EP 14: Branding an Entire City
When we think of the word "brand" in an advertising sense, surely we first picture the Nike Swoosh, or the Coca-Cola can, or the Ford medallion, or, who knows, maybe the Quaker Oats guy. And for good reason. Their owners put forth gargantuan levels of money and strategy to make you think of them before their competitors. But what about when branding is the project of a local government? It's been happening a lot over the past decade, as cities and towns across the country seek to freshen or sharpen their images, most often to win new businesses, residents and economic growth. Just like with the private sector, town branding or rebranding is a delicate process that requires steady navigation to stay out of the ditch. What are the best practices? What's the secret? What happens when a town branding goes right? Or wrong? On this episode we talk with a town that's embarking on a branding project, another town that recently completed one, and a researcher who's written a lot on the subject. If your town is thinking about branding or rebranding, you might want to give this one a listen. Show notes: Southern City article, "Being a Brand Apart"- http://www.nclm.org/programs-services/publications/southern-city/2016/2016-05/Pages/BeingaBrandApart.aspx Town of Morrisville, "Live Connected. Live Well." - http://www.townofmorrisville.org/index.aspx?NID=794 City of Newton branding initiative - http://newtonnc.gov/brand/ Town of Fuquay-Varina, "A Dash More" - http://www.fuquay-varina.org/416/Fuquay-Varina---A-Dash-More Staci Zavattaro - https://www.cohpa.ucf.edu/directory/staci-zavattaro/ Zavattaro on Twitter, with links to books - https://twitter.com/staciwithaz
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. We've never gone through a a full branding campaign. So this will be the first time we've actually gone through, done the research, developed a brand, and come up with something that is is very specific to Newnan based on research. The tedious art and science of developing a brand for an entire town. What happens when local governments take up these projects?
How does an entire town stuff its identity into a single tagline? Just like for a private company, the stakes are pretty big. My name is Ben Brown and this is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities, episode 14. Earlier this year, I wrote an article for Southern City Magazine about the frequency of cities and towns rebranding themselves. As in, coming up with a new tagline and logo, among other things, to market themselves to outsiders, much like a private company would to notify the world of its existence or to refresh itself for a new generation, to make a subtle reference to the old Pepsi campaign. There was a ton of material to work with. A lot of cities and towns have gone through this process in the past few years. In some cases, it was an effort to update an old, outdated brand. Otherwise, it was often to come up with something altogether new. One of the towns I looked at while researching for the article was Morrisville, North Carolina. Starting a few years ago, the town council started to show interest in boosting the town's profile somehow. Morrisville isn't terribly far from Raleigh, in one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. And that meant that other towns in the same region, like Fuquay Varina, Apex, and Garner, and plenty of others, were also feeling the same growth. So how was Morrisville going to show that it was any different? And why? What was the point? Why did a town need to have its own brand? That's what we're gonna get into today. Why local governments go through these branding initiatives. What the goals are, the outcomes we've seen, what happens when it doesn't go so well. And we'll talk about what towns should maybe consider when starting to talk about a rebranding. In Morrisville, where about 25,000 people live, the tagline for a long time was the heart of The Triangle, referring to the Research Triangle region of North Carolina. It's anchored by Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, where altogether more than 2,000,000 people live. Again, this area is growing like crazy, and so a lot of these smaller communities are seeing a lot of change. The Triangle is famous for its r and d and technology sectors, which Morrisville has tapped into. For instance, the town is home to The US headquarters of Lenovo. So after a few years of trying to align its public image with the natural and professional qualities of the triangle, Morrisville, this month, came out with a new logo, a new logo for the town. It was a lowercase m surrounded by blue and green and a new tagline, live connected, live well. That tagline was meant to quickly convey the town's focus on connectivity, a word that has technological connotations, but also community and opportunity. And while this is an honest brand for the town, coming up with it wasn't as simple as just spending a day on introspection and jotting down potential slogans. I mean, think of the consequences of getting it wrong or rolling out a bland or even potentially disastrous marketing campaign. So Morrisville did what a lot of towns have been doing. They hired a private company to develop a brand, a company with experience in marketing, and that potentially valuable third party hand to guide the process. So just recently, I got a press release from the city of Newton, North Carolina announcing the launch of a branding campaign.
