From Main Street to campus, Ames is comprised of diverse people and places, creating an unique character soon to be made into a city brand.

 

This brand will be promoted to unite its residents and create a reputation for visitors.

Tuesday night the Ames City Council approved the decision to hire Brand Endeavor, a company from Marina del Rey, Calif., that specializes in the research, strategy, architecture and execution of brands.

“Cities have brands already, whether that’s what they want or not,” said Susan Gwiasda, public relations officer for the city of Ames. “[The city is] really interested in how people from outside the community view Ames.”

One of the council’s goals, as established in January 2010, is to “create and promote a community vision.” In August the council formed a steering committee to seek out a vision consultant in order to achieve that goal.

Steve Schainker, Ames city manager, said, “Ultimately what the council is looking for is a unifying vision that will make us unique among other cities.”

Schainker said that with a community as diverse as Ames, creating a shared vision is difficult, which is why hiring a consultant was necessary “to pull us all together.”

The steering committee is made up of 14 Ames residents, including members of the Ames city staff, Iowa State, Ames Community Schools and the Chamber of Commerce.

The steering committee accepted proposals from various local and national visioning specialists and after research and evaluation, selected Brand Endeavor out of 10 companies.

“What we were asking for was not a traditional marketing plan or communications strategy,” Gwiasda said.

She said the goal was to “unite and identify a vision or a plan or a concept that the community could get behind and could incorporate into all aspects.”

The visioning project will be a 19-week process that is divided into two phases, according to the Brand Endeavor statement of work: “discovery” and “analysis and vision development.”

In the “discovery” phase, the company will research the city’s current brand through the following measures:

• Interviews with 15 community sector representatives that include businesses, the university, health care, seniors citizens, the religious community and neighborhood associations;

• A review of documents, materials, the city website, etc., to understand how the public views the Ames community;

• Reviews of the branding process of competitive or peer cities, such as Iowa City and Cedar Rapids;

• An online survey that will allow people from inside and outside of Ames to express their perspectives of the city.

Brand Endeavor will then analyze their findings and create a strategic platform to present to the council summarizing their perceived vision of Ames, with opportunities for feedback from the community.

Jeff Johnson, president of the ISU Alumni Association and member of the steering committee, said, “I hope that we don’t become so arrogant that we only just talk to ourselves. I think in order for us to move forward, we need to be shaken a little bit, to see how others see us.”

In the final step of the process, Brand Endeavor will come back with a final presentation and recommend ideas for the focus of the brand marketing.

“The brand is the next step, it’s becoming that vision,” Schainker said. “It becomes your reputation.

“You want to have something that unifies us that says: Where do we want to take this city into the future, looking forward? What do we want to become? We want to challenge ourselves, stretch ourselves to do something different than other communities.”