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Client: Fort Collins, Colorado
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Brand Renewal: Fort Collins has been “branded.” Now what?
By Josh Johnson
Tom Hanks can do for Fort Collins what Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan have done for Nike.
Hanks is just one of the many celebrities likened to Fort Collins in the results of surveys represented in the recently released “Fort Collins BrandPrint.” The 106-page report is steeped in the research of North Star Destination Strategies, a Tennessee-based company that has “branded” more than 75 communities nationwide. Fort Collins brand is a package that includes, among other things, extensive demographic information on residents and visitors, a designed ad campaign with suggestions for placement, regional and national surveys, a logo with a “strap line” — “Fort Collins: Where renewal is a way of life” — and even a product suggestion: Renewal Energy Bars.
The policy agenda of the previous city council included a mission to “improve economic health,” and following a recommendation of the Economic Vitality and Sustainability Action Group, council budgeted money toward a brand. North Star, the only company outside of Northern Colorado to bid on the project, won the contract.
The concept of community branding is increasingly popular, and smaller communities are hiring companies like North Star to develop marketing tools to attract visitors and businesses. North Star also developed a BrandPrint for Greeley last year.
“It really has been a trend. After 9/11, there has been such a downturn economically in communities, for different reasons. It’s also timed with companies outsourcing overseas,” says Claire Thomas, publicity and marketing technician for the City of Fort Collins. Thomas is assigned the task of implementing the BrandPrint suggestions.
“All this downturn kind of propelled communities to thinking, ‘Well, we have to be competitive. We have to make our companies stay that are here. We want to attract businesses that are ready to relocate. And how can we do that most attractively without just sitting here and waiting for them to come to us?’
“We took a hint from businesses.”
While the perception that Fort Collins needs to “improve economic health” due to sales-tax loss to Loveland lingers in certain circles, city officials say they don’t consider Loveland as economic competition.
But North Star interviewed representatives of businesses that relocated to Loveland after facing “red tape” and a perceived “antibusiness” attitude in Fort Collins. Both are longstanding arguments of conservative council members.
Kelly DiMartino, communications and public involvement director, believes the city has addressed them.
“I think we did find there were some things we could be doing better, and we made those changes,” she says. “And then some of it is an impression issue.”
Thomas acknowledges that some city staffers question the reasoning behind spending money on the BrandPrint. But DiMartino warns there is a false impression that the money was spent exclusively on re-designing the city’s logo, rather than on the complete package.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about the logo,” DiMartino says. “The reality is that wasn’t the focus of this project.”
In Greeley, the chamber of commerce initiated the brand development process, and 25 organizations, including the city and private businesses, shared the cost of North Star’s fee.
“It shows that there was not just public sector support for it, but there was private sector support for the community,” says John Pantaleo, public information officer for the City of Greeley.
In Fort Collins, the city has paid for the brand, while the other partners — Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Business Association and others — could choose to pay for some of its implementation, like the cost of placing the newly designed advertising. The Convention and Visitors Bureau has already started by marketing to the regions suggested by the BrandPrint.
The city, however, must await council approval of a budget to implement their plan, which includes updating all city properties and materials with the new logo.
Councilman Ben Manvel says it remains to be seen how much — if any — money will be allocated toward implementation.
In the meantime, the current logo of Canadian geese against a Horsetooth Mountain backdrop will continue to represent Fort Collins.
“They’re not flying away,” DiMartino says.
