City Branding with CEO of REDKOR Brands
with Rushford Lee, Founder and CEO of REDKOR Brands
In this episode Rushford share with us strategies and best practices for city branding and why it is so crucial for resident satisfaction.
You can watch it above or listen on your favorite podcast platform: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcript below:
Ron (00:02):
Good morning everyone. Welcome to our podcast today. Ryan, good to have you again this morning.
Ryan (00:40):
Yep. Super excited.
Ron (00:41):
I guess it’s this afternoon. Look at this. Yeah. Good to have you again. How was your trip? Did you get to Ohio? All right.
Ryan (00:49):
It was great. We drove up to Ohio. We went to see four national parks along the way, and plenty of cornfields, and it was a great trip.
Ron (00:57):
<laugh>, so fun. And also with us today is Rushford Lee from REDKOR Brands. REDKOR is an expert branding company. And as a matter of fact, I’ve worked with Rushford several times over the past couple of years. We’re dear friends, and we love to work together. Thanks for joining us, Rushford.
Rushford (01:20):
You’re welcome. I’m excited to be here.
Ron (01:23):
Tell us just a little bit about you and and your company, just so that people can get a sense of of you.
Rushford (01:29):
Well, we’re passionate about branding. We love to do branding. We’ve been doing it for almost 27 years now, and created over 500 different brands and oh, a brand is so much more than just a logo. It really is everything that a company or a city or does to message itself. And of course visually brand itself. And it’s marketing really should be a branded marketing. And so we’ve enjoyed doing that. Had a lot of fun at it. And yeah, I think we’ll just keep on doing it for the next five years or two, five years of change, whatever, <laugh>.
Ron (02:08):
So you brand you have branded cities, but you’ve also branded a lot of other companies?
Rushford (02:14):
Yes, we do a lot of restaurants places like need’s would be a good example. summit Pizza. So there’s quite a few restaurants that we do. yeah, a lot of corporations, cities government organizations, a lot of product branding for things like Fat Boy’s, ice Cream Norbet Turkey, and others. So we, we love the idea of brands. We think it’s a fun thing to be involved with.
Ron (02:45):
Well, love it. Love it. All right, well, let’s dive in and talk about it a little bit. so, so Rushford first question for you, and that is, why should a city even think about branding itself? I mean, is it just getting a logo? You, you, you mentioned it’s more than a logo. Tell me, tell me like, why should a city think about doing this?
Rushford (03:10):
You know, for any company, their, their brand itself becomes one of their most valued assets. And so many cities have done things to make their cities better. So they might have a recreational facility, they might have a, a theater obviously a lot of different parks. All of those things are assets that a city spends money and uses taxpayers dollars. They, they create all kinds of stores and things like that. And often a city won’t see, the constituents won’t see the value of what’s in the city because it doesn’t have the name on it, or it has a name that’s so hard to read, you don’t know what it is. So it’s, it’s important that cities are branded well and that not just the mark, but the way they message, the way they talk to their constituents. they need to do research, find out what those people are interested in, but your brand is the most important asset you have.
(04:09):
And it’s never just a logo. somebody might say, why would you spend a lot of money on a logo? Well, you shouldn’t, you should spend a lot of money on branding so that the assets that you have are known. One of our good clients, they have a theater, they’ve got an airport, they have all kinds of things, and none of them were branded the cities. So here’s all these things they’re doing for their constituents and citizens, and nobody knows what it is. So just like any company, you wanna have value in the assets you have. So it’s important to do a good job of branding, messaging, marketing, all those are part of your brand.
Ryan (04:48):
So I’ve got a question follow up to that. What, what problems arise when constituents don’t know that an asset or a benefit provided to them is coming from the city? You know, like with the city, you only have one service provider unless you move. and so it’s not like they’re gonna go to their competitor necessarily, unless you start getting lots of people moving out. So what’s I guess, what’s the big benefit to these constituents knowing that this came from the city?
