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Downtown Grand Rapids Branding Campaign

GR_Urbanist

By GR_Urbanist
in Grand Rapids

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suydam Hamlet

suydam

Posted
Posted

The first three things I thought of when I heard "enjoy it now" are all negative.

What are we supposed to be thinking of? I guarantee it wasn't:

  1. Enjoy it now (because it's going to really start sucking in a year or two)
  2. Enjoy it, now that we're finished fixing it up a little.
  3. Enjoy it now, you might be out of a job and moving to Schaumberg soon.
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Veloise City

Veloise

Posted
Posted

The first three things I thought of when I heard "enjoy it now" are all negative.

What are we supposed to be thinking of? I guarantee it wasn't:

  1. Enjoy it now (because it's going to really start sucking in a year or two)
  2. Enjoy it, now that we're finished fixing it up a little.
  3. Enjoy it now, you might be out of a job and moving to Schaumberg soon.

4. Enjoy it now because Mark London and the "tear down the church!" Z-men are coming!

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

Posted
Posted

I think I'm turning to the side that thinks this is just a small step in a campaign with something interesting at the end.

I'm leaving it to the experts... I'm sure their is a way through this that will suprise us all. At the very least they got a lot of people talking.

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sparky05 Burg

sparky05

Posted
Posted

Phase I: Keep it a secret

Phase II: Enjoy it now

Phase III: Shut the hell up already!

Phase IV: Allow me to introduce you to my associate, Vinnie The Fist. He will be explaining our policy toward those who fail to keep secrets.

Phase V: Loose lips sink proposed 44 story towers.

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michaelskis Hamlet

michaelskis

Posted
Posted

Phase I: Keep it a secret

Phase II: Enjoy it now

Phase III: Shut the hell up already!

Phase IV: Allow me to introduce you to my associate, Vinnie The Fist. He will be explaining our policy toward those who fail to keep secrets.

Phase V: Loose lips sink proposed 44 story towers.

Phase VI: Grandville... the new Grand Rapids!

(Still think that this marketing firm is a bunch of idiots)

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

Posted
Posted

Phase VI: Grandville... the new Grand Rapids!

(Still think that this marketing firm is a bunch of idiots)

"Idiots," Just take a look at their other work. http://www.hanon-mckendry.com/lakeeffect/lakeffect.html

Not For Profit Clients:

Knights of Columbus

Focus on the Family

VAI

Corporate:

National Heritage Academies. - Their commercial was pretty clever..

Rubbermaid

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Veloise City

Veloise

Posted
Posted

Phase I: Keep it a secret

Phase II: Enjoy it now

Phase III: Shut the hell up already!

Phase IV: Allow me to introduce you to my associate, Vinnie The Fist. He will be explaining our policy toward those who fail to keep secrets.

Phase V: Loose lips sink proposed 44 story towers.

Phase VI: We're Not Detroit

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michaelskis Hamlet

michaelskis

Posted
Posted

"Idiots," Just take a look at their other work. http://www.hanon-mckendry.com/lakeeffect/lakeffect.html

Not For Profit Clients:

Knights of Columbus

Focus on the Family

VAI

Corporate:

National Heritage Academies. - Their commercial was pretty clever..

Rubbermaid

Ok, I will take back the Idiot comment and say that they seriously dropped the ball on this one. One of the biggest points of advertising is to know very specific what you intend to sell. I am shocked that a company with this diverse of a portfolio messed this up so badly.

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

Posted
Posted

I think the begining stages of this concept are more geard to the locals then anyone else. Then soon they will unleash the center piece of this PR stunt. As this stage of the game is going on Downtown will be noticed, therefore making it harder to enjoy as everyone else is enjoying it for us. :dontknow:

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201test Unincorporated Area

201test

Posted
Posted

"We're depending on the generosity of downtown organizations to help make this all happen."

- Sharon from the Downtown Alliance.

Great -- $82K so far and that does not count the actual ad buys or production hard costs.

Three questions for Sharon:

1. What is the total cost of this program, all-in?

2. Hanon is a downtown organization capable of great work. In this above-cited spirit of generosity, why didn't they donate at least a larger piece of this work -- or generate something that feels less like a reject they found stuck between their expresso bar and their foosball table?

3. Most imporant: What is the "THIS" she refers to that is going to happen? How are they going to measure "THIS" and report back to their generous downtown donors on what we got for our money?

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201test Unincorporated Area

201test

Posted
Posted

Phase IX: Please make checks payable to, City of Grand Rapids...

Hey, I'd write them an $82K check tomorrow if they would promise to use it to keep skating at Rosa Parks, open all the pools in the summer and get more police and FD hires.

Yes, we know -- the logic (spin) is those things can happen only through an increased tax revenue stream, which comes from attracting more people downtown. Fine - then prove this will do it and (as they say in Math class) show your work. Let's see some accountability for the results. $82K is one winter of public skating or two firemen.

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allbusiness Whistle-Stop

allbusiness

Posted
Posted

One of the oldest tricks in the public relations/marketing playbook is to hold a news conference or issue a news release to annouce that you're "going to" unleash a controversial or groundbreaking advertising campaign thereby creating an huge buzz so that everybody's talking about it (for free!), then never actually doing it. Hey, you just accomplished your goal without actually buying any media!

A recent example of this was the pro-casino group releasing a sketch of an ad they were planning to run to combat the ad that was run by the anti-casino group. They never really ran the ad but the local papers slavishly ran an image of the ad as part of a news story.

This is similar to what politicians and their handlers do all the time. You "leak" what you're going to say later at an upcoming news conferece which generates all kinds of press, then you actually hold the news conference a few days later, getting even more coverage. It's a "twofer".

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allbusiness Whistle-Stop

allbusiness

Posted
Posted

Okay -- so are we now saying that an at-best anemic advertising campaign may be introduced through what sounds like a pretty disingenuous PR campaign?

I'm just sayin' that if they wanted to generate a bunch of radio, TV, print and internet media buzz without actually spending any money buying media time and space...they've succeeded.

I'm sure there will be a genuine media campaign -- but who knows when or where. Has anyone actually seen the media plan for this brilliant campaign?

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201test Unincorporated Area

201test

Posted
Posted

Hanon was good enough at sales to get a ton of money from the Downtown Alliance (!)

To me, the heat should be on the Alliance to show tangible results to justify the hype.

Crappy ads can build buzz in a backwards kind of way, but in this case it needs to put people downtown, not become a cocktail party joke.

Grand Rapids: Apply Directly to the Forehead

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