Florida’s ‘First Coast News’ sparks ‘energy’ in image campaign

Tegna’s Jacksonville, Florida, duopoly of WJXX and WTLV is using a similar image campaign as a sister station.

Together, the two stations, affiliated with ABC and NBC, respectively, brand as “First Coast News,” so the campaign is appropriately titled “This is our First Coast.”

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The campaign is similar to the “This is Our SD” campaign from San Diego’s KFMB, which is also owned by Tegna. That campaign, in turn, is based on one called “Our KC” first used in 2019 by Fox-owned WDAF in Kansas City.

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All three use a similar song — but each with different lyrics — from Stephen Arnold Music.

First Coast News’ version notably departs from the two-character abbreviation for its hometown.

While Jacksonville is sometimes referred to as “Jax” or “J-ville, it’s also likely that, in addition to wanting to coordinate with its news branding, the station also wanted to avoid using a specific city name because it covers a multi-county and multi-city area of northeast Florida (it also probably didn’t want to run amok with CBS affiliate WJAX, which brands as “CBS 47 Action News Jax”).

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The region is collectively commonly known as the “First Coast,” a name originally created for a tourism campaign that stuck around, a reference to the fact it’s the first coastline encountered when entering the state from the north on the Atlantic side.

Like with KFMB’s version, First Coast News’ integrates elements from the group graphics package the stations share.

On-screen graphics in this version relies heavily on thick outlines of large lettering along with a lively gradient of violet, blue, orange and teal that appears as a border animation around the station logo and along the top and bottom of the screen in select scenes.

The “hey yeah” line is also featured both in the song and on-screen as is the wording “on your side” and station talent names.

First Coast News also notably adds light burst effects to select on-screen text, something that isn’t generally present in the group look.

The First Coast version also switches the lyrics to start with “We are energy, chasing our dreams” but shares the “… a place so alive, endless and free” line with KFMB’s.

It also features burned in letterboxing as a stylistic effect.