Rushford (05:16):
A good example. One of, the cities that we did, they had a theater that had the name of individuals who initially had donated money to it. but the city owned it, and the city spent the money on keeping it alive. So people would look at the name and go, oh, it’s really nice. Those people are donating all this. But in reality, the city was paying for 95% of the theater. And even the theater folks said, well, you know, we can’t change the name. And the city was really wise. They said, well, okay, then we’ll reduce our funding or take it away and you can go from there. And they said, well, no, you guys fund everything. And it was kind of funny because they said, well, then we’d like our name on it, because people need to know that the city is the one who’s has this beautiful theater in town. And the same thing with your, when your garbage gets picked up or when someone comes around to check your meter. All those things are services the city provides, and it’s great to know that your tax dollars pay for all of those things. So, yeah.
Ron (06:18):
Well, and, and some city logos or some city branding is pretty tired. You know, you look at some of it, it was done in some way, you know, over the last 20 years or so, maybe 30 years or something. Even some of them older than that, maybe, you know, and they have these old logos, which are fine. And they this old way of looking, you know, it is kind of nice to refresh yourself.
Rushford (06:41):
Well, it is. And one of the, if there were three keys about doing, if you’re talking just about the logo, one of the items that’s missed the most is that it’s readable. A lot of times you’ll get a beautiful piece of art done is a logo, but when you stand 20 feet back, you can’t tell what it is. And so it’s critical that if it’s gonna be on the side of your police vehicles, your trash trucks, it’s gonna be on the airport, it’s gonna be all those places. You want people to read it from a couple of blocks away. And one of the biggest mistakes people make is they make it too thin, or you can’t really read it. And they go, it’s just beautiful. And it is, but it’s not a logo. It, it’s a piece of artwork. So making it easy to read and very identifiable and something that kicks you off to talk about the history of our city or where we’re going, those are all things that a brand mark should accomplish.
Ron (07:34):
Okay. So help me understand, like, cities are basically the same in a way, you know, I mean, they all, I mean, they’re city, city Hall, you have the, the various services that city offers, and I’ve seen some of your logos, like, they’re all really different. And how do you create unique logos, a unique branding approach for something that is oftentimes quite similar to the one next door?
Rushford (08:04):
Well, I think that that’s a, it’s a good point. We a lot of it’s through research. you know, Ron, we’ll work with you on researching the history of the, of the city, and you wanna find something that’s part of it. So for Spanish Fork City, they were founded initially by a set of Spanish, oh, I can’t remember what they called them, but they were monks.
Ron (08:26):
Hey, I’m gonna show the logo. Okay. If you don’t mind.
Rushford (08:29):
Yeah, that’d be great. So, and on top of their, one of their oldest buildings, it has this beautiful, what was essentially a clock tower. So we brought that element in to pay homage to their history, but also tried to make it feel modern and updated and clean. And that’s really the goal. And you try to find something in every single city that is unique to them.
Ron (08:58):
So talk about some of these logos a little bit and maybe how, how the thought process went. You, you mentioned Spanish Fork.
Rushford (09:04):
Yeah, Spanish Fork. You can see that bell Tower there and the establishment, but they’re tagline is pride and progress, and they do a really good job in that city. They’ve been fantastic. Springville they have a wonderful art center, but they didn’t wanna focus this specifically around that. And Springville got its name because when the pioneers came into this area, there were like 12 springs that were coming out of the ground, and that water is what made the town possible to, to build on. So Bluffdale up above the Springville is one where they have a lot of large acre lots where, and people love their horses, and they move there, and they don’t wanna lose the idea that they’re kind of a horse community. And so in this case, Bluffdale felt modern, but up in the B, you’ve got that horse head.
(09:54):
And so every single city, you’re trying to find something that’s unique to it. For Farmington, they as you look back in their history, there was a young man who started to put in the trees that lined their main street, and he took care of them, watered them, pruned them for years and years until today down this, oh, I don’t know if it’s a mile long stretch or more, are these beautiful trees that are, you know, 80 to a hundred years old. And it talked about how the people were industrious and how they worked hard. And so you try to bring in items that are, are important for that city and stay away from, stay away from sun.
Ron (10:38):
No, I think that’s great. And I thought the Treemont one is really interesting. Is that wheat?
