About Strengthening Brand America Project

I never really thought about Brand America until I was given the opportunity by Procter & Gamble to support a strategic effort to brand the state of Ohio for increased capital attraction, retention and expansion. I accepted the assignment for two primary reasons –

  1. My passion is brand building. At P&G, I was recognized as a Harley Procter Marketer. This is a competitive, global appointment given to brand builders who have achieved a high level of mastery judged by their colleagues and management as subject matter experts, successful application of that mastery proven by in market business success, and a demonstrated ability to teach others how to be effective brand builders. Net, brand building s not simply a vocation, it is a calling. I was intrigued by the opportunity to apply my knowledge of product and corporate branding to the field of place branding.
  2. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to start a business with minimal capital risk. In order to successfully accomplish the mission, I had to start a company from scratch. The opportunity to learn from that experience was compelling.

What I learned on that assignment was the principles of product and corporate branding could be reapplied to brand places (a.k.a. destination branding). But, I also learned there are few success models available to help economic development professionals learn how to practically apply those principles in their community, region or state.

The more I learned about place branding, the more I became interested in the health of Brand America. What I found was that our country needed to become more competitive globally for foreign direct investment in order to ensure sustained economic growth and prosperity. The global economic crisis punctuated the need by reminding us Brand America is competing in an interdependent global economy. The competition for capital investment is becoming less between states and more often versus other countries. It is increasingly easy for companies to locate anywhere and cost effectively meet global demand for their product or service.

I believe an approach to address the challenge is to help economic development professionals better understand how to create even more effective community, region and state brands that can compete globally. In aggregate, more successful local brands will serve to create a stronger Brand America.

My goal is to catalyze the transfer of product and corporate branding principles from the private sector to the economic development community.

This is the back-story on the creation of the Strengthening Brand America Project. It is an educational endeavor designed to help accelerate sustainable economic growth. The Project is supported by the in-kind contribution of time and knowledge by people who share the vision and see the need for Brand America to become even more competitive in the global economy.

I am grateful to everybody who takes the time to help. I am amazed by how successful the first year has been, and am looking forward to an even better performance in the second year.

Your help would go a long way to assuring that success. Here are a few ideas of what help looks like.

I will thank you ahead for considering donating your time and knowledge to helping the Strengthening Brand America Project achieve the mission. Together we can help create a stronger Brand America.

About SBA