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Client: Lima-Allen County, Ohio
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Branded: Committee unveils new image campaign
BY Bart Mills
LIMA — After 17 tries, the answer is …
Real American Strength.
The question that’s been bandied about for at least three decades is what phrase or brand best embodies Lima and Allen County. The answer that came back from consultants hired by county and city officials is Real American Strength.
That answer, along with a new logo, graphics and an inch-thick report of information uncovered while coming up with them will be unveiled to the public Friday during the Wake, Rattle and Roll event at Veterans Memorial Civic Center. The announcement comes after months of work by North Star, a Tennessee-based community branding group hired by local officials to come up with a brand and marketing campaign to help sell the county to travelers and industry.
“This has been really comprehensive. We gathered the data and did the research and gathered information from the whole community and outside the community. That has never been done in any of the other efforts,” said Jed Metzger, president of the Lima Allen County Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Branding Steering Committee.
The motto — Real American Strength — is meant to express what is both positive and unique about Lima and Allen County. The logo that accompanies the motto shows two gears in motion, homage to the county’s manufacturing past and movement toward the future. Both are just a portion of a larger overall effort to brand the county as a traditional but progressive community.
“The issue is moving forward, not looking back at the past. We use the past as an impetus, but the emphasis is on moving forward,” said Allen County Commissioner Sam Bassitt, a member of the Branding Committee.
Committee members will work with nonprofits and government bodies across the county to encourage them to use the logo and other graphics in their letterhead, Web sites and any other place they can display it. They have also raised money from local businesses and individuals to fund a full-fledged marketing campaign for the new brand.
The more it’s used, the more effective it will be, said Steve Johnson, former publisher of The Lima News, who is co-chairing the effort to market the brand with former WLIO General Manager Bruce Opperman.
“What North Star really said to us, point-blank, is that now it depends on us. We really need the community to buy in and embrace this long-term,” Johnson said.
The local branding process began as the result of local leaders’ conversations with Ohio Department of Transportation officials concerning proposals to upgrade the Interstate 75 corridor by 2013 and possibly include some symbols representing the community. The group completed the branding in time to make its recommendations to ODOT to include the gears from the logo as a part of the design for new overpasses and sound walls.
The branding process itself cost about $85,000. The city of Lima put in $25,000 of that and Allen County gave $5,000. Most of the rest was paid for with private funds, including a $52,000 commitment by the Lima Allen County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Lima Allen County Chamber of Commerce and Allen Economic Development Group.
North Star conducted more than 21 pieces of research and interviewed more than 1,000 people in and outside the county seeking their take on the county’s strengths and weaknesses. Now the committee members hope to sell the idea to the rest of the community, including the various villages and townships outside Lima, and prove that this effort — unlike the 17 times previously that someone in the community attempted to come up with a brand — will stick.
“While some [of the previous efforts] were successful for the purposes they were intended, none of them were embraced permanently and none of them were advanced countywide,” said Lima Mayor David Berger.
The effort to create a brand that included two cities, eight villages and 12 townships that make up Allen County meant moving past trains and beans and all the other Lima-specific images that have been used in the past. Berger said he believes this time they got it right.
“Everybody involved in this had an opinion and there were not two that were alike. But with this, we truly are highlighting what is here. Because of that, this has a chance to succeed,” Berger said.