Rushford (10:43):
Yeah, they, they’re really interesting because they have some of the fastest internet in in the state because they have several large like a rocket plant there and so forth. So they have really high internet. So the line above is really just that connection below as wheat, because wheat farmers came in and they did wheat as part of the initial product that the city had and built on that. And so some of those elements come in to it, and we try to find something unique in all of them. And in a city like this might be shown 20, 30 different concepts in the process of working out where we’re going each step, kind of narrowing it down just a little bit. But yeah, it’s a fun part of it. But, but even with all this detail here, what about their messaging? It needs to be really detailed and it needs to be branded and their marketing and then the extension of all of the different things they have signage wayfinding signs letterhead, business card envelope, all the things they would use, all needs to be branded. And so that’s what we try to do is give them a playbook that has all of that in it. So,
Ron (11:58):
Well, so what are kind of, what are the steps you go through just a handful, just like at a high level, what are the steps you go through to help a city go from, Hey, Rushford, we would like a brand to, okay, let’s put this on all of our vehicles and let’s, let’s, let’s put this throughout the city. Like what are some of those major steps anyway?
Rushford (12:20):
First thing is we start with research. I think that’s the most important step to really understand what attributes are important to the citizens of that city, that town. What, what benefits are they getting? What do they like, what don’t they like? what are the emotions of why they move to the city and why they stay there? All of that’s critically important. And in that research, as you know, the goal is to get testimonials from them, to get stories from them and then be able to explain it to ’em in such a way. So that first step, we’ll start by taking our stakeholder group, making sure they all agree, they’re all on the same page. That’s the hardest part, really. You might have a group of 10, 12 people who are part of the city’s stakeholder group. get them to define, you know, in a mapping what it is that they’re doing.
Ron (13:11):
Wait, tell me, is this the emotional map that you’re talking about, like this?
Rushford (13:15):
Yeah, yeah. How do you make it simple enough that everybody understands? And so this is a tool we use and it helps us to prioritize what their different pillars are. So what attributes lead to benefits, lead to emotions, to values. And if we can simplify those and get everyone within the stakeholder group within a city to agree to where we’re going, it really helps us. We create statements down below that are kind of beliefs that are important and then we’ll go out and do the same thing with the entire community. We’ll open up the research to as many people who wanna take part in it and make sure that the city council or the city stakeholder group and the and the citizens match. And if not, then we juggle things around until we really understand who they are and what they do.
(14:02):
So that’s the first step. the second step then is to give the research and the stories and the testimonials and all the information we gained to the different divisions, really, which is going to be, you know, design, obviously to come up with branding, messaging get messaging started on coming up with the key messages for the city, and then marketing to look at and say, Hey, here’s, we’ve gone in and tested a variety of things, and here’s where you’re weak. Here’s where you’re strong and here’s what we suggest you do. then taking all of that messaging, design and marketing, put it in together and extending it out to the pieces they need, whether that’s a brochure, whether it’s a card, whether it’s email signage, city signage, whatever it is. Then extending it so they have templates for what to use for the city. And those are really, we have six sections within the playbooks. And, and that’s basically the process we use takes three to four months. But it, yeah, it’s fine.
Ron (15:07):
It’s a three to four months process.
Rushford (15:08):
Yes.
Ron (15:10):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. Do you know, I always thought it was, it is pretty impressive what you’ve been able to come up with. I look at some of the logos, I look at some of what cities have done and, and I just sense some new pride in that city when they have it. interestingly enough, I was talking with one of the cities you did here not long ago, Farmington. I was talking with him as soon as that logo was available, that’s what they wanted to use on everything, you know what I mean? Let’s put that on the survey. Let’s get this out. Cause we were doing a follow up survey on something else and they wanted to, let’s put that on the letterhead that goes out, you know, on, on the, the, well the email invite and everything. And so they, they, they were really happy.
Rushford (15:56):
Well, one of the things I love the very most we use this line is it gets everyone rowing in the same direction. So every department head, matter of fact, in a lot of cities, every employee goes through this playbook from start to finish, learns about the messaging, understands the research, reads the comments that were there, and then sees how it’s extended to maybe their division. It gets everybody rolling in the same direction and that’s really what a city needs. Cause they’re usually, they can be a little discombobulated, you know, people all going in different directions. So
Ryan (16:30):
There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of departments.
Rushford (16:33):
Yeah, it’s, and it’s nice if they all have the same message, they know what it is that the city believes in.
