It’s little things that make people feel good about your company- or your city- or your state, at least if you are thinking like a marketing person (and these days, we all should be thinking that way).

It’s not a flashy tagline that makes people think, Oh, it’s great in Dayton (yeah, it’s been done)- it’s things like clean streets, and pretty fountains with kids playing in them (as opposed to big fountains that don’t work).

So- in the spirit of saying “we’re Ohio, and we want you to think Ohio is a forward thinking, progressive place to do business”- why don’t we do something that could do that, plus: save gas so we don’t have to ship more money off to the Middle East- something cheap- something easy- and that could probably be ad supported:

Free air at all highway rest stops- with sponsorship by advertisers- on a screen at the pump. We could make sure people have their tires at the proper pressure saving fuel- and, have a few minutes to tell them about the cool things up the road- or in the State. If you’ve ever stopped in the “Welcome centers” on I-75 in Georgia- you may understand part of the reason Atlanta is a lot bigger than Dayton (back in 1950 they weren’t).

So- Columbus- instead of spending all that money changing the signs from Taft to Strickland, how about using that money to make a difference?