don't feel like there's anything.

I'm born and raised in New York. I feel very much like a New Yorker. I introduce myself as a New Yorker, not an American, when I'm abroad. Probably something I should work through. But I think if I were from Connecticut, I might say, “I'm from the Northeast” or “I'm from the New York area.”

Let's take a call. Bridget is calling from Easton, Connecticut.

Bridget: I'm a 70-year Connecticut resident. I'm proud of it, and it drives me crazy that Connecticut is not realizing its potential, particularly in areas like Bridgeport, which have so many unused factories and this old brick and these wonderful old windows, and I see them as artists' lofts. And it's just not happening.

We have a wonderful harbor. I don't know whether it's just plagued by bad government over the years, but I remember Bridgeport when it was something. And it can be something again.

The whole state can be something again. I just keep going back to art because I think it's such a driver of so many things: restaurants and great people and young people. These factories just sit here. It breaks my heart.

Bridget, thank you. I had friends who moved to Easton during the pandemic. Amelia, did Connecticut feel a pandemic bounce in terms of residents moving there?

You know, it's not as much as I think it would have liked. There was definitely an influx, but I think there's a sense that the Hudson Valley got a lot of the people that Connecticut would have hoped for, and Portland, Maine, and Northampton, Massachusetts, got the Bostonians.

I think part of what spurred this is realizing that they did not have the remote-work pandemic bounce.

But I also think your point about Bridgeport is great. It is, I think, a huge question of what to do with these beautiful cities and this manufacturing potential.

That was part of the bad rap on Connecticut, that it did not take care of its cities. That while it might be really lovely in other lush parts and some of the more suburban parts, the cities often went ignored, and the people who live in the cities went ignored.

Absolutely. I live in New Haven right now. New Haven is unbelievably vibrant. I keep telling people it's the Asheville of the Northeast — that has yet to catch on, but perhaps this is my platform.

But that isn't something that people know when I tell them I live in New Haven. I often get a, “Oh, you live in New Haven?” And I find the first 30 seconds of the conversation is, “No. It's amazing. The restaurants, the parks." And I think the whole state is fighting that, “Really?” impulse.

Let's talk to Eve from Weston, Connecticut.

Eve: I'm in my house in Weston, Connecticut, with my handyman. I am born and raised in Rockland County, and I lived in New York City for most of my adult life. I've also lived in Italy.

In 2014, we moved from Brooklyn to a house in Weston. And when we got here, I said to my husband, “We're New Yorkers. We live in Connecticut now.”

But, since then, we now say we live in Connecticut. We love Connecticut. It’s just a great state. There definitely is potential for better.

The woman earlier was talking about seeing these empty factories, and I agree. There's so many cool things you could do — if not create jobs.

It's getting better since we've moved here for sure. I absolutely love it here and I suggest it to everybody.

Let's talk about this new slogan, “make it here.” How did the state land on this? What is it supposed to evoke?

The state worked with a Connecticut-based advertising firm named Cronin, and they described their initial planning sessions to me. There’s this idea in advertising called the 12 brand archetypes. One is the caregiver. That's what Johnson & Johnson hypothetically embodies. One is the outlaw. That's Harley-Davidson.

They asked, “If Connecticut were a brand, which would it be?” And they landed on the creator or the innovator, because the state has high-tech manufacturing. It’s got pizza. Connecticut pizza is really famous, and that's something that's made there.

The idea that they want to put out is that it is a generative, creative place. I think that a lot of people who are priced out of cities, who have creative ideas or business ideas … there is a lot of open space in Connecticut that is waiting for exciting new tenants. I think that's kind of who they're trying to attract and what they're trying to base their appeal off of.

Let's talk to Hale from Manhattan.

Hale: Thank you so much. I was born and raised in Greenwich. I am a big fan of Connecticut. I was living there until about two or three years ago.

Growing up, I noticed that a lot of the people that I grew up around were very reticent to share where they were from.

If asked where they were from, Greenwich would usually be their last answer. They'd say, "Oh, I'm from Fairfield County," or, "I'm from Cos Cob," or something even more specific, just for fear of the judgment and the preconceived notions that people have.

But in the last couple years, in places like Stamford, I did notice a lot of younger adults moving into new housing that was being developed along the water there.

Like some of these other callers have said, I’d love to see a similar thing happen in Bridgeport, which I think is a city that still has a lot of potential to bring back to its heyday.

My sister just moved into her own place in Greenwich. And trying to find any sort of housing for a young person in a lot of these places is near-impossible.

