🔒City’s development-services director Johnson says it’s time to refine, share Hartford’s ‘story’

Now that the state is retiring its “Still Revolutionary’’ tag line in favor of a fresh marketing approach, Hartford’s top economic-development official says the city is ready to do the same.

Erik Johnson, a former New Haven housing official who arrived last October as Hartford’s development-services director, said in a recent interview the city is preparing to solicit bids from marketing firms/consultants that can help Hartford and the region refine and spread its diverse story.

The city’s aging tag line, “Hartford Has It,” dates to 2011. It replaced the city’s “Rising Star’’ campaign from earlier this century. According to Johnson, the city hopes to update not only a new tag line, but, more importantly, a clearer retelling of Greater Hartford’s story.

With United Technologies Corp.’s pending tie-up with defense giant Raytheon Co., which would relocate UTC’s new joint headquarters to Greater Boston from Farmington, Hartford’s evolving marketing-message strategy takes on greater significance, observers say.

“I feel like there is an untold story for Hartford that we just have to figure out what it is,’’ Johnson said.

“In a 10-mile radius, you have like six Fortune 250 companies, which is remarkable that no one talks about,” he said. “You have high quality of life. You have great [higher-education] institutions that I think get undervalued in the context of not being a college town like Yale, or also not being New York and Boston, which we often get referred to.”

A key to the city’s development strategy, Johnson said, is creating and promoting a Hartford brand that is authentic, makes sense and captures “what the city is, as opposed to the dialogue about what the city is not.”

For example, he says the city has wrongly ceded its insurance-capital-of the-world moniker, even though the Hartford region still remains home to major insurance companies like Travelers Cos., The Hartford, Aetna and Cigna that employ tens of thousands of people.

“I think the idea of leading from our strengths should be something that we should focus on,” he said. “From a development strategy, as we tell our story better, we’ll be able to do a better job of attracting people.”

The challenge he faces, of course, is trying to overcome the negative stereotypes that have hovered over the city and state for years, if not decades now, mainly that both are too high cost, fiscally unstable and not where young professionals want to be.

Selling points Johnson said the city and region must promote are a high quality of life, great career opportunities and easy commuting experience.

Road show

A 20-year economic and community development veteran with career stops in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., Johnson’s career has cast a wide net.

Prior to coming to Hartford he was the New Haven housing agency’s senior director of strategy, policy and innovation. Between 2010 and 2015, he was executive director of New Haven’s Livable City Initiative.

Since arriving in Hartford almost nine months ago, the Trinity College alum has worked on several initiatives, including shepherding along development agreements for the stalled Downtown North project as well as affordable-housing efforts.

The city’s focus continues to be adding more downtown housing with hopes of recapturing more of the 110,000 or so weekday commuters who work but don’t live in the city, while also trying to encourage development in more of Hartford’s neighborhoods, Johnson said. The city also wants to continue building its nascent innovation economy, address infrastructure issues and continue to support and grow legacy industries like financial services, advanced manufacturing and insurance.

Johnson said he’s also committed to spreading Hartford’s story beyond Connecticut’s borders. One way to do that could be to team up with the MetroHartford Alliance, central Connecticut’s regional chamber and economic promoter, on out-of-state marketing “road shows,’’ jointly pitching prospective relocators about Hartford’s and central Connecticut’s attributes and amenities.

MetroHartford Alliance CEO David Griggs said there have been no joint marketing-promotions scheduled between the pair, but the idea has merit.

“The city gets to hear firsthand what site selectors and companies are looking for,’’ Griggs said. “There’s nothing like hearing it from the horse’s mouth and asking followup questions.’’

Griggs, who arrived in Hartford in 2018 from Minnesota, where he worked 6 1/2 years at the Greater Minneapolis St. Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership, too, has advocated exposing the Capital City’s economic-development message globally. In fact, the Alliance has ramped-up its travel schedule over the last year, promoting the region nationwide and even internationally, including in Israel and at the recent Paris Air Show.

Veteran Connecticut pitchman Jay Sloves says Hartford should embrace a storytelling-approach to marketing itself.

“Erik’s absolutely right,’’ said Sloves, vice president of Elkinson + Sloves marketing/media/advertising consultancy in Farmington. “There’s a story in every step. There are stories about art. There are stories about entertainment.’’

Hartford is a small city anchoring a fairly large metropolitan area with plenty of business and cultural attributes that, unfortunately, not many outside the region are aware of, he said.

Sharing Hartford’s attributes through story-telling, Sloves said, is more effective than a catchy tag line.

“You start first with the product,’’ he said. “Fancy jingles don’t mean anything without the product.’’