Rioplex it is. Business leaders choose new brand name to market RGV, North Tamaulipas.

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MCALLEN, Texas – The CEO Group, which comprises business leaders, entrepreneurs and bankers from across the Rio Grande Valley and North Tamaulipas, has confirmed its brand name for the region – Rioplex.

The announcement was made at a meeting at McAllen Country Club on Wednesday, June 19, with white T-shirts bearing the brand being distributed to everyone present.

The marketing effort has the support of elected officials also, such as Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, Brownsville Mayor John Cowen, and Congressmen Vicente Gonzalez.

The ad-hoc CEO Group, part of the Hidalgo County Property Task Force, may now rebrand itself as the Rioplex Alliance, to promote the region on marketing trips abroad.

The group hopes to get buy-in from cities and economic development organizations across the Valley. It already has the support of the leaders of the Council for South Texas Economic Progress and the Rio Grande Valley Partnership. Both Adam Gonzalez, of COSTEP, and Daniel Silva, of the RGVP, attended the meeting.

Joaquin Spamer, president of Commodities Integrated Logistics, leads the CEO Group. He made an impassioned plea for the new marketing effort at the meeting.

“We’re trying to make sure that all of us entrepreneurs, bankers and businessman, that we help in the efforts to unite this region,” Spamer said.

Spamer said the Valley’s economic development organizations (EDOs) have been doing a good job sticking to their mandates. “They’re trying to accomplish their goals. The problem is that they’re doing it separately. We can accomplish a lot more by being united.”

Spamer then ran through the numbers on how much Valley’s EDOs combined spend on marketing. He said it topped $115 million a year. “If you put it all together, the amounts are huge.”

Spamer said that with a much smaller budget, Avocados of Mexico achieve a much bigger bang for their buck. Their $55 million gets them national commercials during the Super Bowl and name recognition across the world.

“So, what is our problem? The problem is that we are spending a lot of money. We have a lot of people involved in economic development. We are not working synchronized. Everybody is working differently from each other. And that’s what we’re trying to accomplish today.”

Helping Spamer with his marketing pitch was Sergio Gracia Badiola, president of Mexico Industry. In a powerpoint presentation, Badiola showed a map of the Rioplex region.

“What we’re going to do with Sergio is basically define our region because we have an identity problem. The Valley works like a 15-year-old with an identity crisis. We don’t even know who we are,” Spamer said.

Spamer said he has been on trade mission to places like South Korea and China and it has taken literally an hour to explain what and where the Valley is. Gracia confirmed this. He said that in India the only two cities in Texas that anyone has heard of are Houston and Dallas. He said they have not even heard of San Antonio.

Spamer said marketing money is currently being wasted on duplication. He said an EDO would go to Monterrey and make a “huge effort” to promote their city. “A couple of weeks later you have another city going to the exact same location, doing exactly the same.”

Another slide Gracia showed listed 3,000 companies in the Rioplex region, including many household names that have manufacturing plants here. Spamer said most people in the Valley do not know that.

Spamer said the mindset of what constitutes the region must change.

“You have to consider that the region is both sides of the border,” Spamer said. “Most of the businesspeople and those in the public sector, they see the Valley from the river north. And one of the biggest competitive advantages that we have in the Valley is Mexico.”

Redefining the region to include North Tamaulipas “makes us extremely powerful,” Spamer said. “That’s what makes us different. We have 3.5 million people (in the Rioplex region) in between 11 million people to the north and seven people to the south. This is where everything is happening.”

But again, Spamer insisted, not enough people are aware of this.

“Every time someone goes out there promoting his (or her) city, it doesn’t work. I’m sorry to say it, it doesn’t work. Because when they see the City of McAllen with 200,000 people, it doesn’t make the point.”

But if cities and EDOs would promote the region they would be able to point out that they have ocean ports. “Laredo doesn’t have an ocean port, we have four,” he said.

Spamer was at pains to point out that the new business group was not trying to replace the EDOs.

“We’re not trying to substitute what they are doing. What we’re trying to do is promote unity. That is where the prosperity comes from. If we work together, we are going to get that prosperity level that we all want for this region.”

As the new Rioplex T-shirts were being handed out, Spamer then explained how the new brand name came about. He said that with the help of the marketing departments of South Texas College and UT-Rio Grande Valley, focus groups were formed.

“How do we recognize this region on both sides of the border with one single name? One of the biggest challenges is that it needed to mean something on both sides of the border. We (currently) have a lot of very good brand names. One Region, One Voice is great. Rio South Texas is great. But it only means something to the U.S. side. It doesn’t mean something to the Mexican side. So we were faced with the challenge of finding a name that will mean something on both sides of the border.”

Spamer said the marketing team did a great job.

“They came up with about 50 names. They narrowed it down to five and then we proposed that the best name was Rioplex. Some young guy came up with it.”

And with regard to creating a positive brand name, Spamer said the CEO Group was not reinventing the wheel.

“This has been done in the past. And let me tell you why. Borderplex was an idea created by Ciudad Juarez, El Paso and Santa Teresa. They got together and said you know what, we need to make a change to better promote our region. Why? Because we cannot be fighting 30 years of bad press in a marketing campaign. We will never win. It is impossible to win.”

Spamer said it was the same for the Valley.

“If you go out there trying to sell McAllen and they Google McAllen they have 30 years of bad press talking about immigration issues in McAllen, security issues in McAllen,” Spamer said.

“So, we have two choices. We either spend billions of dollars trying to change the narrative that we have for this region (the Valley) or we just create a different nam. That’s what they (Ciudad Juarez, El Paso, and Santa Teresa) did. That’s what Borderplex did.

“They said, we’re not going to change the perception that everybody has about Ciudad Juarez. That’s impossible. But we can create a brand name for economic development purposes, we can create a brand name for industrial purposes. They did and they won.

“If you search Borderplex, it is all positive, if you search Cuidad Juarez you have a problem. So that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to come up with a name. We like Rioplex. I think it helps that there I=s already a Borderplex. I think these are good name.

“But we can market that brand name different from the bad press that we’ve been getting down here. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Spamer said with the new name, the business community wants to go out to the world.

“We want to go to the Olympics. We want to go to the nearshoring Olympics. We want to go to the brainshoring in the Olympics. And we want to say, you know what guys, we are here, we are the best region that you can set up a business in.

“And so, this is our name, and this is how we’re going to win.”

Editor’s Note: Here is an audio recording of part of the CEO Group meeting held at the McAllen Country Club on June 19, 2024:

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