Where’s the Real Surf City? Just Check the Logo, Dude

In the “Surf City” that Jan & Dean sang about in 1963, visitors were lured by promises of “two girls for every boy.”

In the “Surf City USA” envisioned by Huntington Beach officials today, tourists will snap up bicycles, tiki furniture, T-shirts and other merchandise bearing the city’s newly minted “Surf City USA” logo.

Huntington Beach, the city that once made Coca-Cola its official soft drink (in exchange for $300,000) and established a cable-TV shopping show to peddle manhole covers and street signs, is now poised for another experiment in civic commercialism.

On Tuesday, the city’s Conference and Visitors Bureau chose a surfboard-shaped logo for an upcoming marketing blitz.

Tourism boosters also inked a deal with surf musician Dean Torrence and the estate of Jan Berry to include Jan & Dean in promotional campaigns.

City officials hope both moves will bolster Huntington Beach in its rivalry with Santa Cruz, which has engaged in a sometimes comical 15-year squabble over which city rightfully deserves the moniker “Surf City.” After Huntington Beach trademarked “Surf City USA” in November, Santa Cruz started paperwork to trademark “Original Surf City USA.”

Santa Cruz City Councilman Tim Fitzmaurice said his city would do “whatever we can to preserve our connection with the Surf City name.”

He added, “We’ve heard about [Huntington Beach’s] logo and we’re not too impressed.... We think Huntington Beach is a beautiful place, but it’s a bathtub. The real waves are up here.”

Huntington Beach’s new logo, which insiders nicknamed “the lozenge,” resembles a surfboard and contains a silhouette of the city’s pier, along with the “Surf City USA” phrase. The orange and black color scheme will be altered from product to product. For example, girls’ pajamas might feature a pink surfboard, said Doug Traub, president of the tourism bureau.

The winning logo had a lot of competition. The runner-up was a retro design featuring a surfer riding a wave between the words “Surf” and “City.”

The images were among three designs that survived a 14-month research effort to “define what Huntington Beach is and how to market it,” Traub said.

During the process, seven designers submitted 43 logos, which were tested on focus groups of tourists and locals. San Francisco residents and members of the military liked the retro logo, but other groups leaned toward the “lozenge.”

Curiously, none of the finalists won rave reviews. And even though tourism officials unanimously endorsed the “lozenge” concept, several seemed unsure it was the best choice.

After the meeting, Torrence said he favored the retro design. And, before the vote, restaurant manager Ron McLin suggested the retro logo might have scored better with focus groups if designers had incorporated several early suggestions for improvement (reviewers thought the surfer looked stiff and unhappy).

Along Main Street in Huntington Beach on Tuesday, opinions were mixed. Nine people liked the “lozenge” design, five preferred the retro image and one voted “none of the above.”

The first product to be emblazoned with the new logo will be a line of bicycles. Within a year, tourism officials also hope to license the logo for such items as T-shirts, suntan lotion and shorts.

This isn’t the city’s first marriage of boosterism and commercialism. In 2003, it licensed a “Huntington Beach, Surf City” credit card.

Unlike that venture, which pumped money into Huntington Beach coffers, the “Surf City USA” product bonanza won’t directly benefit the city. All royalties will be funneled back to the tourism bureau so it can promote the beach city’s charms in Phoenix, San Diego, Nevada and other locales, Traub said.

If successful, Huntington Beach will have overcome an apparent jinx on the “Surf City USA” trademark, which has been owned by several other entities over the years. Previous owners secured the trademark for clothing and restaurants but eventually abandoned it.

Traub predicted better luck for Huntington Beach.

“It’ll be interesting to see in 20 years if we were right, but I think we really hit gold.”