A little about the SBA Blog

Ed BurghardThe Strengthening Brand America blog category is to be a forum where economic development professionals and marketing professionals can share their experience with and thoughts on place branding so as a community we have a better appreciation for how to successfully apply the principles for job growth and economic prosperity.

The From the CEO category is to be a forum where I can share thoughts on successful reapplication of private sector product and corporate branding principles in place branding.

Governor Ridge Talks About Shale Energy

April 16, 2012 at 12:20 pm, by Edward | No Comments | Tags: , | Category: Shale Gas

I was fortunate enough to moderate the panel discussion entitled the “Ohio Energy Forum: The impact of shale exploration, drilling and extraction on companies doing business in Ohio”, hosted by McDonald Hopkins in Cleveland. Governor Tom Ridge kicked off the Forum by sharing his thoughts on the importance of shale energy to the State, Region and Nation. [...]

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Cost Effective Growth

April 10, 2012 at 11:10 pm, by Edward | No Comments | Tags: ,, | Category: Strategy

  One of the challenges in managing brands is to find the right balance between investing in developing the asset and delivering a positive return. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about a product, corporation or community. The tactical choices may be different, but the challenge is the same. Profit or Growth? is a [...]

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Branding Master Class

April 9, 2012 at 4:38 pm, by Edward | No Comments | Tags: ,, | Category: Place Brand Building, Strategy

It is rare that I find a presentation that positively impresses me. Even rarer if I agree with most of the content. I want to share a series of presentations on branding I think are worth the time to look at. Idris Mootee, CEO of Idea Couture, authored the presentations four years ago. I recently [...]

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Thank You – Your Support is Appreciated

April 1, 2012 at 9:49 pm, by Edward | No Comments | Tags: | Category: Measures

The end of a month is always a time when I review the performance statistics for the Strengthening Brand America Project. I approach it with a mixture of both apprehension and excitement. Apprehension in case the data suggests a slip in interest. And, with excitement because I am always curious to see which topics garnered [...]

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Brand and Branding Defined

March 27, 2012 at 9:35 pm, by Edward | 4 Comments | Tags: , | Category: Place Brand Building, Promotion

I have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion on the definition of brand and branding lately in the LinkedIn Groups I frequent. In part, I am not surprised. The advent of tools to help communicate directly with people has resulted in a revisit of the classic four P’s definition. The tools have [...]

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Tell Your Story Well

March 26, 2012 at 11:51 pm, by Edward | 1 Comment | Tags: ,, | Category: Promotion

I have been fascinated with storytelling for a while now. The more I study the subject, the more convinced I am that structure matters and a good template can go a long way to helping you effectively tell your story. Don’t get me wrong; a boring story that is well structured is still a boring [...]

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New eBook On Strategic Planning

March 23, 2012 at 5:22 pm, by Edward | 9 Comments | Tags: , | Category: Shale Gas, Strategy

One of the biggest challenges for public and private sector community leaders is to ensure residents enjoy sustainable economic prosperity. Some communities are blessed with amazing natural assets making the challenge a little easier to address. Some communities have well developed and highly competitive industry clusters to build from. Whatever the situation, to be successful [...]

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Build It – But They May Not Come

March 12, 2012 at 6:49 pm, by Edward | 4 Comments | Tags: ,, | Category: Promotion

I spend most of my time now counseling economic development organizations on how to reapply corporate and product branding principles to positioning their communities for capital attraction, retention and expansion. My hypothesis is that better branded communities will in aggregate help create a stronger national brand for America. One area I am asked about fairly [...]

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