So I reached out. Newton is about 40 miles,
Northwest of Charlotte. This is Alex Frick, the public information officer for the city of Newton.
We are the county seat of Catawba County. Our population is about 13,000, and,
we are a traditional manufacturing community that's that's transitioning transitioning into new things. And a lot of towns have gone through rebranding in the past few years. First, does Newton already have a brand or a slogan that it wants to update or replace, or is this gonna be something that's kinda brand spanking new?
Newton has a logo that's been around since the nineteen eighties or nineteen nineties, and that's we've never gone through a a full branding campaign. So this will be the first time we've actually gone through, done the research, developed a brand, and come up with something that is is very specific to Newton and based on research. What does the current logo look like? The current logo is it's the word Newton, and the n is sort of encapsulated in a heart.
So, tell me a little bit more about the process ahead. What what's the goal? What what do you hope the outcome is?
Absolutely. We are the the main goal is to, grow our population by recruiting active adults, professionals, and entrepreneurs. We want to be able to make Newton stand out among the crowd. There are a lot of, cities seeking, you know, development and seeking new residents, and we think this branding campaign will will really help us stand out.
I think he told me before the call, that the the city was contracting with an outside firm for the project, which is which is pretty typical with rebrandings. What does the why does the city of Newton see that as important versus doing the entire project by itself in house?
Just the the scope of the work to do the branding to to to tease out the brand, properly is something that we're just not capable of doing in house. This is gonna be about a thirty two week process that we are partnered with Northstar, Destination Strategies to develop Newton's brand. And we, felt that we would get a better end result and something that we could use for a considerable amount of time if we went with an outside company that's that's used to doing this sort of work.
Northstar is one of the more prolific marketing companies in the space of community branding. And earlier this year, I spoke with their president and CEO, Don McCann, about the general philosophy of tagging the identity of an entire community. And he said without the right research and thinking, it's easy to come up with something that's pretty generic and really doesn't do much of anything for a town. He told me, quote, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard small town charm and big city amenities. That may be relevant to a given community, but it's not the least bit distinct. End quote. Back to Newton. Alex Frick said they're expecting a package of new marketing materials, including a new logo. And how are the residents and businesses of Newton? How are they gonna be involved with this? What opportunities do they have to help shape the brand?
Absolutely. We'll have, lots of opportunities for public input. We think that that's the the best way to do this project is to to get input from the community. We'll have focus groups with, various stakeholders throughout the community from residents to businesses and industries to nonprofits, and all of the information that we get from,
our interactions with the community will be used to to develop the brand. And, do the residents I know you guys are very early on in the process, but do the residents, seem to get what the town is trying to do? Is there any confusion as to what the goal is? You know, sometimes there can be sort of a fear that the the wrong approach is going to be taken or that there's gonna be sort of, like, an identity adopted that conflicts with certain values there. I mean, is that come up at all? Sure. That's not something that's really come up. Again, we're so early in the process. We haven't I don't know I don't even know if we've gotten to the point where that that would come up if it's going to come up. But, also, getting those people involved is an important part of the process so that it that doesn't even come up as a scenario, we hope. This seems key, that if you're going to recruit outside voices to help with rebranding, it's vital to get the inside voices too. And most towns I've talked with agree. The city of Mebane, North Carolina went all out with that. Even though they hired a branding firm, they set up numerous focus groups and interest groups, long time residents, new arrivals, business people, religious leaders, all so they could cover the bases and come up with something fair and representative. They also did an online survey, and they used the results to glean some common denominators. They saw recurring words that represented Mebane. The tagline or motto that they ended up approving was positively charming. It's the pro version, the better and more standout version of that feeling of small town charm and big amenities. In the course of researching this topic, I learned that local government officials and people who work for some of the private marketing companies often fielded a common question. So from a research perspective, everyone always asks me, why is this a public administration issue, which I find so fascinating? This is Stacy Zavataro, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida's School of Public Administration and a research associate at the school's Center for Public and Nonprofit Management. She also used to work in local government for the city of Coral Springs, Florida. She's written whole books about cities marketing or branding themselves. Stacy, why have we seen so many cities and towns brand or rebrand themselves over the past handful of years, and and what's at stake with that? I I think there's a couple of ways to answer that question.
