The real question is – “How can you get people to have a love affair with your community?”

My friend and muse Kevin Roberts provides some enlightenment in his book “Lovemarks”. Kevin shares his knowledge and observations on what motivates people to become emotionally committed to certain products, and provides pragmatic guidance on how to operationalize that knowledge so you can begin moving a product from a Trustbrand to a Lovemark.  I’ve taken the liberty of translating Kevin’s principles into guidance on how to take your community on the journey from obscurity to Lovemark status.  Hopefully this post will inspire you to step out to the edge and see your community as the Lovemark it deserves to be.

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over.  Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center” Kurt Vonnegut

IF THEY CAN DO, IT SO CAN YOU

Where do you start the journey?  It begins with truly understanding the story of your community.

If you ask most people, they will tell you that telecommunications is essentially a commodity service.  You simply find the carrier with the most reliable service area and best price.  It isn’t any harder than that.

Telecom New Zealand could have easily seen itself that way.  But, they knew if they treated their product as a commodity, so would everybody else.  Instead, they hired Saatchi & Saatchi to help them explain that Telecom New Zealand wasn’t simply about communication, it was about creating a more connected nation.  The story of Telecom New Zealand was told through a commercial spot titled “Father and Son”. The story struck an emotional chord among New Zealanders because it spoke to them personally.  It made a deep heartfelt connection, and it started Telecom New Zealand on a journey toward becoming a Lovemark.

Your community also has a story to tell. A story that is capable of connecting with people on an emotional level the same way Telecom New Zealand did.  You simply have to understand what it is, and how to effectively communicate it.  And the first step in the journey begins with understanding emotion.

TIME TO GET EMOTIONAL

“The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.” Lovemarks, page 42.

Kevin identifies six primary emotions to be aware of – joy, sorrow, anger, fear, surprise and disgust.  These are emotions that enflame people’s hearts.  If your story taps into one or more of these emotions, you get engagement. However, the problem with these emotions in telling your story is they are hard to control and you can trigger an unpredictable response.  Kevin also defines six secondary emotions – guilt, shame, pride, envy, jealousy and the most powerful of all … Love.  These emotions engage both the head and the heart making them ideal as elements in a story.

To assess where you are today, take a look at the promotional efforts supporting your community.  Which of the 12 emotions are reflected in the stories you are telling?  If your promotion is focused on facts and statistics, it is falling dramatically short of the story your community deserves.  My guess is you will see room for improvement.  In my experience, given a choice to inform or inspire … choose to inspire.

I’LL RESPECT YOU IN THE MORNING

As in any relationship, the first step along the way in the journey to becoming a Lovemark is respect.  Kevin calls it a founding principle of a Lovemark.  You must respect your community and you also want to earn the respect of the people who hear your story.  There are eight things you can do to earn respect for your community.

1. Perform. Perform, perform.  Perform at each and every interaction.  Peak performance is the ticket to entry.
2. Pursue innovation.  Your community must adopt a continuous improvement mentality that focuses on fixing what doesn’t work and strengthening what does.
3. Commit to a total commitment.  Go the distance.  Your community will be judged at every encounter, every touchpoint, and will failure will be punished.
4. Make it easy.  Strip the complexity out of your processes.  Make it easy to get to know and evaluate your community.  If it is hard to get to know, your community will be doomed to obscurity.
5. Don’t hide.  People can respect your community only if they know what it stands for.  In today’s internet world there is nowhere to hide anyway.  Tell your story loud and tell it proud.
6. Jealously guard your reputation.  Built over a lifetime, destroyed in an instant.
7. Get in the lead and stay there.  Become the top selection choice by investing in asset creation, infrastructure improvement and public policy reform.  Once your community is seen as the ideal location, don’t backslide.
8. Tell the truth.  Admit shortfalls.  Believe in your community.  When something goes wrong, your reputation may be your best defense.

TELL YOUR STORY WELL

It is important your community be respected.  It’s the foundation for any emotional relationship, and a mandatory step on the journey to becoming a Lovemark.  It is important, but not sufficient.  You also have to tell your story in a mind and heart-opening way.  There are three more elements that must be in place to succeed.

1. Mystery – Mystery is created by telling great stories.  Stories about your community’s past, present and future.  Stories that tap into dreams, include myths and icons that can be remembered.  Stories that inspire.
2. Sensuality – Sensuality requires you to focus on including elements like sound, sight, smell, touch and taste.  You need to find ways to engage people in learning about your community that involve their senses.  That is why well design site visits are so effective.  It is also why integrating your Travel & Tourism efforts with your capital attraction promotion can produce such powerful results.
3. Intimacy – People need to feel the commitment of your community leaders and citizens.  It is important people can empathize with the challenges and successes of your community’s journey.  You want them to become fans who care.  Passion helps establish intimacy.  You need to be passionate, your citizens need to be passionate and that passion must be palpable to people.  After all, if you don’t care why should anybody else care about your community’s future?

FIND AND MINE THE GOLD

As you move forward on the journey to Lovemark status, you will inevitably uncover people who are exceptionally passionate about your community.  These inspirational citizens are like finding gold nuggets.  These people will proactively promote your community and you will want to give them the tools to easily do so.  These people will be passionate salesmen and sales women who are eager to tell your community’s story to anyone who will listen.  Social media tactics can be very effective in harnessing the energy and passion so it is strategically directed to support your broader capital attraction, retention and expansion efforts.  You need to have a plan that effectively finds these people and enrolls them in your program and enables them to deliver results.

NOW TAKE ACTION

Hopefully, I’ve nudged your curiosity sufficiently to check out Kevin’s book – Lovemark.  You will enjoy the read.  You might also enjoy checking out Kevin’s Lovemarks website.  It is a great source of inspiration and guidance.  Remember, guiding your community to Lovemark status is a journey.  You won’t get there overnight and it will require persistence and patience.  But along the way you will be dramatically strengthening your community image.  You’ll also become an even better storyteller.