Ron (16:41):
Yeah. So Rushford a question for you, maybe a, a final question or two, but maybe Ryan has one, but if, a city manager, like if you were talking to a city manager who was who, like what are the watch outs that you think a city should keep in mind if they were considering you or anybody else, you know, for this kind of a project? Like what are some things that they should look for? you know I’m sure they’d want to consider you, but if not, like what should they be looking for, right. If they want somebody local or whatever, but help me understand what you think makes for a partner. They’ll be, be happy with when they’re done.
Rushford (17:25):
Get someone who’s professional. I mean, sometimes we’ll say, let’s have a high school design our logo, or let’s go to the local college. and I think there’s merit to that at times, but in reality a, a logo is so much, a brand is so much more than the logo that you wanna find somebody who really will understand your constituents, really understand you. There has to be research involved. It isn’t then we’re just decorating. And a lot of cities just get decorations and they look at it and they go, oh, isn’t that pretty? All it is is a logo. What is the messaging gonna be like? So they need to be able to write great messaging. They need to be able to capture the feeling of who the city is. Gotta have the good research, you gotta have great design. So often outta college people will go, yeah, I’m a greatest designer in the whole world.
(18:15):
Maybe they are, but it’d be nice if they had 20 years experience or 30 behind them to make sure they really know what they’re doing. Create something that’s easily readable. So yeah, find someone who’s gonna do a lot of research, look at their portfolio and see that they have plenty of great samples of work that their brands have. Meaning look at the way they write and can they capture the essence of your city and are they able to extend it out to all the things you need so that now someone inside can follow those templates and, and make sure it works out well. So I think very cool. That’s important.
Ron (18:52):
Well, Ryan, any further questions? What do you think?
Ryan (18:56):
Just a thought kind of on the first question I asked of what’s, what’s the value of citizens residents knowing about the city’s assets? And it seems like one of the big benefits that Ron mentioned from good branding is the pride that the residents have in their city. I feel like my city is modern. My city provides for us, my tax dollars are used well. You know, and people are happier to live in their city. And and it’s also giving credit where credit is due. City leaders work really hard to provide good stuff for the residents. And it’s a shame when all that work goes unnoticed. and it’s, it’s even worse if rather than being wrongly attributed, it’s like they’re just not aware of it, right? People miss out on opportunities and programs and you know, if if better messaging about the library gets more people going and using those services and benefiting from it or from a recreational program, whatever it is, I think there’s more value in branding, like you said, the, just the logo. And I think that’s, it’s great that you’ve shared that insight with us.
Rushford (20:03):
A good example in my own city, I came home one a afternoon and as I’m pulling into my home, some young man runs across the yard, jumps off my wall, runs across the street, gets into his pickup truck, I pulled him over, I got in front of him, wouldn’t let him go, what are you doing running out of my house? You know, what’s going on? Oh, he says, oh, I’m just a meter reader. I said, no, you’re not. You wouldn’t be in some old pickup truck and a t-shirt, you’d have a logo on you, I’d know your vehicle. And so often cities cheat themselves in the fact that they provide all these services, all these great things and and people have no idea. And so then somebody else comes across, uses the city name for their garbage dump and they think that’s all the city does. You know, in reality everything in the city comes from you. Yeah. Your brand is your best asset, it’s your biggest asset if it’s done right. So
Ron (21:02):
Very cool. Yeah, very cool. But this was excellent.
Rushford (21:08):
Well, thank you.
Ron (21:09):
I look forward to sharing this with everybody.
Rushford (21:11):
I hope it helps. I hope it does. Cause cities are so critical and other businesses, but yeah, branding’s so misunderstood. People think it’s a logo and that would be almost like a toenail compared to a whole body. It really is much more than a logo.
Ron (21:25):
Yeah. So, so let me just say Rushford is he called us today from the inside of his van. Yeah,
Rushford (21:31):
Sorry about that. And
Ron (21:33):
That’s, that’s okay. <laugh>, he was away from the office, so he took this call from the inside of his van that therefore the colorful background and you know, but, but from anywhere in the world, he can, he can get his van cooked into the satellite network and he can do his work. So good on, on you Rushford.
Rushford (21:51):
Yeah.
Ron (21:51):
Yeah. It’s Starlink
Rushford (21:53):
Actually. It’s starlink.
