Marketing - Your Brand
150 S. Main St., Salt Lake City, 1916.
Behind a true “brand” stands a deep identity.
Branding is not about a cool logo or color schemes.
Your brand is what people experience in your community. It’s about consistently meeting expectations. You can’t do that with a logo. A logo merely reinforces the brand!
The first part of branding is to understand and agree on your community’s core identity.
This began to come out of planning process, and is tied to your one key asset.
Once you know who you are, there are a number of ways to help the public know who you are.
1. Be who you are.
Don’t pretend. Work to make the community more friendly, safe, clean, interesting, creative, diverse, historical—whatever qualities you have identified as important to your identity.
2. Express it in a memorable phrase.
If you choose to create a slogan, make it meaningful. Make sure it truly communicates your unique essence. There’s no point choosing a slogan that any other town could adopt. Here are some slogans Utah communities are using:
- Ogden: It’s all within reach.
- Historic 25th Street, Ogden: It’s all here.
- Springville: The Art City.
- Springdale: The gateway to Zion National Park.
- Cedar City: Festival City USA.
- Price: The heart of Utah’s castle country.
- Foothill Cultural District (Salt Lake City): Culture with Altitude.
- Bear River Heritage Area: Blessed by Water, Worked by Hand.
3. Create a consistent signage, printed materials, and online presence.
Your materials should have:
1. A consistent message, and
2. A consistent visual image.
Visuals may include a logo, colors, fonts, and other design elements. Don’t choose the visuals randomly—make sure they communicate the same message you are giving verbally. Get a good graphic designer to help with this!
Examples:
- Park City has used its logo for a long time. It is on all city signage and printed materials. By including the founding date, the logo also implies that the city’s history is important—and Park City does market itself as a historical mining town.
- Bear River Heritage Area uses its slogan (Blessed by Water; Worked by Hand) and bear-paw logo widely.
- St. George’s logo expresses a strong brand of sunshine and beauty.