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Business North - Around The Region - Duluth & Superior Newspaper
Selling a community
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Grand Rapids area is well into its ‘branding’ mission; Hibbing may be next 10/24/2007 by Beth Bily |
GRAND RAPIDS— Competing on a statewide, national, perhaps even global playing field is prompting officials in this West Iron Range community to seek an edge.
Grand Rapids and its economic development and business leaders want the city and surrounding community identified as a great place to visit and more importantly, a great place for economic investment. To that end, the city has enlisted the help of a professional firm to develop a Grand Rapids “brand.”
The branding project is being developed by Nashville, TN-based North Star Destination Strategies, a firm dedicated to branding, strategic planning and research services. North Star Destinations’ clients include 80 communities nationwide, according to its Web site.
Lynn DeGrio, human resources administrative assistant for the city of Grand Rapids, has worked closely on the project and makes its case.
“Grand Rapids does a good job of marketing itself as a tourist destination, but this will help build identity for economic development and future planning,” she said.
Proponents say branding can help define a community’s unique features, for example, as a travel destination or a location for a business expansion or start up. According to Peter McDermott, president of Itasca Economic Development Corp. in Grand Rapids, the goal is to identify and convey Grand Rapids’ competitive advantages in attracting investment as well as tourism dollars.
“The reality is that nine out of 10 business people (who have relocated to the area) first came here as a tourist,” McDermott said. “They come here as a tourist and they want to stay here for the lifestyle. That’s our competitive advantage over, for example, South Dakota.”
The timing reflects the area’s economic climate and a strategic alignment of several business and economic development organizations that are collectively paying the consulting firm for the branding effort.
The branding campaign is a joint venture of the city and its economic development authority, the nonprofit development corporation, Blandin Foundation, Visit Grand Rapids and the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. Collectively they have pooled more than $80,000 to develop the brand and a strategy plan to implement it.
An economic downturns in the forest products industry has produced hundreds of layoffs in the paper and forest products industry in Grand Rapids. Itasca County also has a high percentage of families living in poverty with 46 percent of school-aged children qualifying for free or reduced-cost school lunches. To qualify, a household with children can have income no more than 185 percent of the federal poverty income guideline.
Statistics like those have prompted Grand Rapids economic development leaders to make attracting living-wage jobs a top priority. McDermott said community branding isn’t unique, and he urges the Grand Rapids area to come together and support a theme to stay competitive.Indianapolis, Lansing, MI and St. Paul all have enlisted professional help to sell themselves. A quick Google search of “city branding and marketing” reveals a long list of locations throughout the nation contemplating or currently engaged in a branding effort.
Branding seems to catching on in Northeastern Minnesota. The city of Hibbing, 35 miles east of Grand Rapids, is just beginning its process. It Web site, www.hibbing.mn.us, has posted a request for proposals for a branding/identity development package.
In Grand Rapids, the information gathering process will take several months.
The North Star branding process, known as BrandPrint, began earlier this year, DeGrio said. After reviewing information assembled by the funding partners, North Star Destination consultants visited Grand Rapids in August, gathering comprehensive histories and spending time at several area locations.
Another information gathering phase in the branding effort includes a “visioning” survey, mailed recently to business leaders to assess their perceptions of community. Another data gathering effort is scheduled in mid-October when a communitywide survey will be posted on the Web sites of the project funders.
When all data are gathered and analyzed, North Star will present branding/identity options to a core group of area leaders, a step DeGrio predicts for late this year.
After there’s agreement on a brand, a rollout is likely early in 2008, according to the financing partners.
“I’m hopeful this is going to unite the community behind a common theme,” McDermott said. “The challenge is bringing the community together. Other communities are doing it and we need to do it better.
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