Ron (21:54):
Yeah. We’re gonna do a little advertisement for starlink here.
Rushford (21:56):
I’ve loved it.
Ron (21:57):
Maybe they’ll pay a little something. Yeah.
Rushford (21:59):
<laugh>, it’s been, it’s been great. And it’s nice because today I couldn’t get back to the office, so I’m actually parked in a Walmart parking lot right this second. So,
Ron (22:09):
<laugh>, there you go. There you go. All right. Hey, you take care, Rushford. Thanks Ryan.
Rushford (22:14):
Thank you.
Ron (22:15):
Bye-bye.
Rushford (22:16):
All right. Bye-bye.
City Branding with CEO of REDKOR Brands
with Rushford Lee, Founder and CEO of REDKOR Brands
In this episode Rushford share with us strategies and best practices for city branding and why it is so crucial for resident satisfaction.
You can watch it above or listen on your favorite podcast platform: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcript below:
Ron (00:02):
Good morning everyone. Welcome to our podcast today. Ryan, good to have you again this morning.
Ryan (00:40):
Yep. Super excited.
Ron (00:41):
I guess it’s this afternoon. Look at this. Yeah. Good to have you again. How was your trip? Did you get to Ohio? All right.
Ryan (00:49):
It was great. We drove up to Ohio. We went to see four national parks along the way, and plenty of cornfields, and it was a great trip.
Ron (00:57):
<laugh>, so fun. And also with us today is Rushford Lee from REDKOR Brands. REDKOR is an expert branding company. And as a matter of fact, I’ve worked with Rushford several times over the past couple of years. We’re dear friends, and we love to work together. Thanks for joining us, Rushford.
Rushford (01:20):
You’re welcome. I’m excited to be here.
Ron (01:23):
Tell us just a little bit about you and and your company, just so that people can get a sense of of you.
Rushford (01:29):
Well, we’re passionate about branding. We love to do branding. We’ve been doing it for almost 27 years now, and created over 500 different brands and oh, a brand is so much more than just a logo. It really is everything that a company or a city or does to message itself. And of course visually brand itself. And it’s marketing really should be a branded marketing. And so we’ve enjoyed doing that. Had a lot of fun at it. And yeah, I think we’ll just keep on doing it for the next five years or two, five years of change, whatever, <laugh>.
Ron (02:08):
So you brand you have branded cities, but you’ve also branded a lot of other companies?
Rushford (02:14):
Yes, we do a lot of restaurants places like need’s would be a good example. summit Pizza. So there’s quite a few restaurants that we do. yeah, a lot of corporations, cities government organizations, a lot of product branding for things like Fat Boy’s, ice Cream Norbet Turkey, and others. So we, we love the idea of brands. We think it’s a fun thing to be involved with.
Ron (02:45):
Well, love it. Love it. All right, well, let’s dive in and talk about it a little bit. so, so Rushford first question for you, and that is, why should a city even think about branding itself? I mean, is it just getting a logo? You, you, you mentioned it’s more than a logo. Tell me, tell me like, why should a city think about doing this?
Rushford (03:10):
You know, for any company, their, their brand itself becomes one of their most valued assets. And so many cities have done things to make their cities better. So they might have a recreational facility, they might have a, a theater obviously a lot of different parks. All of those things are assets that a city spends money and uses taxpayers dollars. They, they create all kinds of stores and things like that. And often a city won’t see, the constituents won’t see the value of what’s in the city because it doesn’t have the name on it, or it has a name that’s so hard to read, you don’t know what it is. So it’s, it’s important that cities are branded well and that not just the mark, but the way they message, the way they talk to their constituents. they need to do research, find out what those people are interested in, but your brand is the most important asset you have.
(04:09):
And it’s never just a logo. somebody might say, why would you spend a lot of money on a logo? Well, you shouldn’t, you should spend a lot of money on branding so that the assets that you have are known. One of our good clients, they have a theater, they’ve got an airport, they have all kinds of things, and none of them were branded the cities. So here’s all these things they’re doing for their constituents and citizens, and nobody knows what it is. So just like any company, you wanna have value in the assets you have. So it’s important to do a good job of branding, messaging, marketing, all those are part of your brand.