The first one is it's a term that people are hearing a lot about, and that's good and bad. You know, it's good because branding, you know, can be this really active, strategic, you know, exercise to get people really thinking about their sense of place. But it becomes a little bit troubling when, you know, maybe the economic conditions in your city aren't right for that kind of thing, or the social condition, whatever it is. So you you hear this buzzword, and a lot of people think, oh, we need that. And when you ask why, it's okay. Our neighbor does. Okay. So, a lot of it is driven to, at least from, some of the research I've done, by both, interestingly, an economic and social kind of factor. So, the economic one is probably quite clear. You know, if we do this, hopefully we have some measures in place that can prove XYZ outcomes. You know, did we, you know, undertake a branding campaign and, you know, really strategize about, we want to be a premier tourist destination. We want to increase our local businesses along Main Street. We want to increase our residential base. Whatever that goal is, there should be some ways that you can measure kind of that relationship. You know, did the return on investment work in that economic sense? From a social sense, again, it's done strategically and, correctly over the long term. It can really bring a community together. There's some interesting research about, you know, how we as people, internalize our sense of community. And we can all maybe think of an example of, you know, if some of the landscape change or the aesthetics, how we perceive them of the place change and what that does, or if our neighborhood changes and how we, you know, remember it a certain way, you know, our place identity, our community identity becomes such a part of us that when, you know, something might shift in a way that we're uncomfortable with, it can bring the community together in that way. But to say, no, let's save this, do this, or, you know, when this is initiated by a municipality, they say, we really want community feedback. We want you, the folks here are day in, day out, to tell us what this place means to you, you know, rather than having somebody come and say, well, here's what this place should mean to you. If you live it and breathe it, you know it better than anybody else.
And so you touched on this a little bit, when our branding might not be What are your thoughts on that? When when is the time right to,
to start a branding process? Yeah. That's an interesting question. I can give you an example from, the city I was working with, some of my students. And I were working with the city in Mississippi, when I was teaching at a university there. They came to us and it was a graduate capstone project that really needs a brand. Okay? We want to focus on increasing our the presence of family. Sounds great. Mhmm. Schools were actually failing schools, and our students, you know, did research and found, you know, gosh. You want to check family. You need great schools. They said, no, no, no, no. We're not going to fix that. We just really want a brand so we can market our place. Well, that's not, it's not going to matter. You could do it all you want, and then people are still going to be able to go online or use whatever research they have to find that if I want to raise a family here and the schools aren't great, there's nothing really about a brand that can fix that. And in some of my research, I found another kind of potential pitfall is when, the municipality focuses so much energy on only image. Everything has to look very pretty, obviously feel the same. And clearly, there are reasons for that, and I understand all of them and appreciate all of them with, you know, having logos on everything and having the same look and feel. But it becomes a little bit problematic when you start using, you know, image laden words or even images themselves to portray something that's not quite there. Or you use that language to manipulate people, in a certain way into thinking something is really changing when maybe it's not. Maybe we've just been trying to tell you it's been changing for the last six months. Then when you do your annual, you know, citizen satisfaction survey, you can say, oh my gosh, that's so great, and we haven't really done anything substantive. So, there's this interesting fine line between still giving folks, you know, information they need in a clear way and really using your words to manipulate that. So, for me, that's where I in some of my work, I call this, you know, kind of branding through phases of the image where, you know, you start with just pure here it is. Here's the information. Take it or leave it. You can kind of move through to that last phase of, you know, this image transition when the entity is going through a branding of, you know, everything is just image, image, image with really no more of that substance behind it. The cities have to walk that fine line of still giving people, you know, active information they need to be active participants, you know, in, government decision making
