The Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau recently launched its official rebranding to “Clearly Kosciusko,” and Wednesday, March 20, it had a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the launch. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — The Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau recently launched its official rebranding to “Clearly Kosciusko,” and Wednesday, March 20, a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce was held to celebrate the launch.

Cori Humes, director of the KCCVB, explained KCCVB is one of the founding members of Clearly Kosciusko, along with The Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation.

“Back in early 2023, Lilly (Center for) Lakes and Streams asked us if we would like to take management of the brand since they had been managing since 2018. We agreed to do that, and it’s been wonderful, but since the missions were fairly similar — our mission and theirs — we decided that, with the founding partners’ permission, to completely take over Clearly Kosciusko here at the Visitors Center since it is such an encompassing and welcoming brand,” she said.

Previously, the Visitors Bureau’s brand was “Live Well in the Moment.”

“So now we’ve completely rebranded to this, and continuing to establish and push those efforts that the group has been doing since 2018. We’ll continue to amplify that a little bit more,” Humes said.

In 2018, the Lilly Center applied for and was awarded its first grant to fund a billboard campaign introducing Clearly Kosciusko, according to information in the 2024-25 Kosciusko County Visitors Guide. In 2020, Clearly Kosciusko became a Kosciusko Leadership Academy whitepaper project, with a goal of expanding the Clearly Kosciusko brand into a countywide brand and voice. Clearly Kosciusko extended to become a partnership between the four founding member organizations.

In the past a business could co-brand with the KCCVB’s brand, and Humes said that will continue.

“We want municipalities, organizations to continue to utilize this brand, along with their own brands — just to showcase how much we love Kosciusko County locally as residents and businesses,” she said.

They’re always trying to push that “live, work, play and learn” mentality as partners on the economic development side in the county to continue to try to recruit workers to the county.

“Those efforts will still continue. We’re just leading the effort instead of Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams doing that,” Hume said.

One of the most common question Humes said they get is, what does “Clearly Kosciusko” mean?

“It is whatever you want it to mean,” she said. “So it was originally meant to showcase the lakes. That was its original goal. That’s when, at Grace, they came up with that brand initially. So it was to showcase our 100+ lakes and the clarity of them.”

Now, what Clearly Kosciusko means depends on who you ask. “It’s just very varied. I think that’s the uniqueness of the brand,” she said. “… Whatever it means, that’s what it kind of means for you. But, ultimately, we’re still using it to bring visitors here — visiting friends and relatives — all of those great things that we still traditionally do here at the Convention and Visitors Bureau. We’re just using that wonderful brand that is Clearly Kosciusko.”

As part of the KCCVB officially launching the rebranding last month, they refreshed their website and all the branding.
“We’ll be continuing to market it as we do, if not even more … to bring visitors here from throughout the United States,” Humes indicated.

If anyone is interested in co-branding Clearly Kosciusko with their business or organization, they can contact the KCCVB at (574) 269-6090 or visit the website.

“We’re happy to provide those logos and those media kits for their usage. Or if they have any other questions, just let us know,” Humes said.

The Visitor’s Center operating hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The vestibule is open 24/7

The Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau recently launched its official rebranding to “Clearly Kosciusko.” The rebranding can be seen on new T-shirts (in background) at the Chamber and goody bags (left). The 2024-25 Kosciusko County Visitors Guide can be seen in the bottom right.Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.