ORANGE BEACH, AL – Artist Lisette Normann had an idea for a logo representing Orange Beach.

It’s simple, but classy. And eye-catching.

“I made the brand over a year and a half ago and I kept it in my pocket because I wasn’t certain what I was going to do with it,” Normann said.

Then she came up with an idea that saw the logo splashed all over town on banners prominently displayed on light poles along Perdido Beach Boulevard and Canal Road.

Normann’s idea was a partnership with the City of Orange Beach. She’d foot the bill for the banners – about $20,000 – if the city would hang them.

“When I designed the brand my initial thought was just that: it was a brand for Orange Beach,” she said. “The banners, I never saw them for self-promotion. I know the power of a good brand.”

The city council agreed and readily jumped at the opportunity to partner by displaying the banners as supportive for the entire city.

“She just didn’t bring an idea, she funded an idea,” Councilman Jerry Johnson said.

But a stir was created among other local businesses in the city. The logo is also the logo of The Orange Beach Store, a new business owned by Normann in The Commons, the shopping center behind McDonald’s, on Canal Road. It’s similar to her first business, The Fairhope Store.

City officials acknowledge it is a logo of the business, but also point out the banners have no mention of the store.

“We wanted that logo as part of who we were,” Mayor Tony Kennon said. “It doesn’t say Orange Beach Store. It’s Orange Beach. We love it, we want to make it part of what we do.”

Ken Cooper, who along with wife Sharon Swann owns the Orange Beach Community Website and are the creators of the wildly popular OBA logo, said some business owners are having a hard time digesting the banners.

“I think blanketing the city with one business’s logo is what caused the animosity,” Cooper said. “The animosity from the shop owners, and I’m not one, is that a new business comes into town and blankets the town with their logo. And they’ve been in town for years with their shops selling souvenirs and clothing and the sign ordinance is very strict.

“But you put up 92 signs with one business’s logo on it.”

City officials insist the signs are there to promote every business and every activity in the city.

“They allowed us to use it on the banners to promote every single business in this city,” Councilwoman Annette Mitchell said. “It is to promote our city. It doesn’t advertise their store. And that’s the difference.”

Cooper had another question for the council.

“If you owned a souvenir shop and you woke up the next day and there was a competing souvenir shop that has the 92 banners all over town would you feel the same way?” he asked.

That experience happened to Larry Basil, owner of Too Hot Mamas in SanRoc Cay. He also has a store of the same name in Pelican Place in Gulf Shores.

“I get in my car and I’m almost in shock as I see one after another after another and find out there’s 92 and it’s like ‘they got free advertising,’” Basil said. “I’m not allowed to put a banner in front of my store. I didn’t know the city was in the banner business. It was just a shock.”

Basil said he was speaking for at least a half dozen other business owners and more were calling him every day about the banners. During the meeting he said he felt it was free advertising for The Orange Beach Store.

“I can’t say I walked away from the meeting feeling any different,” Basil said.

Kennon said Normann, who has owned property in Orange Beach for years and lives in Bear Point part time, came to the council at a time when the leaders were looking for a spring campaign.

“We had been looking for something to do in the spring to add color between Easter and Memorial Day,” Kennon said. “This came to us and it was what we were looking for.”

Councilman Jeff Boyd said any thoughts of favoritism to one business never entered his or other councilmembers’ minds. He and Kennon, Johnson and Mitchell said any business is welcome to come forward with similar ideas.

“If there was a business association in Orange Beach and they came to us with a business promotion of banners representing whatever businesses they wanted to represent and they were doing to fund the banners I don’t think for a minute we would hesitate,” Kennon said. “We welcome other suggestions in the future.

“We have bent over backwards to help our business community in every way imaginable. And I’m so sorry there’s hard feelings over something we had the best intentions on.”

On Thursday the city issued a release inviting any businesses with marketing ideas to submit them to the city. Part of the release reads:

The city will institute a promotional program for businesses to be eligible to participate in a citywide outreach and marketing effort that could use business names and possibly logos on flags, banners, promotional signage or other means to promote areas of interest to visitors.