Style is substance in America’s commercial culture. The importance of branding to sales and marketing is paramount. Image is all, and this holds true as much for scrappy start-ups as for Fortune 500 behemoths. Today even public entities, such as cities, states and nations, are brand conscious and seek to project an image of promise and prosperity for the new millennium.
With this in mind, the city of Perry is partnering with the Perry Chamber of Commerce and the Perry Economic Development Inc. (PEDI) in hiring a Coralville marketing firm to rebrand Perry and freshen its 150-year-old image.
The reason for the rebranding was spelled out in a resolution approved by the Perry City Council at Tuesday night’s meeting, which said that “Perry is uniquely positioned to establish itself as a community of opportunities, a superior quality of life and an affordable business climate.”
Given these advantages, “there is a need to imbue these unique qualities into a long-term brand strategy to promote both within and outside the community the fact that Perry is a place to grow and thrive for families and businesses alike,” according to the resolution.
In other words, certain of our community’s goodness, we need to communicate the fact of our goodness “both within and outside the community,” both to strangers unaware of our goodness and to ourselves, should we ever forget or have cause to doubt our goodness.
According to the resolution, the ideal vehicle to communicate our goodness is “a community brand identity that has purpose, provides consistency, flexibility, defines the community and is derived from the input of the citizens of Perry.”
Chosen by the council to build this ideal brand vehicle is Coralville-based Demand Driven Digital, led by Adel native Nick Westergaard, which is “dedicated to helping you tell your brand’s unique story,” according to the company’s website.
Perry City Administrator Sven Peterson told the council he was part of a task force with representatives from the Perry Chamber of Commerce and PEDI that have screened about half-a-dozen marketing firms since the start of the year and settled on Demand Driven Digital.
“We’ve gone through quite a few different proposals and presentations from different people wanting to provide these services,” Peterson said. “This is the one we landed on as the recommendation to take to our different organizations for approval.”
The branding campaign, called a “Brand Blueprint,” will take the following course:
- Kick-off meeting(s) (September—October)
- Research, review, and analysis of existing materials and meeting notes (October)
- Initial findings presentation midpoint process check (Late October)
- Final Brand Blueprint and deliverables presented to client team (Mid-November)
- Final Brand Blueprint rollout—internal and external events (Early 2020)
According to information provided to the council, the Brand Driven Digital “deliverables” will include:
- Visual identity logo design for the brand and the suite of child brands
- Verbal identity—how you talk about your brand; this includes development of your brand promise (what you do for whom and how you do it)
- A narrative guide detailing your brand’s unique story
- A brand style guide outlining how to share your story internally and externally
- Starter brand touchpoint design including business cards, letterhead, social media profile art and PowerPoint template plus overview content for sharing the community brand
- Design templates for other brand touchpoints (to be agreed upon together)
- Launch campaign, marketing, public relations, and media recommendations
- We also recommend supplementing the Brand Blueprint with additional brand launch elements such as video production, digital marketing and advertising and public relations.
The council approved spending $5,000 from city coffers, with $2,500 contributions from both the Chamber and the PEDI satisfying the terms of the $10,000 contract with Brand Driven Digital.
“This would get us the new logo, new brand and kind of our initial starting point,” Peterson said. A second phase of the branding campaign would include a variety of “add-ons,” he said.
The logo could be a bed on a hill. Perry: a sleepy little town with sleepy little people.