If you need additional inspiration, who would have thought anybody could tell the story about making a cup of coffee in a way that touches people’s hearts and creates an emotional connection?  Folger’s has achieved Lovemark status in the minds of consumers.  Watch one or both of these commercials and think about how you can begin leading your community on its journey to Lovemark status.

The Ring

Coming Home

Please leave a comment and share your perspective.  By sharing, you help everybody get a better learning experience.

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Your support in helping build awareness of this educational endeavor matters and is appreciated.

1. The CEO is Boss.  Okay, A.G. actually says the customer is boss, but in the world of capital investment that is more often than not, the company CEO. Your goal should be to ensure CEOs in your target industries understand your community’s promise and the asset package that supports it. You need to be certain the image CEOs have of your community is consistent with reality. Misperceptions need to be eliminated or you will find that your community is left off the short list of locations for consideration. I continue to be surprised at how most community promotion is focused on site selection consultants. This target audience of decision influencers is certainly important, but they are also focused on the rational side of the decision (facts and figures) which reflects only the “ticket to entry” and often do not represent the emotional basis for differentiation and final decision. It is important to remember, at the end of the day, the site selection consultant’s job is to provide the CEO with the information to make an informed decision. Net, the CEO is the site selection consultant’s boss as well. The more you focus on understanding and communicating what the CEO needs to know about your location the more effective your promotional program will be.  And, site selection consultants will actually be grateful that you are providing them with relevant information to share with their “boss”. Take a quick look at your promotional efforts and determine if you have the CEO as the focus of the communication. If you decide you don’t, then meet with a few CEOs from companies in your community and ask for their insight on what changes would be important to make. The more relevant you can make your messaging on a limited budget, the more effective you can be.
2. Where to Play, How to Win. These are two simple strategic questions that are so important to answer any yet so difficult to get alignment on. The biggest issue is the answers require you to make a choice. “My economic development efforts will focus on attracting, retaining and expanding capital from these select industries and not these.” It is the “not” word that creates so much debate. Part of the problem is executives and support groups included in the “not” category feel slighted and left out, so they push back on the choice. One of the keys to success is to restate the position – “My limited economic development promotional dollars will be preferentially focused on attracting, retaining and expanding capital from these select industries over the next 24 months.” “Not” industries in your community provide tax revenue and represent job creation potential. They should be valued. The problem is you have a limited promotional budget and must make a choice on where to invest it for the greatest potential return. Make certain the executives in your “not” industries feel the love or you may find them leaving your community. Don’t alienate them with the way you communicate your promotional investment choices.

   Different from Where to Play, How to win, means making a select number of specific choices on how to differentiate your community within the target industries you plan to play.  The hardest thing in making these choices is being objective.  You need to understand the image your community has in the minds of the CEOs in those industries. Often, this includes misperceptions that need to be addressed. Or, it may be a complete lack of awareness regarding your asset package. In either case, your promotional efforts must talk to the CEO and not to yourself. That means explaining what the benefits they will derive in selecting your location. Stop talking features and start talking benefits.

3. Leverage What You Do Best. It is okay if your community is not the best choice for a company.  No location is the right solution for every potential capital investor. Yet, we feel bad when an RFP is rejected or we didn’t get an opportunity to even compete for a specific deal. Sometimes a rejection is actually the best outcome. Particularly, if an acceptance would create a major distraction because the company needs are not aligned with your community strengths. The core paradigm in economic development needs to shift from a landlord-tenant relationship to a real partnership where you can easily see both the business and community growing stronger together. The easiest way to do this by attracting investment that leverages the strengths of your community, and by investing to make your strengths even stronger. Think in terms of Jim Collin’s hedgehog concept. Stay focused on what your community has passion for, can be great at and can build an economy around. Do this and your economic development will move from “good to great”. Do this, and your community will be a true business partner versus a landlord.
4. Optimize by Building Enabling Structures. One learning from my career is that systems are perfectly designed to produce the results you get. If you are getting mediocre results, then your system needs attention (or you could reset your expectation so mediocre is acceptable). A model I have always found useful when working “on” the system has been the Galbraith Star. It is an organizational development model to help you understand the driving and restraining forces that conspire to produce consistent results. Armed with that insight, the next step is to optimize the system to produce competitively superior results. You do this by creating processes, programs, assets and policy change aligned to the desired outcome. When you’ve successfully answered the “Where to Play and How to Win” questions, you are in a position to evaluate your systems and determine if they are sufficiently robust to deliver the results you seek.  If not, then optimize.
5. Manage Risk. I want to contrast managing risk from eliminating risk. On the road to breakthrough results you will have to deal with risk, there is no way around it. That means you need to get good at identifying and quantifying it. The fact is all change entails risk. Equally true is most people and organizations don’t understand how to manage risk effectively. And yet, it is one of the skills that often separates winners from the losers. Risk management is a process and with a little practice can be learned and applied to your economic development decisions. Effective risk management allows you to make purposeful choices that help you change your community so it can continually be seen as relevant, competitive and authentic. It also helps build confidence in the strategic direction you select to help create jobs and prosperity. Getting good at managing risk allows you to change faster and more dramatically, creating a competitive advantage that is difficult for other locations to duplicate. How much risk is your community taking? Is it enough to facilitate change so your community can be competitive in today’s interdependent global economy?
6. Be Courageous and Connected. Being courageous is all about your willingness to continually challenge the status quo in a productive way. It is about being open to purposefully destroy what appears to be working in order to invent an even more effective path to greater success. It doesn’t mean being foolish or cost inefficient though. It speaks to making choices that are thought through. It means not being caught up in analysis paralysis waiting for that last piece of data that tells you exactly what to do. In my experience it also means accepting the principle of Occam’s Razor – the best course forward is the one built upon the fewest assumptions or the choice based on the set of assumptions with the lowest expected variance. The principle is often expressed (actually incorrectly) as “the simplest solution is generally the best solution”. In my experience, reapplication in economic development means recognizing that systems and processes that have historically worked well, may have become unnecessarily complicated (14^th century Franciscan friar William of Ockham’s notion of plurality without necessity). If you strip a system or process back to the original intent underpinning the design, it gets easier to identify the root cause of any current failure. Take legislation for an example. If you understand the purpose of the original legislation by stripping away all subsequently legislated exceptions you can begin to understand why it no longer meets the needs of today’s economic reality.  In these cases, yet another a bandaid is probably not the best solution because you’ll be pushing the original execution well beyond the designer’s intent.  It would be better to reassess and create a new simplified solution. Remember, if your operation gets too complicated the chances of getting a manageable solution are slim. On the other hand, if you are in touch with what is really happening in your community, you are always in a good position to design a simple solution that has a high probability of success. The challenge isn’t so much identifying what is right to do, as it is unraveling the years of politics that add “plurality without necessity”. Net, strip out the complexity and keep it simple if you want to increase your probability of success.

