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Client: Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana
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Red River communities brand campaign inaugurated
By John Andrew Prime
With Hollywood lights, smoke machines, a huge cake and hoopla, Shreveport- Bossier City elected officials announced Thursday the start of a campaign to change the way people here and everywhere think about the anchor cities of northwest Louisiana and the Ark-La-Tex.
Or, as Bossier City Mayor Lo Walker has said more than once, Bossier-Shreveport.
"But as Mayor (Cedric) Glover might say, that would make it BS," Walker said in his small part in the plan laid out at Shreveport's new Convention Center.
Walker drew the most applause of the day when he said what he answered when asked how he would describe the area. "We are one community. I said 'We're the other side of I-10."
Being lumped in with New Orleans, Gulf Coast hurricane victims, jazz music, gumbo and other traditional Louisiana images isn't the right avenue for a community that is more and more being defined by country music, gambling, visitors from Texas and cyber, said Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau President Stacy Brown while introducing the "Louisiana's Other Side" campaign.
In addition to a striking red-and-white logo the bureau will offer free to any businesses, entities, groups or individuals who want to tie into the theme, the campaign will include a redesign of the tourism bureau Web site, the debuts May 1 of a video/information station for area hotels and a new Web site designed to highlight fun activities in the area and offer a ticket sales avenue for these.
These spin off research commissioned by the bureau and performed by North Star Destination Strategies of Nashville, Tenn., which conducted on-site and Internet surveys and a number of other ways of gathering information what people who visited Shreveport-Bossier City think of the region, what surprised them most about it, where its major competition is and what would make people think better of it.
"Your brand is what people say about you when you're not around," said North Star Destination Strategies CEO Don McEachern, who shared the data with the crowd through a PowerPoint presentation. "It's not a logo — it's your reputation."
The idea of coming up with a new brand for the cities on Red River dates to 2001 but was put on a back burner when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that year sent a chill through the nation, Brown said. "Tourism slowed to a crawl."
But later, she said, the think tank Urban Land Institute did a study and determined the region needs a new brand, an image campaign. Brown said the budget already was in place to accomplish this.
North Star Destination Strategies has performed similar work for Mobile, Ala.; Dublin, Ohio; Lansing, Mich.;, and Augusta, Ga.
Key to this effort will be getting people and businesses in the area to join the campaign and use the logo and suggested slogans and wording to cement the new image in visitors' minds.
Efforts will range from joining with Shreveport Green to redesign signs on Interstate 20 as visitors enter Shreveport and Bossier City, to 200 or more banners Shreveport's Downtown Development Authority will put at key places, to an advertising campaign featuring well-known people associated with the area, such as musicians Kix Brooks and James Burton, sports figures (and brothers) Heith and Cody DeMoss and Todd Walker, jazz artist Eugene Mosley, chef Giuseppe Brucia and broadcaster Tim Brando.
The research included in-market and out-of-market interviews of meeting planners, state-level economic development officials, site selectors, group tour operators and visitors. Local residents participated via focus groups, stakeholder interviews and vision and online community surveys.
The survey also profiled visitors' perceptions of the area.
"We were struck immediately with the idea that no single ingredient dominates your communities," McEachern said. "Like a good gumbo, Shreveport-Bossier City's essence is the blend of its many flavors, including the Red River, casinos, festivals, music, the arts and its Louisiana/east Texas heritage.
"Shreveport-Bossier City needed an identity that maintained and associated your proud Louisiana heritage but distinguished the area's rich, spicy and unique ingredients."
Various dignitaries sit behind Don McEachern as he speaks to guests Thursday during announcement of Shreveport-Bossier City's new identity campaign "Louisiana's Other Side" at the Shreveport Convention Center. (Greg Pearson/The Times)
