Baltimore looks to boost image, but not too much

BALTIMORE -- In the brutally competitive business of hosting conventions, cities everywhere are rolling out slogans.

For many, the right pitch is easy to come by. Washington touts patriotism: ''The American Experience." Las Vegas promises naughty fun: ''What happens here stays here." San Diego figures it can't go wrong with the weather: ''Come for the convention. Stay for the vacation."

And then there's Baltimore.

To search for just the right words, the city has formed a Repositioning Task Force and hired a San Francisco agency that specializes in ''branding" products. No doubt there's plenty to work with, including national-caliber museums, an immensely popular waterfront, and charming, old neighborhoods.

The challenge is to tout the city's assets without ignoring its gritty, self-deprecating character. If it's too hyped up, officials worry, the promotion may become a punch line.

Years ago, for example, residents disposed of one motto, ''The City That Reads," by making it ''The City That Bleeds." Even before the new catchphrase is unveiled, locals are forming ideas of their own:

''Baltimore: Duck!" a shopkeeper said.

''Baltimore: We're Not Gary, [Ind.]," an executive security consultant offered.

''Baltimore: Coming Right Along," a man atop a Fells Point barstool said.

Those three authors were quick to say they liked living in Baltimore. It's a mind-set hardly lost on Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum and chairman of the task force.

''This is a town of Elvis fan clubs," Vikan said. ''I think the city will recognize itself in this."

Tourism officials have committed a half-million dollars to the effort, including fees to consultant Landor Associates, whose clients include Altoids, the hip breath mints, and oil giant BP, which sought to be positioned as a friend of the environment.

The stakes are higher than civic pride. Conventions and meetings are an estimated $122 billion-a-year industry, and cities fight hard to bring in business. Baltimore has spent millions on convention space yet struggles to keep pace with cities such as Washington. Officials say the city lacks a message that resonates with convention planners.

The branding campaign probably will be accompanied by advertisements and aimed at tourists and conventioneers.

It's important that residents buy into the catchphrase. One survey suggested that 44 percent of Baltimore's visitors see relatives or friends when they come. If these hosts, along with cabdrivers and bellhops, are smirking, then the slogan may fail.

City officials hope the eclectic Vikan can help. He is a Princeton-trained scholar of Byzantine art who curses, a classical music buff who lectures on pilgrimages to Graceland.

His own museum has been nationally praised.

When Vikan arrived at the Walters from Washington in 1985, Baltimore was in its fourth straight decade of population decline. The owner of the Colts had recently packed up and moved the football team to Indianapolis in the dead of night.

Then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer had his rallying cry: ''Baltimore is Best." He was followed by Kurt Schmoke, who rolled out ''The City That Reads" and ''Catch the Spirit."

Through the 1990s, Baltimore was plagued with high murder rates and low literacy levels. Other cities had similar problems. But longtime Baltimoreans seemed to deal with it in part by laughing.

''I think a self-deprecating humor is part of the collective psyche of Baltimore," said James McGee, former director of psychology at Sheppard Pratt hospital outside Baltimore.

Vikan said he started feeling confident in Baltimore's future 18 months ago. That's when he noted that population losses were leveling off and some homes started selling for $800,000.