If you get a chance to read Game Changer, please do so. There is a lot of wisdom in the book that I left out of the above discussion. I know you’ll enjoy it. Hopefully my take on the reapplication of the principles is helpful as you think through how you are going to do more with less. I also know the conversation on Occam’s Razor may be a bit self-indulgent. But, my undergraduate degree is in theoretical mathematics and old habits die hard. To those of you who did read it, thank you for your perseverance.

Do you have personal examples of any of the 6 principles at work in your community? Or, do you have thoughts on how you might reapply any of the principles to do more with less budget? If you do, please share your thoughts as a comment. Your willingness to add personal perspective to the discussion will help everybody get a better educational experience from reading the post. I appreciate your participation and look forward to your thoughts.

So, if you can’t count on getting adequate resources for your current economic development plans, what can you do to help ensure success in these tough challenging economic times?

Here are Seven Essential things you could (and should) be doing to maximize your economic development performance.

1. Know your community assets and the benefits they deliver for your capital attraction, expansion and retention target industries. Now is when you really need to invest time and energy into sharpening your unique selling proposition and sales story for your target industries. It is important you understand how capital investors objectively assess your community strengths and weaknesses. It is time to ensure the language you are using in your RFP responses are adequately answering the question – “What’s in it for me?” versus the classic construct of “Let me tell you how wonderful this community is.” Stop talking features, and start talking benefits. You need to generate insight into why an executive in a target industry might select your community and determine the most compelling bundle of assets you can authentically deliver. Now is the time to invest in candid introspection and community self-awareness. You rarely have time for this when your promotional budgets are strong and you are focused on project deadlines. Now is the time to do the assessment, when the project side of your operation has a temporary lull.
2. Focus on a few industries and do the job exceptionally well. When your budget is cut, you need to redouble your efforts to understand the drivers of success in attracting capital from the industries you are targeting. You have minimal dollars to waste, so improving the effectiveness and efficiencies of what you are doing is paramount. Conduct a work out session in your shop to eliminate non-value added activities. Take a hard look at why companies have rejected your RFPs in the past and focus on strengthening the weak parts of your proposal package so you can increase the conversion rate for leads to investment. Seek to know what is really going on in a select few of your highest priority industries and try to meet their needs better than any other community.
3. Resource your initiatives adequately.When your budget is cut, don’t try to maintain your promotional effort across a wide range of industries by cutting investment across the board. This is the easy, but often fatal, approach. Instead, make the hard choice about which industries you are going to prioritize and then make certain you can afford to invest at a level that ensures competitiveness. This approach will actually result in a higher probability for a return on investment. In addition to making the priority choices, you also need to reset expectations with your Management and contributing members. If you do not reset expectations, then you will be under constant pressure to expand your industry focus and your community leaders will be consistently disappointed in your performance no matter how remarkable it is under the circumstances. Recalibrate expectations. Get them aligned with your program’s ability to deliver results and then you will be in a position to win.
4. Get even closer to your business community. You cannot afford expensive market research when budgets are tight. But, you cannot afford to fly blind either when it is so important to minimize the risk of making a wrong decision. How do you reconcile the dilemma? The key is to forge even closer, personal relationships with the business leadership in your community so you can learn about their industry directly from them. Often the insights you will get are informed by industry omnibus market research in addition to their own experience. It is unlikely company leaders will reach out to you and offer the knowledge. You will need to proactively reach out to them to explain your information needs and ask for their help and insights.
5. Partner with other economic development organizations to cost share. We often view other communities as competitive. However, just because everybody’s budgets have gotten tighter doesn’t mean the cost of success has decreased. It just means you can’t afford to play the game the same way you used to. These are times when Regional collaborations really shine. They create opportunities for cost sharing that frees up your cash for redeployment to support mission critical activities only your organization can deliver. My general counsel to everybody who asks is to follow the OPM – OPR – OPK model (Other People’s Money, Other People’s Resources, Other People’s Knowledge). If you get the model working for you, then you are well on the way to a successful outcome.
6. Enroll your business community as active advocates. It will take an increase in sweat equity from your team, but it won’t require a tremendous investment of promotional dollars to create a grassroots program to support your economic development efforts. Now is the time to reach out to the community and make them even more active partners in your work. To be clear, this is not as easy as it sounds. This is not as simple as creating a Facebook page or a community newsletter. You need to have a sound strategic and tactical plan to utilize the community’s voice in your selling efforts. You should think about this opportunity both systemically and on a project specific basis (e.g. using specific executives in your capital attraction program to accomplish specific goals).
7. Create a team of trusted advisors and listen to them. Managing in tough times with a limited budget is hard and demanding work. But, it can be made easier if you tap into the collective wisdom of the business leaders in your community who have led their operations through ups and downs and have both personal experience and insight to share. Not only will you get great counsel, but you will also gain a lot of confidence from listening to people who have successfully maneuvered through similar rough seas as yours. Even if you simply learn what mistakes to avoid, you will be in a much better position to succeed.

None of the seven tips are “rocket science”. But, we often forget to pay attention to the basics or we are afraid to make difficult prioritization choices when economic times are difficult. Legacy systems, unchanging expectations, over burdensome bureaucracy, all conspire to create a “deer in the headlight response” and we tend to operate the same way we did as when we had budget to invest. This Organizational behavior leads to poor performance and dissatisfaction among your key stakeholders. Instead of business as usual, as a leader in your economic development organization, you need to rethink priorities, retool delivery systems and reset expectations for what success looks like. Do this, and even in tough economic times you will make progress in moving your community toward economic prosperity.