to make the best choices that they can while also living up to this brand identity that's been, you know, fleshed out. So that ends up being a good rule of thumb is having something that you wanna market, but having something that's actually honest and will prove itself when outside parties come in. Sure. What are some other, some some other good rules of thumb for a municipality when considering
a branding or a rebranding process? There's an interesting, research coming out right now about this notion of inclusive and exclusive branding. Some of our colleagues over in Europe are doing this, quite heavily because we see a lot of great, branding research and branding campaigns coming from over there. So, the rule of thumb that, they're looking at right now is kind of inclusive versus exclusive. So, if you do this process inclusively and really getting kind of what we had talked about before of, you know, people actively engaged in the process from the get go, so the municipality needs to be open to say, Yes, locals, we want your feedback. We want your genuine, you know, opinion, even if it's, we don't get it. We think this is silly. Why are we branding? That's a great opportunity to have a dialogue about this and to really give people a place where they can feel that their image of their city, and how they perceive it, how it makes them feel, why they moved there in the first place, why they plan to stay there, why they want their friends to move there, why they want people to come visit there, why they should start their own business there, and really get that information out into the public realm so people can talk about it. The notion of exclusivity, really sees these branding practices, delegated to only a select few. Maybe it's a very popular business owner, some of the more powerful folks in the city, you know, chambers of commerce, excuse me. Again, all important entities. Not to say that they aren't, But when it becomes this very shut off process, that only a few get invited to, and then all of a sudden, you roll out, hey. We are brand x. Mhmm. It doesn't really people don't have any buy in. They can't go tell their neighbor, Hey, I went to all those community meetings. You know, I was a part of this. Oh, my gosh. That was my suggestion, or how they took my suggestion and made it something real. So, there's that disconnect when you have the exclusive process.
At Municipal Equation, we're not in the business of making fun of municipalities. But since we're trying to educate about rebranding on this episode, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that sometimes rebranding goes bad. Sometimes that's just by way of not involving the public enough or just coming up with something that's rather boring. I've googled around enough to have seen plenty of cases of a town brand or logo that brings nothing but, well, mockery. A famous case from 2010 is Dunwoody, Georgia, which rolled out a logo that, according to many observers, was pretty close to Walmart's logo with a similar font and asterisk. The tagline was smart people, smart place. And there are plenty of cases of a town hiring someone to rebrand the place, only to learn later that the logo or slogan they got was already in use somewhere else by another town. So there's a lot to consider when crafting something that's supposed to be a statement of identity and quality to the outside world. Again, just taking a few seconds of thought probably would have, you know, stopped some of these from from happening. But we can tie that right back into, you know, an inclusive
process. You know, it's it's really thinking about your place, what makes your place special and different. And there's to your question, there's usually something, but if there's not, that's a real hard, deep look. Right? I mean, if you're gonna say we have great city parks, well, what is so great about that your neighboring, you know, city doesn't have? Can you really hinge your whole identity on a local park? And if your answer is yes, you've got to really hammer home then why are these parks better than any other park that why would people drive to our community, right, and then hopefully go have lunch here, spend some money to help our economy. Why? So really being open and honest with yourself as a municipality to say, if we're gonna spend our time, our resources, our money, you know, are we gonna end up in the newspaper, or not?
An example of a rebranding success case is Fuquave Arena, North Carolina, again in the booming Triangle region. The local government and the town of about 25,000 residents debuted a sweeping new brand campaign in December 2015, so just a year ago. It's actually one I like a lot personally for the colors and the modern font and the fact that the tagline really does speak specifically to the town itself, a town with a rare hyphenated name. Bouncing off that, the tagline is a dash more. And it's going into all kinds of external communications, including economic development work. Here's Adam Mitchell. He is the town manager for Fuquay Varina. If you could kind of initiate us, why did Fuquay Varina go through a branding process to begin with? Was there an old brand that you wanted to replace, or did the town go through some kind of transition, or what was that conversation all about?
