Possibly the only thing more disconcerting than the self-loathing that is such a regular feature of life in Memphis is the overly defensive attitude we exhibit when we finish on the wrong end of one of the meaningless city lists that populate publications and websites these days.
So far, we’ve had the city mayor, the city’s congressman, the head of our arts fund, the coach of our college basketball team, and God knows who else, wring their hands over the Forbes magazine ranking of Memphis as the third “most miserable” city in the U.S.
Some of the responses suggest that some people think that if we just do better marketing, we won’t end up on these lists, although the indicators used by Forbes to come up with its ranking are statistical, not qualitative, so we repeat, as we often do, that it’s not about doing a better job of telling the Memphis story. It’s about having a different story to tell.
Cashing Out
The good news is that we seem to be coming awake to the facts that we have to change, particularly childhood poverty. We were inspired yesterday by Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash’s impassioned, and well-placed, emphasis on the future of the one of two children in Memphis who live in poverty. In comparing the fight for these children’s lives to the courage displayed by sanitation workers in the civil rights movement, he in effect called for a movement that we all should join – to pursue every conceivable way to create a city that offers choices for every child to succeed.
But we digress. There’s the frequent idea that a city’s brand is a pithy slogan or a catchy bumper sticker. In truth, the only brand for Memphis is its own name. That’s what Paul O’Connor, former head of World Business Chicago, said after directing a process to develop a new brand for his hometown. In the end, it was left at Chicago, because, as he put it, what slogan is strong enough to add value to the name of the city?
It’s a good question to ask. In a city that has a mythic reputation anywhere you go in the world, it’s pretty hard to think of a slogan that actually improves our brand. It’s Memphis, plain and simple.
It’s Not About Slogans
We’ve thought often of the special affection that is held for Memphis on every corner of the globe and for our music legends. In the middle of a desert in Israel, we once ran into an Elvis Presley tribute center and in the heart of Tokyo, we once drove by a park that featured a photo of the king of rock ‘n’ roll. Then there are the dedicated blues fans in Europe who can name every blues great with ties to Memphis. Then British magazines like Mojo often have more material about Memphis bands than our own local media.
Mr. O’Connor said: “The greatest piece of advice I can give to other cities is to accept taglines only as a last resort. A tagline passes for branding, but it is not the same thing. Taglines are fragile, limited or too broad. They do not represent who you really are. A brand is the DNA of a palce, what it is made of, what it passes from generation to generation. It is authentic and indicates what makes a place different from others.”
So what is a city’s brand? It’s an aspirational narrative about what we want our city to be, told in a way that matters to the people we want to pay attention. It can rally our community, communicate every person’s role in the community’s future and get attention in the marketplace, which can lead to more people, more jobs, more visitors and more money.
Narrating the Future
In other words, at its essence, branding is about what Memphis stands for. In this way, it creates a higher purpose that gives meaning to our stories.
But we digress. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton is right that we need a city narrative, a narrative that we can all see ourselves as part of. But a really effective narrative doesn’t just capture the spirit of the past or the personality of the present. More to the point, it’s about the future. When it’s done right, it express the aspirations that we have as a people.
Narratives do matter, because a city’s buzz often is key to where talent moves and they help attract visitors to experience the promise of the brand narrative. Most of all, a city’s brand has to be as authentic as the city they communicate, because ultimately, the narrative is what our citizens tell about ourselves and what we tell the world.
Why Brand?
We may be the only firm in Memphis that has worked on city branding, and we tell our clients that a powerful brand narrative accomplished these objectives: 1) It creates a higher purpose that gives meaning to stories about Memphis; 2) It drives intent into experience; 3) It generates cultural value with those who live, work and play in Memphis; 4) It acts as a catalyst for best thinking; 5) It expresses what is true; 6) It leverages all available assets; and 7) It brings people together and puts them in the center.
When it’s done right, it can change internal and external perceptions, create consistent context for communications and marketing, deepens the city positioning in the economy and makes it more appealing to residents and visitors, combats negative stereotype and the promise of a distinctive region, and provides a shared vision for the future and reflects the city’s aspirations for itself.
A report by CEOs for Cities, Branding Your City, said: “In today’s globalized, networked world, every place has to compete with every other place for its share of the world’s consumers, tourists, businesses, investments, capital, respect and attention. Cities, the economic and cultural powerhouses of nations, are increasingly the focus of this international competition for funds, talent and fame.
The Qs to A
“This competitive environment is a reality of our times, and how a city stakes out and communicates its distinctive place within it largely decides which cities succeed and which falter in the race for economic prosperity. To this end, places are just like companies: those with a strong brand fine it much easier to sell their products and services and attract people and investment.”