If you have an eighth essential to add to the list, or a thought to consider, please add a comment to this blog post.

P.S.  Your support of the Place BrandAid project is important. Help the economic development professionals in states affected by the BP oil spill by sharing your thoughts on how you might tackle their challenge to rebuild their community image. The contribution of your thinking matters and will make a difference. Thank you!

The crisis is certainly a BP CMO nightmare.  But the BP brand is not the only one that is suffering. Place brands in the Gulf of Mexico Region are also among the collateral damage.  That damage is resulting in a dramatic decline in tourism revenue and an unexpected redirection of tax revenue to clean-up the mess.  And the timing couldn’t be more unfortunate as community and state budgets are still under pressure from the global economic crisis and dependent on federal stimulus dollars to provide services.  Unfortunately, the ingredients for a “perfect storm” appear to be amassing.

Much has been written in the literature about managing a corporate brand under crisis, but very little guidance is available on how to effectively repair a place brand.

Is a Regional or State approach best to help rebuild the image of community brands affected by the BP oil spill?”

The answer is likely both.

The damage to brand image is so great the cost of repair is likely out of reach for any individual state or community budget to bear.  A Regional approach provides an opportunity for cost sharing that will lessen the burden for individual states.  This approach could (and I would argue should) be a public-private partnership that is charged with the responsibility of creating and executing a coordinated PR crisis management plan.  The Travel & Tourism industry and State Departments of Development should take the lead to 1) ensure a consistent message and 2) provide guidance/training/resources for community EDOs on how to handle the challenge locally.  Like the successful management of the Tylenol tampering crisis, this team needs to create a campaign to ensure the public has access to facts and is kept apprised about progress of recovery efforts.  This strategy should help restimulate the flow of tourism and minimize negative experiences by establishing the right consumer expectation.  In the short-term, the team could also look to target non-traditional consumer segments (like disaster recovery volunteers) and create special programs to ensure their visits deliver a positive experience.

I also think there needs to be a local response that focuses on residents and is designed to 1) provide relevant factual informed and 2) rebuild both confidence and pride in the community.  Local place brand marketers need to be familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and take the model into consideration as they develop their communication plans.  At the moment, the physiological and safety needs of residents are the dominant concerns, and programs to address these should be the highest priority of any community EDO marketing plans.  Ultimately, the attitude of residents will determine the altitude of local economic prosperity.  Clearly, for communities involved, this is not a business as usual situation.  Promotional investment should be temporarily redirected from the capital attraction budget to capital retention budget.  In the long run, this strategy should deliver the greatest return.  Private sector leadership should be heavily engaged in helping craft and implement the plan to ensure credibility.  Local media should also be involved to help deliver message reach, particularly around public service programs designed to help reduce the financial instability this crisis creates for families in the community.

STRENGTHENING BRAND AMERICA – PROJECT PLACE BRANDAID

Economic Development professionals in the Gulf of Mexico Region are facing an exceptionally tough branding challenge that was unexpected and not of their making.  One thing you can do to help them address the challenge is to share your experience and thoughts.

Project PLACE BRANDAID is about doing just that.

I would like you to share perspective on the best approach to rebuild the place brand affected by this crisis.  If you have experience in working on rebuilding a place image following a natural or manmade crisis, please share what you learned.

All you need to do is take a moment and use the comment box to provide your expertise and ideas for how local, State and/or Regional economic development professionals might think about addressing the image damage created by the crisis.  I will make certain the input is provided to the EDO leaders in the Gulf of Mexico Region for consideration.

Providing your expertise is one easy and meaningful way we can help the Region manage through this challenge.  I encourage you to participate in this project and enroll others you believe can contribute to the cause.

I know it is not as glitzy as a Farm Aid program, but it is one way we can leverage our professional expertise as a global community to help make a difference in the Gulf of Mexico Regional recovery efforts.

Take a moment and leave a comment.

We have all probably been involved in conversations where either private sector leaders or elected political officials focus on what is wrong with our community or bemoan the difficulty of creating an effective place brand to attract capital.  When leadership isn’t excited, it can be emotionally draining and is certainly a de-motivating for any team trying to position their community for capital attraction.  We’ve probably also all been involved in hosting a site visit where a bad impression is created because people in the community speak negatively about it to executive thinking about making a capital investment.

My colleague (who is an economic development professional) told me about an experience he had.  An old friend of his came to visit for a long weekend.  On his flight back home he happened to strike up a casual conversation with the passenger sitting next to him.  This person had nothing good to say about the community and in the course of a 10-minute discussion on everything that was wrong.  The stranger’s attitude was definitely “glass half empty”.  Upon arrival safely home my colleague’s friend called him, shared the discussion and empathized with the comment “You really have your work cut out for you.”  This random passenger’s attitude had created a lasting negative image about the community.

The story made me wonder – “How many times does this happen and at what cost to a community’s efforts to create a good impression?”  It also inspired me to try and compile a list of keys to creating positive attitudes in teams. So I did some online research and reflected on my 33-years in the private sector leading successful teams for Procter & Gamble.

TOP TEN TIPS TO CREATING A “GLASS HALF-FULL” ATTITUDE ON TEAMS

1. Positivity leads to possibility thinking and is liberating.
2. Personal ego and private agendas tend to derail a positive attitude on Teams.
3. Inclusion is critical; people need to feel authentically involved.
4. Genuine gratitude for contributions helps people want to contribute even more.
5. Objectivity and willingness to challenge “sacred cow” assumptions creates trust.
6. It is important to celebrate victories, no matter how small.
7. Every problem presents an opportunity if you look for the learning.
8. Putting people in positions where they can leverage their strengths creates confidence.
9. Trust among team members (and supporters) is a foundation for success.
10. Fun matters.

