Guest Blogger: Jim Townsend

Jim Townsend is our guest blogger this week. He is the executive director of the Tourism Economic Development Council, serves on the Board of Directors of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, which he founded in 2002, and lives with his family in Royal Oak. 

Check back here every weekday to read Jim’s thoughts about… 

Want to join the conversation? Please send your comments to: feedback@metromodemedia.com

Photograph © Dave Krieger

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03.22.07
Post No. 1

An Accidental Brand Guy

At the outset of my career if someone had told me that I would be spending a lot of time developing and managing brands, I would not have known what to say. I left college infected with the political bug and got started in North Carolina as a field organizer in the 1988 presidential election. Since then I’ve worked on Capitol Hill, marketed Ford’s minivan, and founded a coalition of economically endangered inner ring suburbs. This past year, on behalf of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, I led an effort to develop a new regional tourism brand for metropolitan Detroit. Not long ago it dawned on me that I’d been working on brands in one way or another for nearly 20 years. 

How could this be so? Because a brand is not just a logo or slogan but a story told in a marketplace; its purpose is to persuade and inspire action. It can be a story told to people in the market for cars or shoes or aimed at the marketplace of ideas by candidates seeking the 2008 presidential nomination or activists trying build support of a plan to make healthcare affordable for all.

I’ve also come to know that smart branding has the power to inspire smart behavior. Companies that have a clear idea about their strengths can align themselves to take full advantage of their capabilities. Apple, Google and, yes, Toyota have a clear idea of their strengths and they invest in them relentlessly. This in turn makes their brand story that much more convincing. 

Branding Regional Detroit

Can a city or region reap the same benefits from discovering and acting upon its brand? I believe the answer is yes, but not because branding can solve all of the challenges facing metro Detroit or any other community. The benefit comes from learning what the region’s strengths are and who values those strengths and developing the foresight and courage to focus on those audiences.

This is what we’ve attempted to do in creating a new brand for metro Detroit, which we unveiled locally earlier this year: The D – Cars, Culture, Gaming, Music, Sports.

In the next couple of days, I’ll try to describe what our research told me and my collaborators about metro Detroit’s key strengths as a tourist destination in the minds of thousands of visitors and locals we learned from. For now, I’ll summarize the key ideas that resulted from researching metro Detroit’s brand essence and expand on these in the entries that follow:

COOL – Speaking boldly to Detroit’s unique strengths: cars, culture, gaming, music, sports

YOUTH – Targeting young people who aren’t hung up on Detroit’s history, who represent the future of tourism and Detroit and who typically do the heavy lifting when it comes to entrepreneurism and growth

UNITY – Placing all metro Detroit under a single powerful brand identity – The D

SIMPLICITY – Highlighting the focal points of interest in the region by grouping them together in branded districts that are easy to locate and remember

While I happen to be the blogger in this case, this brand effort would not have been possible without the passion and genius of Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford; Eric La Brecque, the TEDC’s extraordinary brand consultant; Chris Baum, the Bureau’s head of marketing and sales; and a team of dedicated professionals at the Detroit Metro CVB.