Yeah. It was a little bit of everything. You know, certainly, we had not gone through a brand refresh in probably close to twenty five years for the town. We had had a, when the town had gone through that process, a process back in the the mid eighties and, and that brand and and, logo and presentation to the public was something we sort of stuck with for a long period of time. For us, it was more about acknowledging that the times have changed, that we're not the same community that we were twenty twenty, twenty five years ago. We aren't the same community we were ten years ago with the growth that we've experienced here just in the last decade. It's changed the town, quite a bit. I mean, there it used to be a a small community where everybody knew everybody and and we still have some of that here, but it's not not the same. There's a lot lot more new faces, a lot of new families moving in, locating into this area. So for us, it was acknowledging that and more than anything, reinventing ourselves. We, you know, we acknowledge that we're in modern times and and, you know, we're trying to, recruit for the best commercial and retail opportunities in our town. We're trying to recruit for the best new businesses that will create jobs. We're trying to you know, demonstrate that we are a great family town, a great community to raise a family. And I don't know that our our previous brand really did that for us anymore. And so, the board, the town board, the mayor, and the commissioners acknowledge that, know, with with the changing times, it was appropriate to reinvent ourselves and put on a a new face to the to the outward world and really demonstrate who we are as a community, in a more modern modern
way. And what was the presentation of the old brand? What what message did it deliver?
Well, we really didn't have, a tagline of of much of of anything to really speak to anyone about. We had a logo that was, very traditional. And so I guess to some degree, it spoke about traditional values and that we are a family town, but it really never the the brand itself was more about what the, elected officials and the staff tried to portray. It really didn't work for us. We had to still do a lot of work on our own to try to explain who we are as a community. Okay. I think in in in some ways, you know, our name works for us. It's a little bit unique, a little bit, different.
The fact that hyphenation.
Yeah. The high the hyphenation, but the fact also that it's just a unique name, Fuquay Varina, is just a unique name. And so to some degree, our old brand sort of sparked the interest in people by, you know, just the name alone. But we didn't really have a tagline or slogan or anything really to demonstrate sort of this fresh modern, you know, community. And and, really, you know, the new brand sort of brings that out in a number of ways that we could talk about more.
So, yeah, how did you start that process once the town and its leadership acknowledge that, you know, times have changed, we need to reflect something more modern to the outside world. What was the what were the first steps in starting that process? We really had a vision setting workshop,
that first year. And and in that in that retreat, the town board, agreed and settled on that, you know, we if we're gonna invest in our infrastructure, if we're gonna invest in our quality of life, if we're gonna invest in our downtown, we're gonna invest in things that are important to people. We really need to have a brand that supports that. And so, we, at the high levels, talked about what that, what that process could look like with essentially the board, and this was in February of of two thousand and fourteen. And essentially the board said, listen. We're gonna program monies into the, fourteen, fifteen operating budget. And, you know, this is one of the, the outcomes we want out of the next fiscal year is is beginning that process and working towards achieving a new brand for the town. And
so budgeting some money, is that money that was used by in house resources, in house personnel, or did you take it to the outside to the private sector to try to,
get their perspective on shaping the brand? Yeah. We took it to the private sector. I think we all realized that we had a we everyone involved, both the elected officials and staff, had an idea about what we wanted our brand to be and what we thought we should be saying to our community and what we should be saying to, the outside world about Fuquay Varina, but I don't think that any of us thought that we were the experts at it. We none of us were experienced in in brand development. And, we do know that in the private sector, there are a lot of a lot of companies that specialize in that sort of assistance and consultation. And so, yeah, for us, it was putting monies in the operating budget so that we could bring on a a consultant and and, and really go through a process that involved the public. We wanted our stakeholders, our citizens, our residents, our businesses, our property owners to really have a say in this process. And so for us, it was getting a group of individuals and outside privatized group of individuals to consult with us and really bring everybody to the table and have everybody talking about what should the brand be for the next ten, fifteen, twenty years possibly for the town of Fuquay brand.
