By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
The “I ❤️ Shreveport” billboards you can’t help but see when driving around town started going up in early February. But the sentiment began December 31, 2022, when Tom Arceneaux was sworn in as the city’s mayor.
“I handed out “I ❤️ Shreveport” stickers at my inauguration,” Mayor Arceneaux told the Shreveport-Bossier Journal. People kept wanting them, but said the stick’em comes off them after awhile. So, BRF (Building Our Region’s Future) provided me with a couple of thousand buttons we began using. I gave all those away, and we ordered another couple of thousand, which I’m in the process of giving away.”
One person on the receiving end of a button was the general manager of Lamar Advertising, who asked his design team to come up with a billboard vinyl which mirrored the button. They did, and what began as two static billboards seen going into and leaving downtown, have turned into multiple digital billboards throughout the city. In many cases, the message proclaims that a particular business “❤️’s Shreveport.”
“It shows the community and our residents that (participating businesses) have a passion for this community and that they’re invested in this community,” April Eskew, Lamar’s sales manager, told the Journal. “They want to see positive things come out of Shreveport. They want to be a part of that positivity.”
In sales, it’s usually the advertising platform which solicits business. But Eskew said this time, it’s been just the opposite, as businesses have come to Lamar.
“It’s usually the other way around, right?” I think people were excited to see something positive. We get used to the negative noise you encounter in the day-to-day, and this was something different. People wanted to be a part of something positive.”
Shreveport is often criticized, even from within, for having low self-esteem. Mayor Arceneaux thinks this campaign, of which the City has not invested any money, can improve that mindset.
“I don’t think we have quite enough pride going for us. We are a very good, analytical group, and sometimes our analysis says, ‘Ok, we could do this better.’ But instead of saying, ‘We could do this better,’ we say, ‘We do this badly.’ I think simply turning that switch to say we have a lot of good things — we could do things better, but we have a lot of great things and we’re proud to be from Shreveport and proud to let people know it.”
However, there is a risk of putting out the same message for a long period of time.
“It has a shelf life,” Chandra Walker-Target, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner with Willis Knighton Health System, told the Journal. “Over time, it starts to get a little dull, like, ‘Oh, this is just a repeat.’ It can have a positive effect on you in the beginning, but as time goes on, the effects will dull.”
But Eskew said not only aren’t there plans to discontinue the campaign, but there is thought to growing the campaign.
“I don’t see it fizzling out immediately. I think that’s what people maybe thought was going to happen. It was going to be a quick little snippet and done with, but we have some interest in maybe some larger projects . . . . We’ve got interest from other organizations in the community that want to be a part of this.”
Mayor Arceneaux doesn’t take credit for what got all this started. That goes to the late Joe Sampite, the former mayor of Natchitoches, who did it in the 1980s.
“Joe gave away I heart Natchitoches stickers to everybody, everywhere he went. I think it changed the attitude Natchitoches had about itself. I just looked at that and said, ‘By golly, if it worked for Natchitoches, why wouldn’t it work for Shreveport?'”
Contact Tony at SBJTonyT@gmail.com.