If we are serious about creating a compelling brand for Memphis, we begin by answering:
What purpose lies at the core of Memphis and brings our people together?
What is the personality of the Memphis brand that differentiates it from all other cities?
What narrative about Memphis brings both purpose and personality together?
What are Memphis’s key features and benefits?
Getting at the Truth
In other words, this isn’t about a group of advertising gurus getting in room to come up with a pithy slogan or a marketing hook. Instead, it’s about a process that identifies the real values of the city, the widespread perceptions of the city including its strengths and weaknesses, the single most important benefit the city has to offer, and ultimately, what the city can be.
It’s not easy, because, as Mr. O’Connor said, “for the Genie of branding to work, you only get one wish – choosing the single most important benefit that you offer – and this one thing is the hardest part.” “But if you don’t get there and settle for mediocrity, it’s not worthy to build your future on,” he said. “The biggest challenge is getting to what matters and getting to Memphis’ DNA. By connecting the dots between the truth of today and the aspirations for tomorrow, the branding is your guidance system for the future.”
More important is the impact that a brand can have on a city’s own people. “There’s only one Memphis, it’s about what you believe,” he said. “You keep telling each other the truth about Memphis and then you share Memphis with the outside world.”
It can be an issue of both message and reality though. As a recent transplant I began looking for a home recently after living here for 9 months. My one condition was that it be within the I-240 loop and preferably within the Parkway system. My perception was that I would be regulated to looking at homes within a few isolated stable neighborhoods that were otherwise surrounded by crime ridden decaying blocks. Quite the opposite happened. I found that much of the urban core is composed of stable neighborhoods populated by a diverse population of homeowners who actually care about their community. The decay has not isolated the stable neighborhoods, the decay seems to be in isolated, yet high profile, pockets. Sometimes we need to do more to communicate stories such as these- tell the real story. Of course the counter point is who is going to listen? You can tell someone from DeSoto Co. that they are statistically more likely to become a victim of some crime on State Line Road than they are downtown but they still won’t believe you.
SMC, this is one of the best articles, maybe the title is the wrong “brand” of title for the project?
It seems to me, who has rather exensive training in doing exactly what you posit here, that calling it “branding” is a kick-out for those looking to create the truth about a new future.
I TOTALLY AGREE with the MEAT of this article and the method, it’s as sound as concrete, I’ve done it more than once, often doing the impossible in an atmosphere of zero agreement, and it succeeds EVERY SINGLE TIME.
But I’ve never called it branding. I call it creating an overarching magnetizing goal or narrative for the future, an endpoint for a specific game to reach by planning backwards to where we are, then followed in reverse and it works like concrete every time.
SMC wrote:
“If we are serious about creating a compelling brand for Memphis, we begin by answering:
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What purpose lies at the core of Memphis and brings our people together?”
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Smelter of the poor’s souls. Sharpener of their swords, impossible situations for them to overcome or die by.
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“What is the personality of the Memphis brand that differentiates it from all other cities?”
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It would be illegal to conduct ourselves this way in any other city we get away with hate, racism, violence, institutionalized revenge an poverty creating schemes that we blow other countries up for (supposedly).
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“What narrative about Memphis brings both purpose and personality together?”
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The energy of “the creatives” on the planet is at a nadir point in Memphis, that is a situation, it is the impossible, there is no fuel for creating quality consistent creative class here, too many greedy hands looking for cash at the head, not developing talent.
That can be addressed.
You would have to create an incubator or them here because they have been robbed a place to create without being hamstrung by the local economy and attitudes. “Creatives” do not like violence or poverty shoved down their throat, it has to be about choices, and in Memphis, if you are a true creative, you are either born with a silver spoon or in poverty with no way out.
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“What are Memphis’s key features and benefits?”
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Flat land, uncreative riverport, sever lack of culinary diversity, lack of first floor retail downtown, parks without quality restrooms facilities, lack of effective judges, sentencing, and statistically accountable effective rehabilitation services, lack of quality piublic education in most “at risk” areas in the city, wasteful 2 government system, lack of community support services in the private for profit area such as appropriately located grocery stores, dry cleaners, and astronomic monthly government utility bills placed on the backs of the citizenry and foist upon (targeting) poor areas as policy by the government controlled utlility company, knee-jerk racism, general pettiness.
The same things that many cities faced and overcame succesfully. We let the news try to paint “other areas just as bad” by reporting their crime here locally, but, they just aren’t. It needs to stop.
SMC wrote:
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” “for the Genie of branding to work, you only get one wish – choosing the single most important benefit that you offer – and this one thing is the hardest part.”