And how did you track down the right company to carry this out? Because I would imagine that you'd wanna feel really comfortable, not only with the cost, but also with the company itself. And, you know, how does this outside group see us? Do they get what Fuquay Quay Varina is all about, what the identity is? You know, is that something you were very cautious about?
We were very cautious about it, and it was very important to us to make sure that we had that, that right fit for the town. And so we went through a, a competitive process to, really engage interested companies and teams that wanted to work, with us. We wanted them to work with us just as as much as we wanted to work with them. And so we, we went through an RFQ process where we where we, first looked at the qualifications of different companies. I think we probably had, my memory serves me correctly, probably eight or nine different companies submit, interest statements and qualification statements. We certainly requested that, when they submitted their interest statements to us and their qualification statement that they provided examples of other, either cities and towns across the state or country that they had worked with or even private sector companies that they had worked with. That interview process was was wonderful because you make a connection with these people right away, and you're able to you're able to understand if if these are a group of individuals that kinda get you to understand where your vision is, what you're thinking about your community, and and ultimately can help engage, the community and stakeholders into into the process and and, come up with some ideas and concepts that perhaps we ourselves could not do. I mean, that's what we really wanted. We sort of knew where we wanted to go, but we weren't necessarily sure how we wanted to convey that. And so these different companies and ultimately the one we chose you know, certainly demonstrated that they had experience of coming up with ideas that that were unique and, special to to the clients that they had worked with in the past.
The town ended up choosing a company that was based in the area in Raleigh, partly because they knew the terrain that was part of the philosophy, but also because they knew the business character and what might work for the town. And so was that kind of the goal? Was it economic development? Because it seems like you weren't having any trouble attracting residents. So what was kind of the goal of the the branding?
I think it was both. I mean, we actually the the two staff members, for the town that were tapped with leading this project, although myself and the assistant manager weren't very involved, we had two two department heads that were, really to point to point people for this. One was our communications director, Susan Weiss, and the other was our economic development director, Jim Seymour. And so absolutely, economic development was a an important piece of the puzzle. Our economic development director, you know, we felt needed to be able to go out, when he travels to, whether it's to trade shows or whether it's to to meet with a specific company. Needs to be able to have a clear message to deliver and needs to be able to do so that represents our community in a well balanced way. You know, what we know from an economic development standpoint is that companies are looking for a great environment to run and operate their business, but their most important asset are their employees. Their employees are most productive when they feel good about the communities that they work and live in and that there's plenty of things for them and their families to do, when they're not at work. And so, what we have found through our economic development efforts is that quality of life and a great community environment, things for people to do, a good family town, good schools. These are all things that, are important to employers that we're trying to recruit and attract here. And we want our, citizens to to feel a sense of pride, about their their hometown and about their community. And the brand helps them do that. And, it makes them feel like the town is, cares about them, which we do. And it makes them feel as if the town really is taking pride in itself.
And with so much public response, were there situations or instances where you had to kinda reconcile, maybe competing narratives where maybe there are people who were more representative of change and then you had a contingent of the population that were more, hoping for, I I guess, capturing more of the traditional properties of Fuquay Varina. Did that come up at all? Yeah. So we, you know, we heard,
a little bit about that. While we certainly demonstrated a a new era and and a modern time in Fuquay Varina and and and a transition of of of new in our community, we also didn't wanna lose fact of of the, the sense of place that we've worked hard to create, the history in our community, which there is a deep history here in this town. Mhmm. And, you know, the the values, the community values, the family values that were important to the to the community. So we wanted to take that in mind. When we went through this public process, we got that feedback. I don't know that it was so much competing values as it was more of everybody seemed to be on support and recognizing that the town was a different community today than it it was ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. And so that there was a need to represent that in our brand. But at the same time, we did hear feedback. Don't lose sight of what makes us such a special community. And so I don't think that there was, we we didn't get get the feedback that there would it had to be one or the other. We got the feedback that it could really be both if it was designed and crafted and thought about in a way that that blended both of history, values,