Then I found an absolutely remarkable story that not only succinctly summarized the keys to creating a positive attitude, but brought the principles to life in an unforgettable way.  I found the amazing story of Nick Vujicic. Please take a moment to watch the video about Nick before reading on. It will help put the lessons below in context.

LESSONS FROM NICK’S LIFE (and my translation for reapplication in economic development) –

Passion – Everybody involved need to believe that what you are doing will make a meaningful difference.  In my experience, understanding how the work will not only help make the local economy stronger today, but also create opportunities for the community’s children to succeed in the future helps stimulate passion.  This doesn’t happen automatically.  As a leader, you need to engage the community in a discussion about what success means to the future economic well being of the community.  And, you can’t simply have the conversation once.  You need to ensure everybody involved understands the potential impact of success, and you need to keep the vision alive by talking about it frequently.

Dream – You don’t want people simply building a wall brick-by-brick.  You want people building a cathedral.  The goal needs to be big and bold.  You know the goal is big when it feels just out of reach and will take work to achieve.  Putting a man on the moon is a great example of a dream that encouraged people to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to success.  You need to capture people’s heart not just their head.

Energy – Positive energy begets positive energy.  The saying “birds of a feather stick together” has merit.  People on your team with a positive attitude will attract other people to your project who bring a positive attitude.  Most important is that you set the example and keep a “glass half-full” attitude as well.  If you become negative, the team will begin to adopt a “glass half-empty” attitude and it will dramatically lower your probability of success.

Message – You need to be able to clearly and persuasively talk about your community’s brand promise and the benefits it provides capital investors who choose to evaluate your location for their business.  A good place (destination) branding exercise will lead to a differentiated, relevant, competitive and authentic message.  It is important everybody involved knows what the promise is and how to talk about it in a way that is both empowering and inspiring.

Motivation – Remember, it is not about you.  It’s about achieving the end result and doing what is right for your community.  Selfish motivations breed distrust and quickly erode attitude.  If decisions are focused on doing what is right and not just what is easy, then trust is enhanced.  Without a foundation of trust, nothing of significance can be accomplished.

Never Give Up – Leading a place (destination) branding effort is hard work.  So many things can go wrong.  So many people are involved.  How can you ever prevent somebody from speaking to a fellow passenger on a plane and unfairly trashing your community?  The fact is you can’t.  But, it is not a reason to give up.  There are plenty of positive things you can do to increase the probability your community brand promise will be heard and internalized by a potential capital investor.  Instead of having a “glass half-empty” attitude and complaining about what you can’t control, it is far better to have a “glass half-full” attitude and concentrate on making a difference on what you can influence.

Hopefully you watched the first video clip about Nick.  However, to really appreciate why I believe Nick’s story is an amazing demonstration of the power of a positive attitude, I encourage you to watch this second short video as well.  I am confident it will touch your heart and inspire your work.  Be forewarned, you are going to laugh and you may get a little misty eyed.  But, I guarantee you will conclude that no matter how challenging the work you are facing in branding your community, it is definitely an achievable objective.

Please leave a comment and share your perspective. By sharing, you help everybody get a better learning experience.

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Your support in helping build awareness of this educational endeavor matters and is appreciated.

The Strengthening Brand America Project is designed to help bridge the gap between global perception and the reality of Brand America through more effective use of place branding.  The concept is to is to help economic development professionals and government officials see how the choices they make in asset creation, infrastructure investment, public policy reform and diplomacy impact both the image and identity of Brand America.  While admittedly Brand America is more complex to manage, the lessons from product and corporate branding are instructional and highly relevant.

Understanding the reapplication and making better choices at the local level will help strengthen Brand America and bridge the gap.

In previous posts, I have commented about image versus identity and the critical importance of authenticity for a brand promise.  If a brand does not “walk the talk” of their brand promise, then the gap between image and desired identity will only get larger and eventually the desired identity will be no longer be attainable.

I’ve also commented on the remarkable turn around of Brand America’s global image in the annual Nation Brands Index study.  In spite of the great news, I purposefully positioned this turn around as the world voting in expectation.

Brand America would do a better job of walking the talk.

And now I’ve become aware of The Last, Lost Empire authored by Dr. Ted Becker and Dr. Michael Briand.  In my opinion, it is a sobering reinforcement of the need for Brand America to work even harder on ensuring the authenticity of the American promise. Failure is simply not an option.

The way I became aware of the book was from a blog post Ted authored that caught my attention. It shares three pictures that highlight the gap between Brand America’s emerging global image and the desired identity of its citizenry.  Pictures that serve as a reminder we have a lot of work to do.

How we address the political challenges facing our nation matters and clearly impacts Brand America’s image.  Brand America’s promise of being the one place on this planet where “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, rings hollow if we do not ensure the authenticity of that promise in today’s world.

Here are three questions Ted’s blog post raises with respect to authenticity –

1. How do you reconcile the abandonment of hope and hatred for a major private sector company depicted in a grafitti message with the promise of Brand America?
2. How do you reconcile the picture of a For Sales sign depicting unprecedented foreclosure rate on homes and loss of the American dream for so many people?
3. How do you reconcile the existence of a wall on America’s southern border with the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which reads “…Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore.  Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” ?

Because I do not know how to ask for input without inviting political bombast, I am going to treat the above as rhetorical questions designed to stimulate your thinking around how important it is the decisions you make in economic development are aligned with Brand America’s promise.

I will undoubtedly have more thoughts after I read the book.

In the interim, the question I would like you to answer is – What are some impressive examples of where Brand America is doing a good job of “walking the talk”?  I look forward to some uplifting and hopeful input.  Thanks in advance for responding.

As always, if you enjoyed the post please send it to a friend.  If you are a Facebook user become a fan of Brand America.  If you are a LinkedIn user, join the Brand America Group.  If you like to tweet, follow BrandAmerica on Twitter.

The book is a guide about giving a speech that will “positively blow ‘em away”.  What does a book on giving a speech have to do with economic development?  Nothing, and everything.