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WHY it is the hardest part has not been addressed, and it will not happen if you do not address it so I WILL :
You have to admit all your problems, stupid policies, faults, and evil deeds without trying to be nice to yourself, that’s a KEY PART and also a KEY POINT WE FAIL ON, so we can do better.
Sometimes when you admit something personally that you just can’t believe yo personally have done, you suddenly see how you actually DID participate in the wrongdoing, it’s crucial to getting to the core and the whole thing will never work without this very key part. You can’t build a solid house on sand and expect much.
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“But if you don’t get there and settle for mediocrity, it’s not worthy to build your future on,”
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Alluding to the point that if whitewashing your past is more valuable than creating a magnetizing overarching future then, you don’t have a chance at success.
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he said. “The biggest challenge is getting to what matters and getting to Memphis’ DNA. By connecting the dots between the truth of today and the aspirations for tomorrow, the branding is your guidance system for the future.” ”
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Alluding to the point that if you can’t admit FULLY who you’ve been, warts, murders, corruption and all, YOU DON”T KNOW where you are now, and connecting the dots to some phony niced up story of where you are will miss you completely, not work at all, and will not connect to any future you may desire.
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As I have said in many posts, “a game worth playing to create a life worth living for all Memphians”.
This creative energy deficit is why we have such a hard time creating the DNA profile for Memphis, but, it’s right in front of our eyes.
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Memphis is the place where we have been through:
an agrarian economy,
Corruption,
slavery,
institutionalized economic slavery,
institutionalized educational slavery,
governmental institutionalized corruption and revenge,
and now
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE!!
Yes, we’ve been all the way through the mud, heck, we ran a few marathons through it, we HAVE what it takes, we just have to really admit where we are to get to ANY desirable future, and no matter how impossible it seems, IT CAN BE DONE, and WE CAN DO IT!
It won’t be hard or easy, it won’t be happy or sad, it will be what it will be.
It won’t make the rich poor, it will have them have more compassion for those who have been thrown into the hell area of Memphis,.
It won’t make the poor rich, but, it will give them the tools and opportunity to forgive, learn that even the rich must serve somebody, many already do here, and the tools and opportunity to dream, plan, succeed in their dream, experience “functional families” and train to pass it on and down, and once that happens, Memphis will be a city people choose to live in, choose to succeed in, choose to dream and plan and maintain that atmosphere in with personal and corporate/institutionalized action.
Sadly for me, when that day comes, I will not be able to participate in or reap any rewards from that.
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How long will it take?
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The name of this game is “transformation”.
Transformation can occur in an instant personally, if many people see what is attractive through transformation in any one area, that entire area can transform in a day. The rest of the details can be worked out as we go.
It’s not as hard as people make it out to be, it’s the admitting that is the hardest part.
Fantastic post SCM, just wish it wasn’t disguised as a whitewashing, ha ha, first time I’ve seen a reverse psychological post by SCM!
I first came to Memphis by happenstance and after fooling around a few more years in popular “communities” in California, I chose to live here.
Why? Because Memphis truly is an ideal community. We enjoy the cultural amenities of a big city AND the pleasure of place that comes from knowing each other as if a small town.
Yes, we have a full range of incomes and educational attainment and all the problems that come with it. But what makes us different from other metros with the same problems is that here the rich and the poor are next door neighbors. I can walk 2 blocks in one direction and stroll past the well manicured yards of Craftsman bungalows and walk 2 blocks the other way past a teddy-bear pole into rows of unpainted shotguns on stilts. Maybe this proximity makes us more sensitive to the problems and as a result, we talk about it a lot more than other cities.
If we spent more time talking about the good things going on, Memphis would be recognized as a City that cares. The folks that didn’t run away from the problems have maintained and protected their neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods that had fallen were organized and reborn. Others still are striving now to take back their spaces. These are the stories we should tell.
The challenges we face aren’t to be bemoaned, they are to be embraced, wrestled with and overcome. And, as we do, we should reward ourselves with the best of music and food.
Zippy,
It’s hard to take the advice of someone who hasn’t been around enough to experience great game days at schools where all the parking isn’t adjacent to the stadium- or apparently thinks parking makes the experience.
Funny, very funny, I agree that parking DOESN’T make the experience. However, it could make what experience you have better if done right.
The less drama one puts into one’s life by doing things right, the more example he makes for others to follow, the more time to do other things right he has, the more productive his life is instead of ONLY overcoming “petty obstacles” and the more time to accomplish worthy tasks an overcome worthy obstacles.
Would you rob people of that by embracing keeping petty obstacles?
I am a fan of efficient uses of space, PARKING DECKS. Small lots for tailgaters enough for as many as we know we have out there.
Hey Scott, nice ending to your post, really well put.