The Horse and Cart

I am involved with a group of residents and business owners in the town in which I live. Our goal is to better our community. It’s not really community redevelopment, because the community hasn’t declined in that way. Yet with the economic slowdown and transitions in how people shop and live, there are storefronts on main street that are empty. There are homes that have been on the market for quite a while.

I, of course, am involved with the marketing and communications committee. (I wanted to be on other committees, but no one would let me! The curse of having a website with “genius” in the title.)

As we started the process of thinking about what the marketing for our town should be, we ran into a problem that is not uncommon. Everybody wanted a logo.

Logos and similar identity items are a part of marketing. You see logos everywhere. They represent companies, charities, teams, every type of organization and product. They are so ubiquitous that the assumption can be drawn that a logo is the first thing you need to market whatever it is you’re marketing.

But it’s not. In fact, the logo and other identity elements (at least in my process) are fairly far downstream. A lot of understanding must come before the logo. And a logo and “brand” are not the same thing.

I teach that the brand is the essence of the organization. That is ethereal, I know, but it is important to truly understand what makes the organization (or town in this case) unique. What makes it tick? What is appealing about it? Who is attracted to this appeal? And many other questions and analysis needs to occur.

Once we walked through some planning exercises, including lengthy discussions about the attributes of our town, we were able to turn the attributes and unique selling proposition over to a branding team and design team to begin working on the concepts that would carry our brand (not create out brand) to the target audiences.

I’ll unveil those as they become more complete. For now, the point is this - be careful when considering new logos and graphics. If not done correctly, the obvious (and often mundane or unremarkable) becomes the identity of an organization. A better process, with much analysis at the outset will yield the best marketing...brand and logo included.

SLE

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