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Client: Santa Rosa, California

City, county officials quizzed in quest for Santa Rosa's identity

By MIKE McCOY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

David Williams sees a lot of Al Gore in Santa Rosa's municipal personality.

"It's a bit left of center, smart but not taken very seriously," said Williams, vice president of marketing for Community First Credit Union.

Dan Brown, director of sales and marketing for the Flamingo hotel, thinks Santa Rosa is a bit more Hollywood than the stiff-backed Gore.

"It's more George Clooney or Julia Roberts," he said. "They are both environmentalists, political activists and fun-loving people. That represents Santa Rosa and the Wine Country."

Williams and Brown were among about 100 city and county leaders quizzed for an ongoing effort to create a slogan and marketing strategy to fashion a glitzier image for Santa Rosa to bolster its ability to attract visitors and businesses.

They were asked to characterize their town in what one respondent described as a "Rorschach test of touchy-feely questions" that included:

What famous person would Santa Rosa be?

What make of car would it drive?

What type of job would it have?

What kind of clothes would it wear?

"High heels by day, Birkenstocks at night," West End neighborhood leader Carol Dean said.

"We like to think we're sophisticated and business savvy, so we wear high heels and nylons when we conduct business, but when we come home we put on our Birkenstocks, look at the environment and figure out what we can do with limited resources to protect it," she said.

"Santa Rosa," Dean said, "is a very complex person."

And a confused one, some say.

The biggest city between San Francisco and Portland, Ore., trapped between its rural roots and urban aspirations, Santa Rosa is searching for an identity it can sell.

Having people describe a city in human terms is the first step in using a municipal personality to enhance the ability to attract tourists and businesses, said Amy Heineman, a brand supervisor with North Star Destination Strategies.

North Star is a Nashville, Tenn.-based company hired by the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce to develop a brand identity.

The cost of North Star's contract is being shared by the chamber, the city, Santa Rosa Main Street and the Santa Rosa Convention & Visitors Bureau. The results should be ready by April.

Heineman said people are asked about a city's assets and what attracts and repels people.

But that's not all.

"We do like to ask some unexpected questions," she said.

"Some people roll their eyes at some of our more unexpected questions," she said.

Williams called them "Barbara Walters' questions."

"You know her black-and-white specials where she would ask what kind of a tree you would be, and you'd respond 'I'd be a mighty oak and here's why,'" he joked.

Heineman said the quirky questions serve a serious purpose. "The key aren't the answers themselves, it's the why of the answers," she said.

Brown understands where North Star is headed, toward a slogan and marketing effort that can make Santa Rosa instantaneously identifiable in a whirlwind world of competing images.

Many believe Santa Rosa has out-lived "The City Designed for Living" - its slogan since a 1946 contest to promote a "new" post-World War II image.

"Everything is a brand in this world," Brown said. "Everyone's attention span is thinner and thinner these days, so we need to get across a message of what we stand for quickly."

What might Santa Rosa's slogan and marketing campaign entail?

Heineman, who said a community survey is about to be sent out to gain a wider perspective, isn't letting on.

But one vision that stood out from a sampling of those who responded to the survey of leaders is that Santa Rosa is literally at a crossroads.

It's a city, many respondents agreed, with a wallflower image, fortuitously surrounded by the powerful draws of the Pacific Ocean, the majestic redwoods, the Russian River and the cachet of Wine Country.

"It's smack dab in the middle of the county. It's a short trip to everywhere. We're in the middle of all the attractions," said Williams, who noted Santa Rosa is a great "stopping off or starting point" for visits to the region's nearby riches.

But visiting Santa Rosa just for itself? "That would be a stretch," he said.

Instead of Oakland's unofficial and unflattering slogan - "There's no there, there" bestowed upon it by Gertrude Stein - perhaps Santa Rosa's could be: "There it is, over there!"

Mike Hauser, president of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, however, thinks Santa Rosa's central location makes it the perfect host.

"It's not like Santa Rosa is the destination, but everything around the city is - its proximity to San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, the ocean and the wineries," he said, summing up the thoughts of a focus group of about 15 people who discussed the survey.

Santa Rosa Councilwoman Jane Bender hopes the branding effort will give the city some more panache, particularly with efforts under way to revitalize the downtown.

"I would like people to come here just to see Santa Rosa," she said.

If that's the goal, Santa Rosa has a lot of work ahead, said Williams, who answered Wells Fargo Center to a survey question about what building or piece of architecture is most emblematic of the city.

"It was built as a church and that didn't work," he said. "Then it was rolled into a school and concert hall. Now it's being recast as a theater arts entertainment center, yet the architecture still looks like a church.

"It's exactly the tack Santa Rosa has taken over the years," he said. "We make do. It doesn't work great for anything, but it will make do."

Dean said she's not even trying to hazard a guess what the city's new slogan might be, at least not based on the survey.

"Is Santa Rosa a 1920 Hudson or a 2007 BMW?" she asked. "I can't figure out what they're looking for, but then again I'm not a psychologist."

© The Press Democrat.