Client: Bay City, Michigan

New Bay City Brand Wins Raves at Unveiling

By: Patti Brandt - Times Writer
Wednesday, March 23, 2005

The brand: "A beautiful view ... of life. Bay City Michigan."

The logo: A historic building, a lamppost and a sailboat. Letters drawn to suggest the Bay City Hall clock tower, and maybe a stage light, a paint brush and a foamy Saginaw Bay whitecap.

"It captures the essence of what Bay City is all about," said Betsy B. Dean, executive director of Studio 23/The Arts Center, 901 N. Water St. "The words, as much as anything, speak volumes."

It's been a year in the making but well worth the wait, said many of the 50 or so people who gathered at the Lincoln Center on Tuesday to witness the results of the Bay-area's branding initiative.

"It's really very high class," said Joseph G. Liefbroer, site manager for S.C. Johnson Inc., of Bangor Township. "It does the city justice."

"It says a lot in a few words," said Charles M. Brunner, 9th Ward commissioner in Bay City. "We need an identity because we do have such a great place, but people don't know that."

"I think it's fantastic," said Eileen Curtis, interim president of Bay Future Inc., a Bay-area economic development group. "It definitely gives a community branding vision for Bay City."

Curtis was also one of 13 area business, labor and community leaders who sat on a steering committee that hired North Star Destination Strategies, a Nashville, Tenn.,-based consultant, to come up with the brand strategies, campaign and logo.

"Now we just have to go and communicate this message outside of our community," Curtis said.

Branding is a type of marketing campaign that gives a community an easily recognizable identity, which then is used to promote the area to outside customers.

Those customers may be businesses looking for a place to locate, tourists and people looking for a new place to live.

In coming up with a brand, research is done into how Bay City's customers see Bay City and how its own residents see it.

A list of "customers" was made up of individuals and businesses that made requests to the Convention & Visitors Bureau for information about the Bay City area in the last two years, said Shirley Roberts, executive director of the bureau.

Those customers came from as far away as California and Washington, D.C., though the majority came from the Detroit, Flint and Saginaw areas.

Safe, friendly, fun and historical were the most common words used to describe Bay City, according to the results of a vision survey sent to 250 local people representing business, government, cultural organizations and others.
About 20 percent of those given the survey responded, a number Jeremi Griggs, director of client services for North Star, called "very good."

"That told us we have an active community that is interested in what's going on," Griggs said.

The largest percentage of people who visit Bay City come from Detroit, Flint and Saginaw.

But for many of those outside of the area, Bay City is a blank slate, according to a perception study done by the company. For many, in fact, "Bay Area" means the San Francisco Bay area, not the Saginaw Bay area. The study also showed that many people think Bay County is in the Upper Peninsula.

The study indicated that the downtown and the riverfront have the greatest appeal for people visiting for pleasure or business reasons. Bay City is also seen as having a good quality of life, which includes things like having friendly people, a low crime rate and affordable housing.

A brand should reflect all that and make an emotional connection with the consumer, Griggs said.

"We're taking a lot of stuff and whittling it down to come to a strategic point," he said, one that will resonate with visitors.

"It's very sharp," Hratch Basmadjian, manager of the Bay City Holiday Inn, said of the logo. "It captures the whole thing."

"We wanted something that would say 'quality of life' without using the words 'quality of life,"' which are overused, Roberts said.

The next step, Roberts said, is putting the brand into use. Area businesses and organizations are encouraged to use the slogan and logo on all of their communications, such as letters, brochures and Web sites.

"We've been holding off on changing our logo and marketing materials because we want to use this," said Mitzi Dimitroff, chairman of the board of the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce.

The brand will also be used to advertise Bay City in things such as magazines and on billboards.