Crafting Connections: The Art of Government Branding
How strategic branding fosters community confidence, drives economic growth, and attracts top talent
Let’s open this exploration of brand development with a moment of silence for those in government agencies currently at work on such a project.
We offer our thoughts and prayers because it’s a ton of work, often frustrating as there is an incredible amount of cat herding involved, and it’s fraught with political peril.
Branding may be the most misunderstood aspect of government communications. Not for the professionals who do the work, but for elected officials and the public, it certainly is. They think a brand is just a logo and tagline.
“We’ve said branding has a branding problem and it’s that,” says Will Ketchum, president and CEO of North Star, a place branding and marketing company. “Yeah, people think it’s a logo and a slogan.”
My favorite definition of the words “brand” and “branding” come from Don McEachern, founder of North Star: Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not around. Branding is what you do about that.
It’s easy to understand the misconception that it’s all about the logo. The artwork is the easiest aspect of brand expression for folks to understand. It’s the image that shows up in the online story about the branding effort. And often, if the brand is not presented properly and decision-makers have not been brought along appropriately, the logo invariably generates this exasperated, pointed accusation: “We spent (fill in the blank cost) on that?!?!”
Avoiding that kind of eruption, dear readers — especially those of you thinking about/needing to develop a brand for your organization — is one of the primary reasons GGF exists. We’re here to share the wisdom and experience of the experts and gov peers who’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Folks like Ketchum and Coco Good, chief communications and marketing officer for the City of McKinney, Texas, who you’ll be hearing from below.
To the uninitiated, branding does, yes, include the logo, but a truly great and powerful brand is expressed through aspects like customer service, the user interface of your website, how you reply to comments on social media, events, your built environment, and more. We’ll get into the more below and in future posts. This topic is too rich for just one mining expedition.
The importance of well-executed branding for a government agency cannot be overstated. In today’s post, we’ll start with why it’s so important, and then get into the kind research needed to do it right and the various expressions of a great brand. In future posts, we’ll go deeper into the political benefits (!) of branding, as well as the right kind of process to get a branding program successfully approved and implemented. We may also cover branding screw-ups. I’ve got a doozy of my own to share and will be seeking out other tortured souls willing to share their painful mishaps.
Building a Better Government: The Indispensable Role of Brand Development
The strongest argument to make to leaders, both elected and appointed, about pursuing brand development, starts with the bottom line.
“It’s really pretty mathematical,” Ketchum says. “They need to look at their forecast of residential and commercial tax base. They need to look at where do they stand with regard to tourism impact and talent attraction and all these sorts of key metrics that are indicators of community health. (The answer is) we need a brand because we need the right suit of clothing and the right handshake to compete in this really small world where we need all of those economic drivers, but we’ve got to compete for them. So, we’ve got to look our best and tell our best story. What do we stand for and where are we going?”
What do we stand for and where are we going? Honest, forthright, and interesting answers to those questions pay massive dividends to a community or government agency. And it’s not just for Sunbelt cities and states competing against one another for the influx of residents and jobs that’ve been occurring for the past few decades. It’s for those places experiencing population declines as well, Ketchum says.
“Communities are seeing that they’re having to really fight for residents and people,” he says. “Kids leave high school and college and don’t come back, and their boomers are retiring to the Sunbelt. And, jeez, if we do the projections here, it’s not pretty. In 20-30 years, we’re going to have a much smaller population and a much smaller tax base. So, they’re working hard to position for retention and growth. They have to go after those things.”
It’s also important to understand this: Your community may not be positioned like, for example, an Arlington, Texas, or Indianapolis to become an international sports destination. It can much simpler.
“A community might want to attract people coming in on a Saturday to enjoy the downtown or the restaurants,” Ketchum says.
A great brand will also make the lives of elected officials a little bit easier when they’ve got to make a tough vote because a great brand instills public confidence.
“Cities have to project the value of their services to their residents,” Ketchum said. “That can help support policy moves. It can help justify the unwelcomed but reality-based need sometimes to increase taxes or fees. But if the brand can help clarify the value they get from the city, then it serves a very internal sort of buy-in (and) endorsement and ultimately pride and belief in the city on a local level.”
