Atlanta Redefines Image With `Come Celebrate Our Dream' Slogan

ATLANTA - The city is trying to lure vacationers and convention business with a new slogan: "Atlanta: Come Celebrate Our Dream."

T-shirts, mugs and buttons will sport the new slogan, the centerpiece of an advertising campaign capitalizing on publicity Atlanta will gain from hosting the 1996 Olympic Games.

The slogan was about two years in the making and emerged partly from themes in 5,000 suggestions sent by the public to the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The campaign, created by McCann-Erickson, tries to provide focus.

"There's no French Quarter. There's no Broadway. There's no Fisherman's Wharf. There's not one thing in Atlanta that people can focus on," said C. Clisby Clarke, executive vice president of McCann-Erickson.

Mayor Bill Campbell pitches the slogan in the first TV ad, featuring a montage of scenes: Atlanta native Martin Luther King Jr., the Atlanta Braves winning the 1992 National League championship, the skyline at night and a mounted police officer giving directions.

The slogan replaces the decade-old theme, "Look at Atlanta Now."

SUGGESTED TOURISM SLOGANS FROM THE PUBLIC ----------------------------------------------- -- "Atlanta: At Least We're Not Birmingham." -- "Atlanta: What the World Is Coming To." -- "Atlanta: The Hometown of the American Dream." -- "Atlanta: Anything Is Possible." -- "Atlanta: Our Mayor Is Bigger Than Yours" (a reference to rotund former Mayor Maynard Jackson). -- "Atlanta: A City of Immense Pride." -- "Atlanta: Not Bad - For Georgia."