Mayor Spano launches new Generation Yonkers marketing campaign

Shown (from left) are: Yonkers IDA chairman and county legislator Ken Jenkins; Business Council of Westchester president and CEO Marsha Gordon; Yonkers mayor Mike Spano; Yonkers City Council member Corazon Pineda Isaac; Jason Evege, founder and owner of Linoto textile company; Kanwal Singh, dean of Sarah Lawrence College; Mike Brady, president & CEO of Greyston Bakery; Melissa Starke, curator of Urban Studio Unbound Gallery; County legislator Gordon Burrows; Masha Turchinsky, director of the Hudson River Museum, and Yonkers City Council member Mike Breen.

Yonkers, NY Mayor Mike Spano unveiled the next generation of the Generation Yonkers marketing campaign, an innovative economic development initiative created to reposition the city as the next great urban frontier.

The new campaign, which was developed by the Westchester-based advertising agency Thompson & Bender, has a new look and feel from the previous two campaigns and features leaders in the fields of business, higher education, restaurants, arts and culture.

Those featured in the new marketing campaign include:

Mike Brady, president & CEO of Greyston Bakery;

Jason Evege, founder and owner of Linoto textile company;

Christian Petroni, chef and owner of Fortina Restaurants;

Kanwal Singh, dean of Sarah Lawrence College;

Melissa Starke, curator of  Urban Studio Unbound Gallery; and

Masha Turchinsky, director of the Hudson River Museum.

The Generation Yonkers campaign kicked off with TV ads running for three months on FIOS and Cablevision as well as 60-second spots running on WCBS-880 radio through the end of August and Gen Y is sponsoring the WCBS-880 opening bell report every weekday morning. Print ads will be running through the end of the year in local publications and interior car cards are appearing on the Harlem and Hudson Line of Metro-North through March 26.

The new campaign was unveiled at a reception held at the Hudson River Museum featuring those who are appearing in the new ads as well as those who appeared in the previous campaigns.

The campaign also includes a comprehensive program on a digital ad network that includes geotargeting, geofencing, key word search, contextual ads, search retargeting and Facebook ads. In addition, a new website for the campaign was launched today www.generationyonkers.com 

“The secret’s out – Yonkers is the city to live, work and play in,” said Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano. “We’ve seen tremendous growth in our city over the last five years, thanks in large part to the Generation Yonkers marketing campaign and I am confident that this latest re-energized and refreshed campaign will continue the momentum. The future of Yonkers is now – we invite everyone to be part of it.”

Yonkers is undergoing an economic renaissance with more than $1 billion in development under way. According to the city’s Department of Planning and Development, Yonkers has more than 5,000 multi-family residential units recently completed, under construction and approved for development. The city’s hotel market is also booming with approximately 1,200 rooms. Since 2012, the Department of Planning and Development has been responsible for winning 13 grants valued at more than $10 million and has administered a total of more than $40 million of existing grants during the past four years. 

The Generation Yonkers campaign is resonating beyond the regional market.  Yonkers was one of only three cities in New York State to make the list of “Top 150 Cities for Millennials” released last month by millennialpersonalfinance.com. In a survey released last month by WalletHub.com, Yonkers ranked 35th in the nation as the Most Culturally Diverse City and was ranked 15th among midsize cities.