We Love NYC

A new ad campaign for New York City aims for a simple message to rally city dwellers after a rough few years: "We NYC Heart."

The logo and campaign slogan is actually "We Love NYC" — an adaptation of the iconic "I Love NY" — and aims to signal that the city has rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic, said Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul during an announcement in Times Square.

 

“We took the ‘I’ out of ‘I Love New York’ and we brought the ‘We,’” Adams said.

 

But the campaign's launch stumbled right out the gate, starting with the logo. Critics simply couldn't find it in their hearts to love the logo's design. To compound the troubles, the campaign's welovenyc.nyc website didn't work for many people who tried to access it Monday. Not only that, but the Twitter handle @WeLoveNYC was actually already taken by a user named Mark Scally in 2009. Many organizations such as the New-York Historical Society ended up tagging this apparently inactive account instead of the official one in tie-in tweets.

 

The online wave of aesthetic criticism arguably won't tamp down the campaign's message, at least if New Yorkers take it in the spirit Hochul described.

 

"'I Love New York' was a message to the rest of the world," she said. "'We Love New York City' is a message to all of you, to the people who have stayed here, who never gave up, who do believe that New York City's greatest days do lie ahead." You can read more here. 

 

There will always be critics but we applaud this marketing effort. Our city has been through a lot. Our team stayed, we worked hard through the challenging times and ….We Love NYC!