Businessmen updated on brand effort

Toledo's new brand campaign can be summed up in one word - jobs.

That was the bottom line of the Toledo Region Story Committee, which revealed its findings and recommendations to scores of business leaders in several forums Wednesday.

Leaders of the committee, which listened for six months to local business leaders and the public, said the focus will be on the Toledo area's new manufacturing economy, including the development of software and alternative-energy businesses.

Matthew Kruchko, managing director of a California firm the committee hired to help put together the brand message, said in one of the forums: "We want [metro Toledo] to be the capital of the new manufacturing economy."

The idea, he said, is for businesses, local universities, and the general public to have the same message of pushing the good points of the area, including its lake and Maumee River resources, the accessibility of presidents of the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University as well as local business chief executives, and the number of programs in place to assist businesses locating here or to help companies stay here.

With the availability of top executives and programs to help businesses, the message should be that companies can drop in locally or expand locally and be ready to go, to "plug in and play" without difficulties, said Larry Burns, University of Toledo's vice president for external affairs and a member of the committee.

The message is about jobs, creating and retaining them, particularly those in technology businesses, he said. It is also about attracting tourism to the area, luring people to Lake Erie and the Maumee River, which in turn would create jobs, committee members said.

The key to the message is economic development, but the group wants to present "an authentic, credible, and relevant story" about the quality of life in the area, and not just point to the Toledo Zoo and Toledo Museum of Art, which often are touted as vital amenities in the area, Mr. Kruchko said.

Next up is to convey that direction to local employers as well as to entrepreneurs nationwide, committee members said. The independent group plans to use a soon-to-be-created Web site and social media, as well as more traditional print advertising to help spread that branding message, said Mr. Kruchko of Applied Storytelling, a Berkeley, Calif., firm hired by the committee to do research and develop the brand.

The Web site, he said, should be running by January and give people and businesses interested in moving to Toledo plenty of resource information, including text and video stories of people who live here and who say why they like it here.

The committee is relying on local businesses and organizations to adopt the brand's images and focus, and the number that do will be a measure of the committee's success, Mr. Burns said.

Getting the brand's positive images out to as many people as possible will help counteract any negative associations people have with Toledo, said John C. Jones, a committee member and president and CEO of the Greater Toledo Urban League.

So far, the committee raised $240,000 from its partner organizations and hopes to raise more, though Mr. Burns stressed that getting organizations to adopt the brand is more important. The committee consists of UT, BGSU, the local Urban League, Toledo Mayor Mike Bell's office, Destination Toledo, Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, Toledo Mud Hens and Toledo Walleye, Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, The Blade, and other organizations.

The Regional Growth Partnership, a private economic development agency in Toledo, was involved initially but no longer.

Steve Weathers, president and CEO of the partnership, said the two are working separately on similar goals. "We didn't want to be another cook in the kitchen," he said.

Though he thinks the idea of branding Toledo is useful, he said it would be difficult to accurately measure whether the initiative is working.

The committee developed a brand strategy using 700 pages of text from six community forums, 130 corporate interviews, five days of leadership working sessions, and more than 500 online interviews.

Planned for next month is to ask advertising and marketing firms for proposals on developing a brand implementation plan, and by August to choose a plan. Added funding will be sought from sponsor organizations and corporations.

Contact Aliyya Swaby at:

aswaby@theblade.com

or 419-724-6050.