Hartford is lucky to have the MetroHartford Alliance. While it performs many of the functions of a Greater Hartford chamber of commerce — rallying the business community and promoting commerce — its real added value is in being one of those ‘little engines that could’ groups that keeps its spirits high, energizes young professionals and presses ahead when others collapse under the weight of, well, facts.
The latest Alliance venture is a $200,000 investment — money raised from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and some 30 businesses — in developing a new marketing campaign for Hartford. Certainly a makeover of the 10-year-old ‘Hartford: New England’s Rising Star’ campaign is welcome.
The resulting three grand ideas were presented at a Connecticut Convention Center breakfast July 27 and unfortunately were causing heartburn long before a second presentation at the Hartford Public Library that evening.
The creative work was done by Cundari Group, a Canadian outfit that lists among its clients Guelph University, Northern Ontario Tourism and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. They also do some Canadian work for heavyweights Microsoft and Subway. By all reports, it’s a solid and capable firm.
That’s thin consolation to local advertising/PR/marketing firms with at least as good credentials and perhaps a better understanding of Hartford’s marketing challenge.
One idea advanced by Cundari calls on local residents to submit their videos in response to the question ‘What’s your Hartford moment?’ Certainly, a few shining examples — likely warm and nostalgic — might emerge but it feels backward looking. And isn’t the most likely result a rash of You Tube moments as Michael Moore wannabes make fun of horse manure in the streets and vacant storefronts as far as the eye can see?
Then there’s ‘Hartford: What do you want to do today?’ Again, this seems an invitation for the city to become a punch line. Let’s just say Hartford after dark doesn’t remind anyone of Montreal or Toronto. This is one area in which we are not halfway between New York and Boston. This one falls in the realm of ‘wish we could’ but truth in advertising is a valid construct. We’d be better served to hold this one until the facts match the sentiment.
We do see promise in the slogan “Hartford: Make Your Own History.” It’s brimming with hope and offers the kind of challenge of reinvention that the city presents to a new breed of urban entrepreneurs.
Each idea comes complete with a logo, all of which are taking a pounding in the design community’s blogosphere.
The next step in the plan, the culmination of a two-year effort by a consortium of downtown interests, is to open the comment window for four to six weeks, then make some decisions. The ultimate goal is to have the campaign launch in 2012.
For our two cents, ‘Hartford: Make your own history’ is a clean winner from those three choices. But why limit ourselves to these choices? Why not invite the local ad/PR/marketing community — some of whom say they didn’t even know the project was underway — to play ‘Beat the Canadians’? If one — or more — of them does, the exposure and bragging rights would help compensate for the design money they didn’t get upfront. Perhaps that financial oversight can be remedied by rewarding a local winner with the contract to actually do the campaign.
All in all, this feels like a well-intentioned idea that suffers from its own marketing challenges. And it’s not going to play out well unless the community jumps in and gives Oz Griebel and his consortium some honest feedback.
Like so many things in life, if we don’t speak up when asked, we don’t have much credibility to complain later.
