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Client: Brookings, South Dakota
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New city brand tells visitors, residents to ‘bring your dreams’
BY
Jill Fier
Someplace Special. I am Brookings. Imagine life in Brookings. Forward. Thinking.
Over the years, there has been many a slogan to help people understand why Brookings is a great place to live, work, play, raise a family, get an education, start a business and more.
While they each served the city well for a while, none have stood the test of time.
But leaders behind the project say that won’t be the case with a new city branding.
In its logo, “brookings” is all lowercase, portraying a friendly, inviting community. A series of exclamation points, changing from pale to bold, dot the “I” in the city’s name, representing the ideas that form here. Below, a strapline tells people, “Bring your dreams.”
The new logo and strapline are important, but there’s so much more to branding, says Victoria Blatchford, chair of the city’s Visitor Promotions Committee and member of the branding task force.
“A brand is something that can stand the test of time. It continues to be an experience. It’s a unified voice, and we just didn’t have that unified voice to promote Brookings.
“Branding is not just a logo or a tagline or an ad campaign. Branding is about that statement of who we are and what people say after they leave. It’s the look and the feel.”
Blatchford said efforts for branding Brookings began in the fall of 2008.
Local officials realized they had some work to do after they posted all the marketing images from the community on a wall at the Brookings Economic Development Center. There wasn’t a common thread between them all.
So many assets
“When we looked at all the avenues of how Brookings is seen,” Blatchford said, “our looks and our sounds and how people look at us were just so different. … We have to define who we are, and we have so many different assets that are wonderful in Brookings, how do you culminate that into one feel, one statement, one look? And we did it."
“It is everything that the city is.”
The city owns the new branding, which is in the process of being trademarked. The Visitor Promotions Committee set aside money in its budget for the services of North Star Destination Strategies, a Nashville-based community branding specialist hired last year.
According to North Star, a brand is “what people say about you when you’re not around.”
To find out what that meant here, Blatchford said North Star did extensive research both in the city and of regional competitors, such as Watertown, Sioux Falls and Mitchell.
“Research from outside consumers, inside consumers, from our residents and the users of Brookings all said the same thing about Brookings, about this idea generation that is highly revered. ‘Wow, how did they get that done? Brookings always has things coming together.’
“The brand itself is about a vigorous exchange of ideas, and ideas are generated both small and large, so any size dream can become a reality, whether you’re a business owner, an elementary student, you’re a college student. … So we look at it around the people factor.”
Seeking brand manager
The city has also put together a request for proposals for a brand manager. City Manager Jeff Weldon said the brand manager will not be a full-time employee but rather a contractor for the city for at least 12 months.
The brand manager will work closely with the city and its Visitor Promotions Committee, as well as the “brand identity guide” (created by North Star along with the logo and strapline), to maintain the integrity of the brand and slowly roll it out to users. They will include the BEDC, Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau, and even local businesses.
“(The brand manager) will be working with the key stakeholders in order to help implement the brand, and also to strategically place it for the highest visibility and highest impact, to bring awareness to Brookings, to attract people, to retain our residents and our businesses in Brookings and our highly educated students,” Blatchford explained.
The Visitor Promotions chair says she’s heard excellent feedback about the new branding.
Weldon provided some this week. While he wasn’t fully involved in the branding task force, the city manager said he was pleased with its results.
“Every organization, public or private, needs to refresh its image, update how it wants to market and sell itself to the public.
“We’re trying to appeal to current and future residents, tourists, businesses, those we’re trying to recruit …. Sometimes people play down the significance of what brand does, but look at all the successful companies and what their brands do for them.”
Brand will be phased in
The city manager says the city and local organizations have had varying levels of success with logos and marketing in the past, and it was time for an update. Eventually the new brand will make its way on to city stationary, business cards, its Web site and even city vehicles.
It already appears on the BEDC Web site, said Executive Director Al Heuton.
Heuton agreed that Brookings was lacking a consistent message in the past. He said the new branding “depicts very well what Brookings is, and it’s all related to opportunities for success.
“I think it fits exactly right in to what Brookings is – a very innovative community in both the public and private sector.”
