Key Challenge
Sleepy Southern Town. Columbus, Georgia is in the midst of a renaissance. Over 200,000 citizens enjoy world class facilities, Fortune 500 businesses, and an exceptional cultural product – yet are still perceived as a small southern town.

Critical Insight
Business prospects and visitors alike spoke of their experience in the amenity filled, urban setting of uptown Columbus as one that was serene, relaxing and had an outdoor feeling. A hand shake still meant something in Columbus.

Brand Strategy
Target Audience: For those who appreciate true Southern charm

Frame of Reference: Columbus is a growing city in South Georgia located on the Chattahoochee River

Point of Difference: where gracious hospitality and natural beauty are the backdrop for an amenity-filled urban setting

Benefit: so you feel relaxed, peaceful and enriched.

Initial Concepts

Evolution of the Idea

 

 

Brand Action

Bringing a two-dimensional brand to life in a three-dimensional community takes a strong brand action plan. Following are a sampling of action ideas from the hundreds developed specifically for Columbus. All were designed to help them wear their brand like a second skin.

• Play up the Columbus Connection - Invite weathermen, disc jockeys and other personalities from the other Columbus markets to come to Columbus, GA. These special guests can appear on local media and should also conduct a live remote broadcast back to their Columbus home.
  
  
• Build bricks and water - Develop cohesive signage for labeling the different area of town (i.e., the warehouse district, uptown district). Signage design could incorporate a simple, low brick edifice and should contain water elements to symbolize the river. Such signage not only "shares the river" with all of Columbus, it complements the existing fountains.
  
  
• Attract Atlanta, Create a Colum "bus" - Lease and customize a charter bus that alternately brings travel writers, site selectors and other VIP guests from Atlanta to Columbus. (One trip would host all writers, the next VIPs, etc. Put like minds together.)

Press

City's Past to Market Future

City Inks Deal with Marketing Consultant

Results

• RevPAR is up 14.8% in 2005.

Kudos

“This is not only a brand we can live with, it is a brand that I can see this community prosper with,” Said Columbus State University President, Frank Brown.

“It is really a pretty profound statement. We got here because we preserved the right things and improved others.” Laura Lowe, Marketing Director for the River Center for the Performing Arts, said, “When I saw the brand, I said, ‘That’s why I decided to live here. That’s why I decided to stay here.’”