On top of that, in the parts of the state that are closer to New York, I do believe that there is a little bit of a cultural vortex where artists, concerts, comedians — they're not really spending any time in Southwestern Connecticut because it's expected that audiences in those areas would probably go to a place like New York City for cultural events.

So I think there is a little bit more work that needs to be done in terms of building a cultural identity in those places, something that people can feel proud of. And housing availability could really go a long way in making that happen.

Thanks for calling in. We've got a text that says, “Connecticut destroyed its most important city, Hartford, when it ran a highway right through it. Hard to recover from that.” Another question says, “Please clear up this age old question. What do Connecticut residents call themselves? Connecticutters? Connecticuticians?” Did you get to the bottom of that at all in your reporting, Amelia?

I'm gonna shout out the governor's chief of staff, Jonny Dach, who thinks we should be called Connecti-cuties. I veto that. Jonny and I know each other. That is OK for me to say.

Apparently, Connecticut residents know that they are called nutmeggers. I don't know that many Connecticut residents know they are called nutmeggers. I think most people say they live in Connecticut.

Let's go to Jerry calling in from Westport, Connecticut.

Jerry: I live in Westport, where I am a chocolate chip in the scone, in that I'm one of the handful of Black people in the area. It’s not the most diverse place. But I moved here from Taiwan with my daughter years ago, and I moved because of so many reasons, but because of the education, the environment and there’s a creative history in this town.

And even though I'm a lifetime renter and I don't have a house at the beach, even though I'm standing on the beach right now picking up my dog's shoes — I’m just having this beautiful life experience because of deciding to settle in Connecticut.

In a matter of 14 days, though, my daughter is moving to Boston because there isn't much of a life for her here. It's fine for a 52-year-old woman. But for a young person who wants to have love, romance and the possibilities of a career, she’s having to go farther afield than Connecticut.

Jerry, thank you for calling in. That's really interesting, Amelia. That's the second call we've heard saying, “Great for families, people who are established, maybe have a little bit of money and can afford housing.” But for young people, it doesn't sound like it's a beacon yet.

I spoke with the president of the Connecticut Sun, which is the WNBA team, and she was saying that for younger players, people straight out of college, she really has to convince and sell them on Connecticut.

Whereas for players who have families, the state sort of speaks for itself: good schools, nice homes. If you are making a professional basketball salary, you have a wonderful life. If you are in the period of your life when you wanna have a lovelier quiet life.

Connecticut is having a bit of a brain drain. A lot of the ambitious young people see it as a place to return to eventually, but not a place to start out their lives and their careers.

And I think the state really suffers from that. I see that in New Haven a lot. There are a lot of really interesting young people that are associated with Yale or with the universities, and there are very few people my age.

I'm not, like, rolling in non-Yale or non-Quinnipiac affiliated friends right now. I think that's really sad, and I hope that this campaign maybe helps change people's minds.

Will is calling in from Brooklyn — a Connecticut native who likes Brooklyn a little bit better.

Will: I grew up in Greenwich and graduated from high school in the '80s, and the place has changed a lot, but one thing I think Connecticut faces as a problem is that the portion of the state that is within the tristate area is so affluent and so disconnected from the rest of the state that it’s hard to have a coherent Connecticut identity.

That's really interesting, the idea that Connecticut is maybe a couple different states. New York is like that. Pennsylvania is like that as well. You go to the Cornwall area, that's one thing. And then you go to New Haven, and that's another thing. And then you go to New London, and that's another thing. Has that come up in your research at all?

People sometimes talk about how you can draw a diagonal line through Connecticut. There's Patriots-fans-Connecticut, top half, and New York-Connecticut, bottom half.

I think that's oversimplified, but one of the things that's true about Connecticut is that Connecticut, like many other New England states, has very strong local culture. So there's a real New Haven identity. There's a real Greenwich identity, but there isn't a real Connecticut identity. There are as many Connecticuts as there are nutmeggers, to use the aforementioned terminology.

But I think that's a really good point: There is not a coherent state identity and that the Fairfield County, bottom New York-y corner does overtake a lot of what else the state has to offer in the public imagination.

Before I let you go, what do the state officials and leaders hope is the practical outcome from this rebranding?

I think there are two out. One is practical but intangible, which is that Connecticut residents feel a little bit more certain of what being “Connecticutified” is, so there's a stronger state identity. And I think they hope that it's part of a longer campaign to attract young families and vibrant businesses to set up shop there rather than anywhere else.