We saw that exact branding benefit in last week’s post on Lenexa City Center. I heard it more than once — and it was verified in a survey: Citizens in Lenexa are OK with paying taxes higher than in neighboring cities because they know, “you get what you pay for.”
Beyond the Surface: Why Research Matters
To answer the questions what do we stand for and where are we going requires research. Your brand is never one person’s answer to those questions — even if it’s the mayor — so quality research is critical and where the brand development process should start.
“Research kills opinions,” is how Rachel Clemens, former chief marketing officer of Mighty Citizen, puts it.
In my 24-year career in local government communications, I always considered McKinney, Texas, to be one of best branding practitioners around. That’s why I reached out to Coco Good. She’s been doing award-winning work in the fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex city for 20 years. And, not surprisingly, one of the first projects she tackled in the job was brand development.
“The minute I sat in my chair, I had people in my office telling me what the brand should be for McKinney, and it was all over the map,” CoCo said. “And so, I realized pretty quickly that people who were sort of old McKinney at that time had a different feeling about the community than people who were just moving in. The council was attached to the before, but they were also really looking forward to the future. So, it became apparent to me within weeks that there’s not going to be any consensus on this just by trying to come up with a brand. Right? So, I thought to myself, what we have got to do is have research. So our brand was just so heavily research-based. And as I told everybody all along the way, it really doesn’t matter what an individual thinks. It’s more about how people look at us, how people view us, and what the research tells us is going to be the most lucrative for us.”
You’ll want to hire a firm with experience in gathering both qualitative and quantitative data about your community or organization. The city of McKinney hired North Star to develop its brand. (Note: I didn’t know that until I had already scheduled interviews with CoCo and Will Ketchum. This isn’t a sales pitch. I just reached out to folks I know do great work.)
“The heart of the research is hearing the voices in the community and a lot of that’s qualitative and I think that’s where you get some of the great inputs that define the voice of the brand and the vocabulary that’s sort of the heart and soul of the brand research,” Ketchum says. “That comes from in-depth interviews, focus groups, street interviews, just listening. And we work really hard at just listening to people when we visit the community. Then we have to round that out, though, with some quantitative research. Not everyone wants to sit down and talk, nor is it practical to talk to everyone. So, we want to give everyone a chance to share their perspective via a community wide survey and ask them what’s unique about living here and what are our distinctions that most define why people choose to be here.”
McKinney also explored why some people didn’t choose to be there, CoCo said. Because the brand would necessarily be a key part of recruiting industry to McKinney, they reached out to economic development prospects who chose to locate elsewhere.
“We called them and asked why,” she said. “And so, it’s not just people saying, like, I love this, I love that. It was like, well, you were missing this and you’re missing that. But that kind of thing was really important.”
Ketchum agreed solid research needs to include people who don’t live in the community. North Star typically surveys residents from at least two metro areas outside the community that hired them.
“Let’s just make sure we understand how this community is understood from afar as well,” he said. “It’s important to hear.”
For McKinney, the research showed it had little in common with its neighbors Plano and Frisco other than they are also just up the road north of Dallas. It’s the county seat of Collin County, so McKinney’s got one of those glorious, historic downtown courthouse squares full of dining, entertaining and shopping options. The old courthouse is now an arts center. McKinney’s also home to an amazing replica of a Croatian village that’s also got shopping, dining and event options. These places are both very cool but very different. To wit:
What would you say about a city that’s home to these distinct destinations? It’s unique, without question. What would you say when you combine that truth with the natural beauty of the town’s trees and rolling hills? If you’re a smart marketing and branding company, you say it’s “Unique by nature.”
Boom.
Here’s a more complete brand statement I pulled from the city website.
McKinney’s inherent uniqueness embodies the spirit of our community, from our thriving historic downtown and Croatian-inspired Adriatica Village to our serene natural settings, recreational opportunities, and business-friendly environment. Each of these creates a unique sense of identity in the community and offers special meeting places for families and friends. A balanced way of life, sense of place and authenticity makes McKinney “Unique by nature.”
“We’re a quirky, different kind of community,” CoCo says. “We’re inherently unique. We’re different than our neighbors. And we got there through research.”