Ryan (04:48):
So I’ve got a question follow up to that. What, what problems arise when constituents don’t know that an asset or a benefit provided to them is coming from the city? You know, like with the city, you only have one service provider unless you move. and so it’s not like they’re gonna go to their competitor necessarily, unless you start getting lots of people moving out. So what’s I guess, what’s the big benefit to these constituents knowing that this came from the city?
Rushford (05:16):
A good example. One of, the cities that we did, they had a theater that had the name of individuals who initially had donated money to it. but the city owned it, and the city spent the money on keeping it alive. So people would look at the name and go, oh, it’s really nice. Those people are donating all this. But in reality, the city was paying for 95% of the theater. And even the theater folks said, well, you know, we can’t change the name. And the city was really wise. They said, well, okay, then we’ll reduce our funding or take it away and you can go from there. And they said, well, no, you guys fund everything. And it was kind of funny because they said, well, then we’d like our name on it, because people need to know that the city is the one who’s has this beautiful theater in town. And the same thing with your, when your garbage gets picked up or when someone comes around to check your meter. All those things are services the city provides, and it’s great to know that your tax dollars pay for all of those things. So, yeah.
Ron (06:18):
Well, and, and some city logos or some city branding is pretty tired. You know, you look at some of it, it was done in some way, you know, over the last 20 years or so, maybe 30 years or something. Even some of them older than that, maybe, you know, and they have these old logos, which are fine. And they this old way of looking, you know, it is kind of nice to refresh yourself.
Rushford (06:41):
Well, it is. And one of the, if there were three keys about doing, if you’re talking just about the logo, one of the items that’s missed the most is that it’s readable. A lot of times you’ll get a beautiful piece of art done is a logo, but when you stand 20 feet back, you can’t tell what it is. And so it’s critical that if it’s gonna be on the side of your police vehicles, your trash trucks, it’s gonna be on the airport, it’s gonna be all those places. You want people to read it from a couple of blocks away. And one of the biggest mistakes people make is they make it too thin, or you can’t really read it. And they go, it’s just beautiful. And it is, but it’s not a logo. It, it’s a piece of artwork. So making it easy to read and very identifiable and something that kicks you off to talk about the history of our city or where we’re going, those are all things that a brand mark should accomplish.
Ron (07:34):
Okay. So help me understand, like, cities are basically the same in a way, you know, I mean, they all, I mean, they’re city, city Hall, you have the, the various services that city offers, and I’ve seen some of your logos, like, they’re all really different. And how do you create unique logos, a unique branding approach for something that is oftentimes quite similar to the one next door?
Rushford (08:04):
Well, I think that that’s a, it’s a good point. We a lot of it’s through research. you know, Ron, we’ll work with you on researching the history of the, of the city, and you wanna find something that’s part of it. So for Spanish Fork City, they were founded initially by a set of Spanish, oh, I can’t remember what they called them, but they were monks.
Ron (08:26):
Hey, I’m gonna show the logo. Okay. If you don’t mind.
Rushford (08:29):
Yeah, that’d be great. So, and on top of their, one of their oldest buildings, it has this beautiful, what was essentially a clock tower. So we brought that element in to pay homage to their history, but also tried to make it feel modern and updated and clean. And that’s really the goal. And you try to find something in every single city that is unique to them.
Ron (08:58):
So talk about some of these logos a little bit and maybe how, how the thought process went. You, you mentioned Spanish Fork.
Rushford (09:04):
Yeah, Spanish Fork. You can see that bell Tower there and the establishment, but they’re tagline is pride and progress, and they do a really good job in that city. They’ve been fantastic. Springville they have a wonderful art center, but they didn’t wanna focus this specifically around that. And Springville got its name because when the pioneers came into this area, there were like 12 springs that were coming out of the ground, and that water is what made the town possible to, to build on. So Bluffdale up above the Springville is one where they have a lot of large acre lots where, and people love their horses, and they move there, and they don’t wanna lose the idea that they’re kind of a horse community. And so in this case, Bluffdale felt modern, but up in the B, you’ve got that horse head.
