Hello, Sam!

He was hard to miss the last week, but in case you did …

South Milwaukee has a new mascot! Hello, South Milwaukee Sam.

The Sasquatch lives in Grant Park and he loves his new hometown, calling himself “the biggest cheerleader for South Milwaukee’s local businesses, community events, and good old-fashioned fun.”

Check out his website, Facebook page and first blog post, and coverage from WISN and JSOnline.

From the JSOnline story …

When the Bucyrus Foundation issued a grant to South Milwaukee, it came with a request that some dollars be used toward a new marketing campaign for the city.

Savage Solutions, the Milwaukee-based agency which helped rebrand the city in 2018, was tasked with coming up with this new campaign. “They came back with a couple (ideas) that were a little more traditional,” Brever said. “And then they came back with this very creative and outside the box idea that we thought was a lot of fun and decided to go down that route.”

Savage Solutions met with city officials one at a time because they didn’t want to spoil the campaign by presenting in front of the Common Council publicly. “We were so pleasantly surprised with how much (city staff) were gravitating toward it,” said Cory Savage, founder and CEO of Savage Solutions. “They’ve been so supportive which makes us work twice as hard.”

He was surprised the idea didn’t leak out ― other than a few times when Sam was out filming scenes reminiscent of classic Big Foot sightings. “He’s been out and about,” Savage said. “People were stopping in their cars looking and taking pictures.”

Savage said the idea came from the Milwaukee Lion sightings on the city’s north side from nearly a decade ago. He commended South Milwaukee officials and staff for agreeing to and rallying behind such a unique campaign. “This is the first project in the history of this company where every single employee at Savage had a piece of it,” Savage said.

Creative Director and partner at Savage Solutions Mark Hungsberg said it’s a campaign that “legitimately has legs.” He said Sam was to be “a regular kind of guy” and was designed and redesigned many times to make sure he wasn’t too scary for kids. The primary Sam actor has experience in children’s theater and mascot work.

“We also wanted to be true to the history of South Milwaukee by doing this almost blue-collar worker shirt, that mechanic’s shirt,” Hungsberg said. “He’s not some gimmicky, over-the-top, showboaty thing. He’s a hard worker.”

Savage said Sam “just fit the mentality and personality of what South Milwaukee has to offer.”

Brever said he’s happy with the costume and campaign. “It’s just kind of a fun way to get some attention to the community and our businesses,” Brever said.

Sam is on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. There is even a Sam Tracker, Sam Swag and more. He also opened a business recently. 🙂

I like Sam. Sam is a unique way to lift up the people, places, businesses and organizations that make South Milwaukee special, a creative extension of the branding work we launched in 2018.

The whole thing is a bit weird, but it’s fun. And we need more weird and fun these days — as well as creative opportunities to promote our city. Go Sam!