State and local officials gathered today to unveil "Visit SoSi," a regional tourism brand that invites locals and visitors to take a fresh look at Danville and Pittsylvania County and the abundance of activities and offerings now available.

The fresh new messaging and positioning strategy lean into the region's well-known geographical affiliation with Southside Virginia but also provide a confident, differentiated, and playful new twist highlighting the region's unique personality, rise, and trajectory.

“Danville and Pittsylvania County make up the leading area within the state’s Southern Virginia Tourism District, and we share many attributes with our neighbors and are proud of these affiliations," said Tourism Manager Lisa Meriwether. "But as a community that is making national headlines with our visionary transformation, we are also boldly stepping out in front to reintroduce this region to visitors. This new brand is highlighting the vision, quality of life focus, and world-class asset attraction efforts that have gotten us to this moment."

战略、信息传递和设计是9个月社区主导和数据驱动过程的结果，其中包括2000多个社区调查、广泛的访客人口统计和行为研究、16个焦点小组、无数个一对一的社区访谈、产品访问和利益相关者对话。

研究、旅游总体规划和品牌概念开发工作由Eddy Alexander领导，这是一家国际获奖的全方位服务营销和公关机构，于2011年在罗阿诺克成立。

在总共12个潜在的设计方向中，Visit SoSi的概念始终优于所有其他选择，并且在本地和外地参与者中都得到了非常好的测试。 Focus group members and interviewees consistently noted that this design direction, messaging, and creativity was "fun," "fresh," "flexible," "appealing," "unique," "approachable," "memorable," and "welcoming."

The corresponding brand strategy is also highly diversified, allowing a consistent package to be used to promote the region's outdoor recreation, food and beverage, lodging, entertainment, art, history, culture, architecture, festivals, events, agritourism and more.

This brand is the first high-profile deliverable under the region’s new tourism master plan published by the City of Danville’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism last week.