Cooler and Warmer is Dead; Wall Resigns over Tourism Rollout Disaster

RHODE ISLAND—Say goodbye to "Cooler and Warmer."

That's the word from Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, who also said in a Friday afternoon press conference that she has accepted the resignation of Betsy Wall, the chief marketing director for CommerceRI.

"Too many mistakes were made," Raimondo said of the disastrous roll-out of a new state tourism promotion campaign that was supposed to launch a new era for the Ocean State's promotional efforts and which Wall oversaw.

Raimondo also said the state is getting back the $20,000 it paid to IndieWhip, the company that produced a now-infamous minute-and-a-half promo video that embarrassingly showed skateboarder in front of an opera house in Iceland and made news across the country—and in Iceland.

The state is getting back $100,000 from Havas PR and a new social media kit will be rolled out next week for all Rhode Islanders to take the logo and play with it and impart what they love about Rhode Island into the open white space at the center of new logo, Raimondo said.

While the "Cooler and Warmer" slogan is gone, the state is keeping the new logo, Raimondo said.

"One of the things I've learned from listening and engaging with people is that there should have been more input. . .from the get-go," Raimondo said. "We need to fix that. It is crystal clear to me that Rhode Islanders have a deep and abiding passion for our state."

Raimondo said "we need to embrace that criticism" and that the backlash to the new logo, the revamped tourism website that was found to be full of errors and generic stock photos and other facets of the campaign is "all coming from the same place, which is our love of Rhode Island."

This is a developing story. It will be updated.