and future all into one. And what did they recommend? What did they deliver? So what,
they came out with, I'm sure you've seen that the, the logo, and I'll explain that to you in a little more detail. But, the tagline is, Fuquay Varina, a dash more. And so and what does a dash more mean? Well, it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and that's the beauty of this. For us, we are one of, a handful of, communities that have hyphenation or a dash in their community name. Matter of fact, in North Carolina, there's really only, one other one which we did have connection with, and that's Winston Salem. Winston Salem. Yeah. North Carolina. You know, so we wanted to, to use that to our advantage. And so I believe in the research, they, identified only 23, 23, I believe, is the correct number. 23 hyphenated communities in The United States, and Fuquay Varina being one of them. And so it's it's unique to us, in the sense that there's, you know, over 500 cities and towns in North Carolina, and there's only a couple with, with, hyphens or dashes in their name. And around the country, yeah, my goodness, there's thousands and thousands of cities and towns, and only 23 or 25 have, hyphens and and dashes in their name. So for us, you know, that was important. And so our our logo, has our full name. The the the letters are made up of dashes, our artistic dashes, and it's modern. It's fresh. But our slogan, the dash more, really talks about who we are as a community today and who we're wanting to be into the future. We believe that we offer a Dash More a lot of different opportunities for people. We offer a Dash More variety of home styles here. It's like we certainly have a dash more quality of life here in Fuquay Varina. Over two, over 300 acres of parks, parks and recreation land here in Fuquay Varina that we own and maintain. We have an active community center. We have, you know, a thriving downtown two downtowns, in fact. We have a dashboard downtown than than most communities have in North Carolina. We have two downtowns that we that we have. And so we, you know, we we have a in our opinion, we have a dashboard, a business friendly climate. We're really focused on trying to create an environment for, companies, to be able to expand. I'm sure you read recently about Bob Bob Barker Company, another one of our big four manufacturing companies expanding, their distribution side of their facility, going to be adding 40 new jobs, to their workforce here in the near future. And so we feel like we have a dash more opportunities for business. You can use the beauty of our slogan as you can use it in an infinite number of ways as you're marketing and as we are marketing and promoting our community. It allows us to stay fresh with our brand. And so one of the things that our town board has done is we've we recognize you can't just get a a new brand and not invest in it. So they have committed to invest
successful with Adam by asking his advice on a successful branding approach. And if he could do it all over again, what would he change? And he said he wouldn't change anything. He said it was vital to involve the public. It was vital to pay attention to local history. It was vital to bring on an outside group from the private sector to give an outsider's perspective, but also one based on professional marketing research. But out of all the things he said, the biggest takeaway for me was that local governments shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that they're branding the government. It's ultimately about the community. And to that end, it's about making brand ambassadors out of the people who live there. Not just the government, the people, the residents. People who will happily wear a t shirt with the brand logo on it. People who are proud to put the bumper sticker on their car, especially people who wouldn't ordinarily do that kind of thing. Community pride is big, so you wanna get it right. Mitchell said it works so well in Fuquay Varina that he's been outside of town and seen the logo on the cars of people who aren't affiliated with local government. Newton's branding campaign seems to be unfolding in the right direction. You can visit newtonnc.gov/brand. That's newt0nnc.gov/brand, where they're interacting with the public about it. You'll find a quick video about the town and what sets it apart, and you can read about the approach and how the project is being carried out. The website quotes Newton mayor Anne Stedman as saying, quote, we have a lot to be proud of here. We just need to let everyone know that, end quote. I'll try to regroup with the city later in the process to see how it's going. And I'd love to hear your feedback on what you think constitutes success with community branding or what constitutes a loss because we can learn from both. I'll have links in the show notes to all the related material that we talked about on this episode. That's at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. I'll include links to the work of Stacy Zavattaro, her books on the topics of municipal marketing and branding, and more. Thanks for listening. And, again, please send your feedback. You can email me at bbrown@nclm.org or find us on Twitter. The handle is at muni equation. That's at m u n I equation. This podcast is made possible by the North Carolina League of Municipalities online at nclm.0rg. All episodes of the podcast are there or at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. And you can find it on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Overcast, everywhere else. Talk to you again soon. This is Ben Brown.
