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Business First of Columbus wrote
Experience Columbus speaker: City must think globally, brand narrowly
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
by Matt Burns
Creating a single, distinct brand for more than 700,000 clients sounds like a marketing nightmare, but it’s the task Columbus’ tourism and convention business is faced with as the city moves closer to its bicentennial.
Officials on Tuesday gave a snapshot of the progress – and the obstacles in the four years until 2012 – at the annual meeting for Experience Columbus, the city’s tourism and convention bureau. The big step ahead is the city’s Bicentennial Commission, an effort to improve several facets of city life.
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Posted in Ideas on February 27th, 2008
It seems that no matter where you look these days, someone is talking about the best way to brand the city they live in. Every place is struggling for a unique identity in order to easily collect the most Young Professionals, Entrepreneurs, Visitors, Conventioneers, Students, or whatever the next best demographic du jour happens to be.
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Nice piece, I would suggest that the thumbs up folks are the ones who are happy with the city the way it is and like the organic rate of change….I would also suggest that the real thumbs down folks are the ones who moan and groan about being a second tier city or one lacking a coherent identity that strangers and tourists will immediately recognize from across the street/country.
Columbus used to be known as having an amazing amateur boxing program that came out of the Rec centers, why not bring back that sense of nostalgia…what about a wifi enabled city that has virtual reality glasses available for toursits and the resident glum chums. Then they could have virtual tours on virtual street cars and see all sorts of cool branded virtual things….capped off by a virtual happy ending by a virtual hooker with real STD’s…
^ You get a thumbs down.
I think both sides of the argument have solid points. They obviously care enough about the city either way to join in the discussion. It’s the people who are apathetic that worry me.
So yeah. No need to give anyone STDs.
I can’t decide if I like Philly’s marketing/branding strategy or not.
This is their “we’re cool, come find out why/here’s the inside poop on Philly”:
[url]http://www.uwishunu.com/about-uwishunu/[/url]
Its purpose seems to be the same as columbusunderground, only it comes from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.
They also just launched a new campaign targeting gay tourists with this tagline: “Keep your history straight and your nightlife gay”
Without really getting into who has a gayer city (I never thought in my life that I would debate that specific point), maybe Columbus should embrace that demographic a bit more like Philly is apparently doing? (although I’m not suggesting we should have our logo be the word ‘Columbus’ spelled out in sequins or anything).
I guess what I’m trying to say is, our marketing and branding comes across as “We’re a conservative mid-western downtown and we’re ‘fun’ in a way that we believe the kids think is cool.”
Kind of like your dad saying “that’s really ‘awesome!’” in a way that just sounds sad and slightly pathetic because he’s trying too hard.
I think the move that Experience Columbus’ office did into the Arena District is a good start. Now if only we could get some young blood to come up with a good branding/tourism campaign…