Your Unique Downtown Brand, Logo and Messaging
Anya Codack
President - Yfactor
Your Unique Downtown Brand, Logo and Messaging
When people in your community take a look at the place branding that has been developed for their downtown or Mainstreet – often under the umbrella of economic development marketing – what they see mostly are “things”: logos, banners, flowers, events – all sorts of “things”. But what should really matter to the economic development officer are not so much the “things” but, instead, the processes and the people. Let’s take a closer look at this.
Logos for Downtowns or Mainstreets
Consider the Mainstreet logo. What a struggle it can be to develop! People regard this thing, so visible and prominent, as the brand – but it’s not.
Most economic development professionals understand that a brand is a process, not a thing. In many cases, however, you can’t sell that idea to the downtown stakeholders whose future you are trying to bolster. They will focus on the thing – the logo. And they won’t agree on what it should be.
With that in mind, what should be the primary role of the economic development office or the consultant leading the effort to develop a Mainstreet logo? We suggest that it is to get the stakeholders to agree on what criteria should be used to evaluate the logo.
Those criteria should align with the brand strategy and be supported by research that shows what differentiates the community and its downtown; its clusters of creative people, its cultural map, and those characteristics and values that are permanent fixtures in people’s minds.
When one or more draft logos are created, they can be evaluated according to the criteria developed by the stakeholders. Normally six or eight criteria are sufficient.
Differentiating Your Downtown or Mainstreet Brand
Many Mainstreets look the same all over North America. Some are prettier than others but it is often very challenging to devise a brand that differentiates a Mainstreet on the basis of the function and character of its buildings and surroundings.
But if you change your perspective and look at the people instead, you realize that there are things they do downtown that is different in each place.
A visit to downtown Lexington, KY., can be entertaining as well as instructive. All summer, a team of engaging Downtown Ambassadors amuses visitors with songs and skits, in addition to disseminating information about downtown dining, shopping, and special events. (Our thanks to Martin Bohl for pointing this out.) Observing these high school students with their colorful t-shirts sporting a “definitely downtown” logo, we are inspired to ask, “What differentiating or value-added experiences can people find on your Mainstreet?”
Creating a unique downtown brand strategy can be easier when you realize that the attractions offered downtown – festivals, shows, themed restaurants, street-corner entertainers – attract people as connectivity points.
Remember what question young people are always answering on their mobile devices – “What are you doing now?” If there’s a more interesting answer to that question to be found downtown, that’s where they will go. They want to see themselves and be seen as desirable to be connected to. Asking the same question of your Mainstreet stakeholders can jump-start their thinking about how to differentiate your downtown brand.
Downtown Messaging and Communications
We return to the themes of balance and connectivity from our previous article (please see “Place Branding Your Downtown,” published April 24, 2012).
Just as there should be a balance between meeting the needs of Mainstreet and the rest of the community, there should be a balance between efforts made by the economic development office and the mainstream stakeholders. The economic developer cannot act alone in disseminating the branding messages. The community must be involved or it will become divorced from the branding process and disinterested – they will think of it as someone else’s job.
In his book Destination Branding for Small Cities, Bill Baker of Total Destination Marketing gives numerous examples of branding communications programs that succeed because economic developers have made connections with stakeholder groups and enterprises. An example is the Washington County Visitors Association in Oregon.
Baker quotes Brian Harney, marketing director for the association, as saying, “To ensure that we can consistently deliver the high-quality wine, sport, and nature tourism experiences that are promised by our brand, we have established product development partnerships.”
“These groups are designed to be self-sustaining networks so that product providers, many of whom are non-profit entities, can collaborate in enhancing their products and marketing through the unifying themes of our core brand experiences. This is far more advantageous than for each entity to try to go it alone in their product development initiatives and marketing.”
The same principle applies to Mainstreet's place branding and communications. These, like collaborating with tourism product providers, are processes, which depend for success on understanding people and finding out how they make their community special. From those people and those processes, good things can be made.