Desperate to draw visitors decades ago, Broward came up with a branding idea called “Howard from Broward.” He bombed.
A brainchild of marketing expert Ross Hancock, “Howard” was a geeky-looking boy, perched atop a map of the county, part of a planned $1 million ad campaign that went nowhere.
Back then, the real “Howard from Broward” was a 75-year-old retiree from Brooklyn living in a condo in Sunrise, wearing Bermuda shorts and dark socks on his way to an early-bird dinner.
“Howard” was gone by July 1981. He flopped because most people had no idea where Broward was and was replaced by a new tourism theme: “All we need is you!”
“Howard” is long gone. But Broward remains.
— Steve Bousquet, Opinion Editor