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Client: Brookings, South Dakota
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What's so special about Brookings?
BY Register Staff
Do you think Brookings is really "Someplace Special" ? Should it be known as "Jackrabbit City" ?
What's the best thing about this community?
The Brookings Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) is trying to find the right way to present Brookings to the rest of the world - to create a "brand" identity - and staffers want your help. Brookings has long used "Someplace Special" as an identifier, and a current marketing campaign asks us to "Imagine Brookings." Still another local slogan proclaims "Brookings: Growing business. Growing families." Which is the right one? Brookings has partnered with a Nashville, Tenn., firm, North Star Destination Strategies, to develop a community brand for marketing the city to visitors, residents and businesses in the year 2009 and beyond.
According to North Star CEO Don McEachern, at the heart of Brookings' brand will be the city's "competitive differentiator" - in other words, what makes the city special so it can stand out in the marketplace.
And one of the best places to find that figurative nugget of marketing gold, McEachern says, is in the hearts and minds of the people who call Brookings home.
Toward that end, North Star developed a customized, community online survey.
McEachern explains that the questionnaire has been carefully crafted to determine the city's strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities.
All residents are invited and encouraged to participate in the important community-wide initiative.
The survey can be found at www.brookingssd.com in the upper right-hand corner. Surveys can be completed online and submitted electronically through July 10.
If you do not have Internet access, printed copies are available at the BEDC office at 414 Main Ave. The completed surveys must be returned to the BEDC before July 7.
"We have partnered with more than 100 cities in more than 20 states nationwide, and I can't emphasize enough the importance of insights gleaned from community members," stressed McEachern.
"To learn what makes a city special, you have to go to the people who spend more than just their money and time there. You have to go to the people who spend their lives there."
If you are interested in learning more about Brookings's branding initiative, contact the BEDC office at 697-8103 . To learn more about North Star Destination Strategies, go to northstarideas.com.