The principles behind giving a memorable speech can be reapplied to making a great impression during a meeting or site visit with a potential capital investor.  The key is to understand how to put the WOW into your investor interactions.

Understand Your Audience

• They learn and perceive differently.  Site selection consultants and C-level executives are not a mob.  They are individual people who all have their own style of learning.  One size does not fit all.  Some will be interested in physically seeing and walking a site, others will want a detailed presentation and written description.  You need to get to know each person you want to impact as an individual and understand how they like to learn.

• Their memories are built on meaning and context.  Memories are built on the ability of the brain to recognize patterns.  This is a right-brain activity and closely related to a person’s emotional core.  The stronger the memory, the easier it is to make a connection.  The more you know about a person’s background, the easier it will be for you to create a connection that resonates with their experience.  Make a point of looking for that connection to your community and you will be creating a stand out positive memory.

• They respond when you share your humanity.  The one thing that connects you with every site selection consultant and C-level executive is that you share the experience of being a living, breathing human.  If you start and end with a focus on the right brain, you will make a lasting impression.  As you plan your interactions, you need to think about how to create an emotional connection out of the gate.  You can share all the facts and figures you want during the interaction, but end on an emotional note as well to ensure the memory is established and relationship solidified.  Pre-plan these moments, and make certain they are related to your community so the memory is both relevant and authentic.

Tips on Execution

• Begin with the end in mind.  It is not about you, it is about your visitor’s needs.  Start with what you want the person to remember about your community and work your way backwards from there to create the kind of experience that will create a lasting memory.  The goal is to get your community assessed objectively as a location choice for a potential capital investment.  If you begin with that goal in mind, you will ensure the time is well spent and the required information is included in the visit.

• Golden Goals – 1) create a positive memory and, 2) have your community’s brand promise remembered.  Ensure every interaction is positive from start to finish.  Pay attention to the details, they matter.   Remember, a brand is a promise.  Your brand sets an expectation of what a C-level executive will experience if he/she makes a capital investment in your community.  You want that promise understood and remembered.

• Find the hook.  You need to find the way your visitor will connect with your community.  There are five types of hooks to consider.
  • Story hook – Have the interaction follow a classic story structure.  Begin with a strong opening.  Build the interest as the interaction progresses.  End the interaction with a crescendo that cements the memory.
  • Metaphorical hook – Find an image that reinforces your community brand promise.  If your community promises the opportunity to discover new ideas, introduce your visitor to somebody in your community that brings the promise to life.  If you promise a caring environment, take your visitor to a community event that serves as a live demonstration.   Don’t simply tell … show.
  • Location hook – Connect your community with a positive location experience your visitor has had in the past.  Create an analogy.  Making a connection will help your visitor position your community in their mind and will strengthen recall.
  • Time hook – Culture and values are reflected in history.  Tell the history of your community to help make it memorable.  If there is a celebration in your community, share it with your visitor.  These are special moments that will be easily remembered and positively associated with your community.
  • Provocation hook – Drama is always remembered.  If you can, help create a dramatic moment for your visitor.  For example, introduce him/her to the oldest person in your community who can explain why it is a great place to live.  Or, introduce the person to some of the children in your community who might someday work for the C-level executive’s company.  Let your imagination run wild to create dramatic ways to communicate your community promise.

• Use silence effectively.  You have two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion.  As the experience unfolds, let your visitor talk.  Sharing what he/she is feeling and thinking helps solidify the memory and makes it richer so recall is easier.  A pause on your part will reenergize your visitor and make him/her more engaged in the experience.

Discussion

If you apply the principles found in the HOW OF WOW, you will successfully create memories in the minds of your target site selection consultants and C-level executives.  You will also find that you will become even more passionate about your community and what it has to offer.  This enthusiasm will translate in your behavior and you will be an even better job of being a community ambassador.

I would be interested to know about your perspective on the reapplication of the principles in Tony Carlson’s book.  Have any of them worked for you?  Did any of them fail?  If yes, why?

As always, if you liked this blog post, please share it with a friend who you feel might also enjoy reading it.  I am also working hard to try and increase awareness of the Strengthening Brand America website as a resource for economic development professionals to learn more about reapplication of product and corporate branding principles to better brand their communities, regions and states.  If you are a Facebook user, become a fan.  If you use Twitter, follow BrandAmerica and retweet messages so your followers can be aware of the educational resource.  If you have a LinkedIn account, join the Brand America Group.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts by leaving a comment.

• Arizona passes a law (SB 1070) to address the challenges of illegal immigration in their state.  The new law is supported by a majority of Arizona residents.
• President O’Bama weighs in and seeks a bipartisan national solution.
• President O’Bama responds more strongly and raises concerns the law may divide the nation.
• President of Mexico weighs in with criticism of the new Arizona law.
• Arizona Governor defends the law and challenges White House to address illegal immigration.
• The Arizona press tries to educate the public by publishing the full text of SB 1070 so people can more easily get access to it.
• Americans have mixed reactions to the Arizona law including travel boycotts.
• Arizona Governor seeks to rebrand the state in order to refurbish tarnished state brand image.
• The rebranding effort begins.

Core question: Is rebranding the solution to Arizona’s challenge?

Consider This:

• A brand is a promise.  It sets an expectation of what the experience will be like if you engage with the product, corporation, community or state.
• To be effective, a brand promise must be relevant, competitive and authentic.
• Brands take time and money to establish.
• Public relations crisis management is a proven strategy to handle difficult image challenges.

My Potential Concerns:

There is no doubt Arizona’s actions are under scrutiny by both the American and International communities.   But, is it time for the state to walk away from the equity that has invested in establishing over decades?

Based on an Arizona Travel and Tourism branding guide, Arizona (also know as the Grand Canyon State) can be described by four attributes:

1. Unexpectedly Exhilarating Signature Scenery
2. Rejuvenating Open-Air Lifestyle
3. Timeless Discoveries
4. Vibrant Variety

Do a Google search using the terms “perception of Arizona” brand, to find the report.