The Essence of Branding: More Than a Symbol, It’s a Story
Once your research has identified what you stand for and where you’re going, then you can begin to effectively tell your story. And that storytelling takes many forms. In fact, the story is told in every interaction your agency has with the public, whether that’s in person or online.
It’s also told in the logo and tagline (finally!). So, let’s do a little show and tell. First, here’s the McKinney logo.
Here’s what Ketchum has to say about what makes a great logo. He wasn’t talking specifically about McKinney’s but could have been.
“We focus on three qualities that the creative product must exude … and that is authentic, distinct and ownable,” he says. “The logo has to have an authenticity, meaning that the colors, even the energy of it, the shape, the imagery within needs to be authentic and true to the community. It needs to be truly reflective. And then when it comes to distinction, that’s sort of the basic requirement of all good marketing is it shows how we’re different. It has to be distinct in the marketplace and it’s got to be something you look at and go, oh, look at that. Isn’t that compelling?”
Here’s a random selection of client logos from North Star’s website.
To my eye, they exemplify Ketchum’s counsel that logos need to be “truly reflective” of the community as well as compelling. They definitely evoke an emotional response from me and I definitely get some sense of the community. For example, Fargo is clearly embracing something offbeat. I can’t help but think of the 1996 Coen Brothers movie. Here’s how North Star describes Fargo’s challenge.
And while Fargo does have some of the quirky optimism and interest of the movies and shows by the same name … it is so much more. In fact, over the last decade Fargo has acquired a kind of under the radar cool that can only happen when a small prairie town has a thriving, edgy arts district. And when the Misfit Conference chooses to make your city one of its host towns. And when the “oh so particular” cool seekers nationwide start whispering your name as one of the places to be. The challenge: How to capture this cool in a way that doesn’t end up destroying it.
It’s getting to this moment that makes all the trauma of the early stages of brand development worth it. So help me God but I love this part of the creative process!
Still, you must go beyond the graphic identity, a point I believe we’ve beaten to death quite sufficiently at this point. Your brand also needs a voice. One deliverable we got from North Star when they developed the Downtown Round Rock brand was list of words and phrases that clearly articulated the brand identity. I literally kept the “brand vocabulary” right next to my computer so I could refer to it when working on anything related to downtown.
“Everyone tends to think of branding more in a visual sense, but voice is really critical,” Ketchum said. “So, brand voice carries equal weight to the visual impact and in the larger marketing universe that’s probably where a lot of brands fail, is they lean harder toward the visual than the voice. And the really good brands have a real ownable voice and they’re consistent about it.”
The final element of branding we’ll consider today is an area that gets beyond the reach of communicators: the built environment and the activities and events that happen there. Placemaking may be the most powerful extension of a community brand. Quality of place is “essential,” Ketchum says.
“Quality of place is the new currency in economic development because of that stat about people seeking where they want to live first over where they want to work,” he said.
That “stat” he’s referring to comes from a national study North Star conducted in 2021 titled, “Why They Move. A Study of American Migration to Small Cities.” The purpose of the study was “to aid smaller cities in developing talent recruitment and retention strategies that foster a healthy and diversified local economy.”
Respondents indicated that work was only part of the equation — only 12% considered finding the right job (regardless of place) to be their primary goal in relocating. By comparison, 42% said that their priority was finding a balance between the right job and the right place to live, while 46% thought finding the right place to live was of greatest importance.
“There are a lot of very (forward-thinking) communities who are ensuring that their built environment is a tangible representation of what they stand for,” Ketchum said.
He mentioned Carmel, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis. It’s known for great parks, public art and distinctive architecture. And, surprisingly, roundabouts.
“Each roundabout has a beautiful centerpiece, whether it be sculpture or fountains or a garden,” he said. “And that’s a really neat expression of (the community saying) ‘We aspire to excellence and quality, and we’re very welcoming, but we value beauty … and that’s become a signature for them and part of their brand.”
Yes, how motorists experience your community impacts your brand. Like so many other things. But we’ll have more on that in future GGF installments on branding.
We wrap up today with this reminder from Ketchum.
“No one ever moved somewhere or took a vacation someplace because of a logo.”
Onward and Upward.
P.S. Please take the reader survey if you haven’t already. Thanks!