xoTO is mine, yours and ours - and it works.

it's been a tough week for a girl who was excited about her slogan being a finalist for the torontoist TO slogan contest.

after being selected as a finalist the comments field on the FALL IN XO WITH TO page was filling up with both props and criticism. so i took to my blog to address the concerns of skeptics suggesting my phrase was not a viable candidate and i think i addressed most criticism. ( here)

turns out, that was just the beginning of the arduous defence process (#firstworldproblem). thanks to the city of toronto.

on saturday, this post at the torontoist revealed that the city of toronto was unveiling a surprise XOTO campaign to launch at nuit blanche and noted the similarity of their messaging to my submission. ugh, a slogan writer's battle is never ending.



as such, i feel the need to address this coincidence and explain why it is not "unfortunate" but should instead be complementary and only strengthen my campaign.
so in 3 points, here we go:

1. it's not the same idea - they complement each other. the XOTO idea is something that we can build on as a city and its residents. it is a sentiment that current TO inhabitants can engage in. FALL IN XO WITH TO is a complementary and natural extension of this. even Lauren Oneil, a popular toronto blogger @Lauren Out Loud, took note of the city's campaign and then used the poster of my submission in her post supporting the campaign.

2. i didn't steal it from them, they stole it from me! see my "you know what's the bomb? this city! that's right TO i'm talking to you" post from last february

3. it employs modern language. there has been some criticism around the use of "XO" when referring to "love", and "TO" for Toronto -some saying it is misleading. the reality is this texting, sexting, tweeting shorthand is the language of today. and toronto has a reputation for being "cutting edge"* so it just makes sense.

so that's it.
i feel a little silly spending so much time on this but i cant have you thinking i am slogan-plagiarizer (i clearly don't mind if you think that i can't spell)

for more reasons why i think FALL IN XO WITH TO is pretty great, see my original justification here


* "XO" is sooo cutting edge ;)


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