In my opinion, none of the core attributes that define Arizona appear to be relevant to the current controversy.   If these are indeed the differentiating attributes of the state, does it make sense to walk away from them in an attempt to redefine itself and try to make a new promise that will redefine the state image?

Next question: Is Public Relations Crisis Management a better solution?

Let’s start with a definition of what crisis management is all about.  A crisis is defined in an Institute for Public Relations document as “a significant threat to operations that can have negative consequences if not handled properly”.  The author makes the point that “A crisis can create three related threats:  (1) public safety, (2) financial loss, and (3) reputation loss”.

There are a number of crisis examples that can be instructional -

Cyanide laced Tylenol

Exxon Valdez oil spill

Wendy’s Chili Hoaxer

Northern Illinois University Campus Shooting

In each of these cases, the companies faced significant business risk and had to manage the challenges effectively.

Does Arizona need Rebranding or Public Relations Crisis Management?

The question is not simply a matter of semantics.  For example, the experts you hire could be very different depending on the choice you make.  Great branding agencies are not necessarily great at public relations and visa versa.  The skill sets, knowledge and resources required for successful implementation of each strategy are very different. The time horizons are different for each choice.  The budgets required are based on the work and will also not be the same.

Which Strategy Do You Think Arizona Should Choose?

Share your thinking and experience.  The intent of asking the question is not to influence Governor Brewer’s decision.  I am confident her decision will be made with the input of experts who are thoroughly familiar with the details of the situation.  The intent is for us to learn from each other how to make these types of decisions if our communities are ever faced with an analogous challenge.

Leave a comment on this post.  Your perspective adds to the educational experience and will help advance the practical understanding of this topic. If you are a Facebook user, become a fan.  If you are on LinkedIn, join the Group.  If you are on Twitter, please tweet about this blog post and start following Brand America.

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar has always been a personal favorite of mine.  I can remember when I bought the album in 1970.  It is not surprising then that the lyrics were running through my mind as I reflected on the learnings from the book Buzzmarketing authored by Mark Hughes.

This is the third book I have selected to share some of the historical thinking that will help you ensure your social marketing program delivers a positive return on investment.  Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and President of Truemajority.org said this about the book – “There’s fake corporate marketing and there’s real marketing.  This is the real stuff for real people.”  How cool is that endorsement?

In the book, Mark talks about six secrets to successfully getting people to talk about your stuff.  Here is my interpretation of how to reapply them to create buzz about your community.

SECRET 1 – Push The Six Buttons of Buzz

People love to be the center of attention.  People love to have something fun to share with friends that will brighten their day.  In order to tap into people’s natural desire to be seen and heard, you’ve got to give them something to talk about.  You need to give them a story about your community.  But, it needs to be a story that is entertaining.  Like Bonny Raitt says in her song – “Let’s give ‘em something to talk about.”

Here are the six secret buttons Mark has identified as proven buzz generators.  I have provided a city slogan example for each, but you could think in terms of a headline in an advertisement or a claim featured on your website.

SECRET 2 – Capture The Media

When the media writes about your community, people tend to believe the information.  This is because the media is generally believed to be credible.  In addition, the media already has the attention of potential capital investors and presumably no incentive to make up false claims.  Media can amplify your community’s message.

When you create buzz in the media, people want to know what it is all about.  There are five frequently written story archetypes you can consider:

1. The David-and-Goliath story
2. The unusual or outrageous story
3. The controversy story
4. The celebrity story
5. What’s already hot in the media story

The key is to ensure the stories written about your community are authentic and reflect your community’s brand promise.  This is what helps create the multiplier effect across your other promotion channel choices.  If the messaging is inconsistent, it simply creates noise that makes it even harder to establish the image you want for your community.

SECRET 3 – Advertise For Attention

If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a noise?  If an ad has been placed, but nobody notices it, has your community been advertised?

You need to evaluate advertising placement based on the probability your target audience will actually see your message.  Invest preferentially in media options that are not crowded with other advertisements or messaging.  This will help your communication stand out from the crowd and increase the probability it has an impact.  Break out of traditional media and you are better positioned to create buzz.  It does take more courage to reject the comfortable, but the payoff can be dramatically higher.

SECRET 4 – Climb Buzz Everest

In today’s marketing environment, everybody tends to play follow-the-leader.  Doing what is found to work in other communities and reapplying the tactics in your community is a path that will lead to traditional results.  Traditional results means performing the same as everybody else.  And, that is not buzz worthy.

To successfully climb Buzz Everest, your message needs three key elements:

1. It has to be associated with something big and newsworthy.
2. It has to catch on in Middle America.
3. It has to be fashionable and not related to a fad.

Climbing Buzz Everest requires resourcefulness, follow-through, patience, faith, and courage.  It is important to remember the traditional path is relatively risk-free, but it will only produce average results.  Unless you take a risk, you will never achieve the level of prosperity your community is capable of producing.

SECRET 5 – Discover Your Creativity

Being creative requires you to be open and objective.  Buzz only works when the messaging is authentic and absolutely believable.  Tell it straight.  If people believe you are trying to mislead them, buzz will not happen.

Halfway, Oregon renamed their city to Half.com as a publicity stunt to create global attention on a new internet start-up.  Imagine the courage it took for the Mayor and community leaders to agree to a temporary name change.  The risk was high, but the decision delivered results.  NBC’s Today show broadcast from Half.com, Oregon the day the company launched its website.  It was a bold and memorable move.

Mark suggests there are 5 maxims for discovering your creativity.

1. Be courageous
2. Define the problem – Dump the strategy
3. Understand your consumers firsthand
4. Swing the bat often
5. Initiate competition

SECRET 6 – Police Your Product

Your community needs to create a WOW factor in order to create buzz, and it has to continue to WOW people.  You need a community promise that people will go out of their way to talk about.  Without such a promise, buzz is unlikely.

Get your most vocal advocates on the front line to understand how well or poorly your community promise is being delivered.  Strive to objectively see your community through the eyes of potential capital investors, visitors and citizens.  If your community doesn’t consistently deliver against its core promise, then you need to implement procedures and fixes that address the shortcomings.

