Community Branding Turning ‘Everything’ Into a Winning Solution By Brian Miller
Every once in a while, I will see an old NFL highlight showing Abe Gibron, the former colorful Chicago Bears coach, standing on the sidelines shouting instructions to his defense. It goes something like this, “Watch the run! Watch the pass! Watch everything!”
While humorous, there is nothing I have read or heard that better describes the very serious task of developing and sustaining a community brand. Community branding involves multiple entities, each with ideas about what the brand should be and who should control it. Getting them all to embrace it is a challenge.
It is easy to talk about cooperative and collaborative efforts, but it is plain hard work to make it happen. In developing a community branding effort, you must realize that it will also generate a certain amount of conflict. A community must be able to embrace it and understand that conflict is a progressive step toward reaching its goals and not run from it. That’s probably why many community-branding attempts never seem to stick.
People in place
Start with the people who truly drive the community. And, ensure you have a consensus from leadership groups that change really needs to take place and is wanted. This includes the governmental body of the community first and foremost. You also need to engage the chamber, the economic development organization, the visitors’ bureau and, of course, public and private leaders. Almost certainly some will be concerned about losing their importance in the process. Often, one of the challenges is that the community is its own toughest competitor.
Terre Haute in Vigo County is a community much like many other Midwestern communities affected by economic transition. It has a proud history and a colorful past, yet it had difficulty embracing change, especially as the country experienced the transition from an industrial revolution to a communication revolution to a jobs revolution.
While Terre Haute prospered during the industrial revolution and became a regional hub, after about 1920 it experienced a downward spiral. Without a strong tax base and investment, infrastructure deteriorated, efforts toward self-improvement were fragmented and a negative culture developed that lasted for decades. In reality, the community had a wealth of unique assets, but Terre Haute focused on trying to emulate other communities it perceived to have all of the answers for success.
I was particularly impressed during a leadership meeting when a former mayor of another Indiana city told us that if his city had half of the assets of Terre Haute, his job would have been much easier. His comment was an impetus for change.
Starting anew
We realized that instead of trying to borrow what made other communities successful, we had to identify our key assets and leverage them. We formed Terre Haute Tomorrow, a visionary group pledged to look to the future with a strong commitment of long-term vision and continual change. We established the Terre Haute Economic Development Corporation as the community’s leading economic development organization, the single point of contact for economic development.
Research was conducted, which was vital in helping to eliminate subjective arguments as the branding was developed.
Next, we formulated an integrated marketing plan designed to address our cooperative and collaborative efforts. Then, as our first step toward creating a visual brand, we determined our active pledge – “Terre Haute will progressively, positively cultivate pride, passion and prosperity for the betterment of its residents and community stakeholders.”
Sending a message
The visual brand developed out of the tagline is “Terre Haute A Level Above®.” Taken from our name, which is French for “high land,” the tagline actively does two critically important things. It inspires a cultural change within – it is an active challenge to our citizens to engage themselves cooperatively with solutions to make our community better. And secondly, it states to the outside world that life here is better – a better place for a business to be profitable, with a strong, skilled and educated workforce, and a better “value” in its quality of life. The brand puts us on course for a new attitude of community excellence.
The results have been historic. Terre Haute and Vigo County have seen more than $1.9 billion of new public and private investment in just four years. Terre Haute is a model in Indiana for a community that has taken it upon itself to work toward excellence.
To see more about Terre Haute A Level Above, go to www.terrehaute.com and watch our community video. If you want to improve your community branding and be successful, start with one idea: “Watch everything!”
Author: Brian Miller is a partner in MillerWhite, LLC, an integrated marketing company with offices in Terre Haute and Indianapolis. He serves on the executive committee of the board of directors for the Terre Haute Economic Development Corporation and is a past president of the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce. Miller can be contacted at (812) 232-2875 or miller@millerwhite.com
Community Branding