Creating a Brand That Knows No Borders

Dear Corey and the 1000 Islands Selection Committee,

Great destinations and great brands share something in common: they’re built by people who love what they do and believe in what they’re creating. That’s the energy we bring to this partnership—and it’s the energy we believe the 1000 Islands deserves. Not a vendor relationship. Not a deliverables checklist. A genuine creative and strategic collaboration built around a destination we’re already proud to champion.

When bigger agencies approach a project like this, they bring platform, process, and a prescribed approach. We bring conviction, flexibility and imagination. We often say the first step in our process is to get to know all of yours, in other words, to do our homework. We believe this allows us to build a brand that aligns with your objectives, your audience, and authentically represents what is so compelling about the 1000 Islands. 

FourthIdea’s REAL™ Model—built on Relevance, Emotion, Authenticity, and Lasting brand work—is not a tagline. It is a strategic filter that every creative decision passes through, ensuring the brand we build for the 1000 Islands doesn’t just look beautiful in a presentation: it works in the market, resonates with travelers, and holds up under partner use and competitive scrutiny. We have applied this model to destination brands including Destination Niagara USA, Dutchess County Tourism, and Cabarrus County, NC—places with complex stakeholder environments, geographic identity challenges, and real pressure to compete. We know this terrain.

Josiah Brown of Famous Destination Marketing brings something no large agency can manufacture: two decades of lived experience inside destination organizations, from the smallest rural DMOs to statewide tourism leadership. As a former chair of the New York State Tourism Industry Association and a nationally recognized destination strategist, Josiah understands not just how to build a brand—but how to build the organization around it. His proprietary approach to DMO organizational design ensures that the brand TIRTDC launches doesn’t outpace its internal capacity to sustain, govern, and champion it. That distinction—brand and organization evolving together—is precisely what your RFP is asking for, and precisely what most agencies miss.

We also bring something uniquely relevant to this project: a natural understanding of the binational context you operate in. The 1000 Islands doesn’t stop at the international border, and neither should its brand strategy. Navigating the cultural, regulatory, and stakeholder nuances of a destination that spans both the United States and Canada—while creating a unified, licensable brand system—demands experience and instinct, not just a methodology. We have both.

The brand architecture we propose will give TIRTDC full intellectual property ownership and control, while empowering your partners, municipalities, chambers, attractions, tourism businesses on both sides of the river, to participate meaningfully in a shared brand identity. A brand that lives only in your organization’s marketing materials isn’t a destination brand. It’s a logo. We build brands
that last.

The 1000 Islands deserves a brand as extraordinary as the destination itself—bespoke, emotionally alive, strategically grounded, and built to last. We are ready to build it with you.

With genuine enthusiasm,

Thomas Mooney
CEO & Creative Director
FourthIdea

Josiah Brown
President & CEO
Famous Destination Marketing