Navel Gazing

If I find out that any Stimulus funds are getting spent on this nonsense, count me in as a parade leader when we march on Washington.

I guess I understand the impetus: local economies are cratering, so elected officials need to take action. They seek out the experts in branding, and ask the gurus to give them some of the same brilliance they apply to their corporate accounts. New or better brands will prompt the economic activity that'll get communities back into the black, and get the leaders re-elected.

Only it's one thing for corporate types to throw away some percentage of their marketing spend on the vagaries of branding; it's quite another for distressed communities to be similarly wasteful and misled.

The experts behind the Providence makeover cite "...extensive research, including polling and focus groups to find the client’s brand identity." In other words, it asks what the client (and its supportive "stakeholders," I'm sure) thinks and wishes for itself, and then develops branding that gives them the image they asked for.

What this has to do with prompting economic activity is beyond me. Image is a nice-to-have, at best, but it usually tracks with the actual truth it purports to label. No amount of imaginative branding can change a depressed, failing city or town. It’s a hard secret to keep.

But I'd maintain that this is good news.

We all know that the true key to community development is community, just like the deciding factors behind most business activities come from reality. Instead of embracing the faux hopes of branding, communities like Providence could utilize some other popular ideas/technology tools, like:

• Social Media: Why isn't Providence's future development an "all hands" activity that involves any citizen who wants to participate? Skip talking about the city's brand, and instead solicit and encourage action steps about the components of the city's problems (clean-up/beautification, support for local businesses, etc.)
• CRM: There must be some limited list of would-be corporate relocations (or retail developments), so why isn't the core strategy to identify them, and set plans to make them happen? There’s no infinite world out there to tell about your pricey brand position, but rather a finite group of targets can can be ID'd and addressed
• Outsourcing: Traditional, sponsored marketing, however inventive or inspired, can only accomplish so much; the real triggers for change come from the authentic efforts of interested individuals and third-parties.Why isn't every business involved in recruiting another one? Couldn't individuals work through friends and family to locate leads for stores and/or future neighbors?

There is a lot that suffering communities can do to improve their situation, but it requires real, collaborative action, and a focus on effecting change in the real world. You don't need a slogan or logo to get it done, which makes brand marketing amount to little more than costly and useless navel gazing.

• Can a destination claim to be something it isn't?
• Is branding the wrong answer to the right question: What are we doing?
• What's more important... your brochure, or who is seeing it (you can't say both)?