Breaking the Safe Playbook: Inside Chicago's Brand Revolution.

Let’s be honest: most destination brands tend to be polite, predictable, and painfully interchangeable. This session unpacks how Choose Chicago broke from convention to create “Never Done. Never Outdone.”—a bold, research-driven brand platform built from real community voices, insights, and buy-in. Through fearless creativity and early stakeholder alignment, Chicago launched a brand that shows up with edge across leisure travel, meetings and conventions, and global markets.

Takeaways: 

• Turn research and community listening into creative fuel—not a constraint.   
• Build one brand that flexes across leisure, meetings, partners, and   global markets without dilution. 
• Use stakeholder previews to sharpen the work, build ownership, and   launch loud.