For additional perspective on social media use in community branding, check out these blog posts and the comments from experts:

Making Sense of Social Media

Making Sense of Social Media – Part Two

Leave a comment on this post.  Your perspective adds to the educational experience and will help advance the practical understanding of this topic.  If you are a Facebook user, become a fan.  If you are on LinkedIn, join the Group.  If you are on Twitter, please tweet about this blog post and start following Brand America.

I am continuing the discussion for two reasons.

First, there is a lot of learning about effective word-of-mouth or viral marketing that can help you better understand how to create an effective social media program.  This is knowledge that should not be forgotten or ignored.

Second, since I wrote the last post, I have reviewed no less than six new presentations and downloaded two white papers on the keys to social media success.  None of them addressed historical knowledge on what works and what doesn’t work.  And all of them made you feel like if you don’t invest in a social media program you are somehow missing out on a low cost and effective way to communicate with your target audience.  The truth is that maybe you are missing out on a great tactic, but maybe you’re not.

To determine if social media is right for your communication mix, there are two simple questions I advise economic development professionals to answer:

1. Who are you trying to communicate with?
2. Do they use social media tools to get information about communities for potential capital investment?

If your target audience isn’t engaged in social media use to get information about locations, then it is not a smart investment for you to make.

Here is an admittedly “out there” analogy to help make the point.

If a magazine for surfing enthusiasts offered you an 80% discount on a full-page advertisement for your community, would you invest part of your limited promotional budget in placing an advertisement?  Chances are you would decline because the readership of the magazine is unlikely to have sufficient reach among your target audience to warrant running an advertisement in it at any cost.  It would be a bad investment at 100% of the cost and a bad investment at 10% because nobody in your target audience would be exposed to it.  It is a bad investment at any cost.

To be fair, if you were a company selling wetsuits it would be a great buy.

The surfing magazine scenario is easy to see, because the decision is not obscured by hyperbole positioning advertising in surfing magazines as a revolutionary new way to create a meaningful dialogue with members of your target audience.

The decision to invest in a social media effort is just as easy to make if you answer the two questions above.  If your target does not use social media tools to get information about communities for capital investment, then no need for you to invest your limited budget dollars in a social media initiative.

If you conclude that your target audience does use social media tools, then the lessons of PyroMarketing authored by Greg Stielstra (another great book in my personal library) will help you ensure a positive return on investment.

Stielstra provides a four-step model to create evangelists who will proactively advocate for a product.  I’ve taken the liberty to interpret the model for reapplication in place branding.  Hopefully, you’ll find Stielstra’s model thought provoking.

Gather the driest tinder: “Focus your promotions on those people most likely to buy, benefit from, and then enthusiastically endorse your product or service. They are the only ones whose ignition temperature is within reach of your advertising. They light easily and burn hot. The driest tinder is where word-of-mouth wild fires begin.”

Who represents the driest tinder in economic development?

One group are the executives and employees who love living and working in your community. These people cannot help but share their positive experience with others.  They enjoy being Ambassadors for your community.  The only thing holding them back from having an even larger positive impact on your community’s image is that they don’t have a way to reach more people.

Another group are people who have had a great experience in your community and may have moved away.  These people reminisce about the “old days”.  When they are asked about your community, their eyes light up and the positive stories start to flow.

Touch it with the match: “To the extent you can, give people an experience with your product or service. If you want people to laugh, don’t tell them you’re funny, tell them a joke. Experience is the shortcut to product understanding. It touches people deeply and generates more heat than advertising, igniting even the mildly interested.”

If you selected people that have had experience with your community, create a unique experience for them.  Chances are they’re not fully aware of all the reasons your community is a great location choice for capital investment.  Help them understand what you are trying to accomplish, why it is important to the economic prosperity of your community and explain the important role they can play to positively impact the future.  If they see the vision and are adequately energized, their genuine enthusiasm for your community will cause them to want to pitch in and help you.

Fan the flames: Fanning the flames means giving people tools to help them spread your message throughout their social network. People spread messages more effectively than advertising. The fire is hotter than the match. This is why the process that spreads your marketing message must be different than the one by which it began. Leveraging the power of personal influence is the only way to expand your marketing fire beyond its point of origin (the driest tinder and mildly interested) to the masses. By understanding the process you can equip people with tools to exponentially increase their reach and influence.”

It is important to make certain the social media tools you invest in are easy to use to tell the story of your community.  You need to constantly educate your tinder on reasons to believe the points you want communicated about your community.  Provide real world examples and storylines that can easily be repeated.  And, you need to be clear in your direction.  For example – “Please retweet this message so your followers can read this great article about our community.”

Save the Coals: Saving the coals means keeping a record of the people you encounter through your marketing so you can quickly and easily reach them to fan the flames or to tell them about new products that match their interests. This allows your marketing to build equity and keep pace with the needs of your growing business.”

You need to create and maintain a database of people who love your community and are willing share their enthusiasm.  You need to talk to these people routinely and make them feel as special as they really are to the success of your program.  These are the people you want to keep as informed as possible.  Do special things periodically to let them know they are loved.

One company I think does an excellent job at saving the coals is Makers Mark.  This is one of the brands that have achieved lovemark status in my mind.  Their Ambassador program is extremely well done.  I have enjoyed their email, snail mail, small gifts, shared cask ownership program, sponsored events, and distillery tours.  You may enjoy studying their Ambassador program in order to get ideas for potential reapplication.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a Senior Ambassador for Markers Mark.  I love the program (and product).

Next week, I am going to blog about the learnings from BuzzMarketing authored by Mark Hughes.

In the meantime, I would like to hear about your experience in using social media to communicate your community’s promise.  What have you found works best?  What are the constraints you’ve discovered?  What advice would you give colleagues?  What examples would you recommend people research?  Are there differences in application between countries?

Leave a comment on this post.  Your perspective adds to the educational experience and will help advance the practical understanding of this topic.  Forward this to a friend.  If you are on Facebook, become a fan.  If you are on LinkedIn, join the Group.  If you are Twitter, please tweet about this blog post and start following Brand America.