Chicago Tourism Slogan: Aurora Claims City Swiped Its 'Second To None' Line

Earlier this week, the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau rolled out a big, $6 million campaign promoting travel to the city. The centerpiece of the campaign was a new slogan: "Chicago: Second to None."

Aside from that slogan potentially reflecting a profound inferiority complex among Chicagoans, or at least its captains of tourism, there seems to be one other problem with the new tag line. It's already taken -- by Aurora, Illinois, a suburb 40 miles west of Chicago.

According to the suburban Daily Herald newspaper, Aurora has been using the phrase "A City Second to None" since 2005, when Mayor Tom Weisner first ran for office.

The two cities exchanged snark over the alleged slogan theft, according to the DH. From Aurora's mayor Weisner: "they're borrowing our slogan, which simply tells us that, indeed, we are ‘Second to None' if we have a big city like Chicago copying one of their smaller neighbors.”

The response, from Warren Wilkinson, senior vice president of marketing and communications for the CCTB: “No disrespect to Aurora, but Aurora is not Chicago. I think Chicago speaks for itself as a global destination.”

Justin Kaufmann at WBEZ got the last word on the slogan dust-up: "How bout we just go without a slogan? I mean, we aren't Galena. People want to come here and we don't need hokey slogans or commercials to get them here. Rant over."