Challenge
The City of West Carrollton was in a challenging brand position – they really didn’t have one. The city did not have a negative or positive image. West Carrollton is a small, homey community nestled within a vibrant larger urban city.

What the city did have is a variety of leveragable assets, and it turned to Hafenbrack Marketing to capitalize on those strengths.

Solution
Through a series of discovery sessions, focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and qualitative and quantitative research, Hafenbrack developed and presented a strategic report and plan to the city’s leadership that resulted in the creation of the city’s new brand – Welcome Home. The agency developed a roll out strategy and then implemented a proactive process to take the message of West Carrollton out to the regional community. The comprehensive marketing program was launched through a three-phase program: 1) strategic development, 2) foundational marketing development, and 3) proactive marketing.

Phase #1:
The strategic phase involved multiple discovery sessions and consensus building among internal West Carrollton leaders and citizens. This phase built the positioning for the City, new tag and messaging platforms as well as a marketing roadmap for the future. Hafenbrack researched, built and presented demographic data that helps the city leaders understand their residential community, business environment and culture that assisted leaders in improving upon their successes.

Phase #2:
The foundational marketing phase took the findings from Phase 1 and began to build the core marketing materials. These materials set the groundwork for the brand and established awareness and positioning benchmarks. Elements included logo, web site, positioning brochure, newsletters, wearables and signage.

Phase #3:
The final an on-going proactive marketing phase involves promotional and visible community and “pull” marketing programs. Visibility elements include street banners, business and residential development kits, outdoor advertising, promotional flash video and campaign that helps tell the story of the successes West Carrollton has had in their school system and business community.

Results
The original branding campaign not only upgraded the city’s image but has resulted in the development of a second phase of marketing outreach to be completed in 2007. The city mayor, manager and council have all congratulated Hafenbrack on a job well done and ‘greatly appreciate’ the thought put into the program and believe that Hafenbrack is a true partner in the future growth and success of the city.