(09:54):
And so every single city, you’re trying to find something that’s unique to it. For Farmington, they as you look back in their history, there was a young man who started to put in the trees that lined their main street, and he took care of them, watered them, pruned them for years and years until today down this, oh, I don’t know if it’s a mile long stretch or more, are these beautiful trees that are, you know, 80 to a hundred years old. And it talked about how the people were industrious and how they worked hard. And so you try to bring in items that are, are important for that city and stay away from, stay away from sun.
Ron (10:38):
No, I think that’s great. And I thought the Treemont one is really interesting. Is that wheat?
Rushford (10:43):
Yeah, they, they’re really interesting because they have some of the fastest internet in in the state because they have several large like a rocket plant there and so forth. So they have really high internet. So the line above is really just that connection below as wheat, because wheat farmers came in and they did wheat as part of the initial product that the city had and built on that. And so some of those elements come in to it, and we try to find something unique in all of them. And in a city like this might be shown 20, 30 different concepts in the process of working out where we’re going each step, kind of narrowing it down just a little bit. But yeah, it’s a fun part of it. But, but even with all this detail here, what about their messaging? It needs to be really detailed and it needs to be branded and their marketing and then the extension of all of the different things they have signage wayfinding signs letterhead, business card envelope, all the things they would use, all needs to be branded. And so that’s what we try to do is give them a playbook that has all of that in it. So,
Ron (11:58):
Well, so what are kind of, what are the steps you go through just a handful, just like at a high level, what are the steps you go through to help a city go from, Hey, Rushford, we would like a brand to, okay, let’s put this on all of our vehicles and let’s, let’s, let’s put this throughout the city. Like what are some of those major steps anyway?
Rushford (12:20):
First thing is we start with research. I think that’s the most important step to really understand what attributes are important to the citizens of that city, that town. What, what benefits are they getting? What do they like, what don’t they like? what are the emotions of why they move to the city and why they stay there? All of that’s critically important. And in that research, as you know, the goal is to get testimonials from them, to get stories from them and then be able to explain it to ’em in such a way. So that first step, we’ll start by taking our stakeholder group, making sure they all agree, they’re all on the same page. That’s the hardest part, really. You might have a group of 10, 12 people who are part of the city’s stakeholder group. get them to define, you know, in a mapping what it is that they’re doing.
Ron (13:11):
Wait, tell me, is this the emotional map that you’re talking about, like this?
Rushford (13:15):
Yeah, yeah. How do you make it simple enough that everybody understands? And so this is a tool we use and it helps us to prioritize what their different pillars are. So what attributes lead to benefits, lead to emotions, to values. And if we can simplify those and get everyone within the stakeholder group within a city to agree to where we’re going, it really helps us. We create statements down below that are kind of beliefs that are important and then we’ll go out and do the same thing with the entire community. We’ll open up the research to as many people who wanna take part in it and make sure that the city council or the city stakeholder group and the and the citizens match. And if not, then we juggle things around until we really understand who they are and what they do.
(14:02):
So that’s the first step. the second step then is to give the research and the stories and the testimonials and all the information we gained to the different divisions, really, which is going to be, you know, design, obviously to come up with branding, messaging get messaging started on coming up with the key messages for the city, and then marketing to look at and say, Hey, here’s, we’ve gone in and tested a variety of things, and here’s where you’re weak. Here’s where you’re strong and here’s what we suggest you do. then taking all of that messaging, design and marketing, put it in together and extending it out to the pieces they need, whether that’s a brochure, whether it’s a card, whether it’s email signage, city signage, whatever it is. Then extending it so they have templates for what to use for the city. And those are really, we have six sections within the playbooks. And, and that’s basically the process we use takes three to four months. But it, yeah, it’s fine.
Ron (15:07):
It’s a three to four months process.
Rushford (15:08):
Yes.
Ron (15:10):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. Do you know, I always thought it was, it is pretty impressive what you’ve been able to come up with. I look at some of the logos, I look at some of what cities have done and, and I just sense some new pride in that city when they have it. interestingly enough, I was talking with one of the cities you did here not long ago, Farmington. I was talking with him as soon as that logo was available, that’s what they wanted to use on everything, you know what I mean? Let’s put that on the survey. Let’s get this out. Cause we were doing a follow up survey on something else and they wanted to, let’s put that on the letterhead that goes out, you know, on, on the, the, well the email invite and everything. And so they, they, they were really happy.
Rushford (15:56):
Well, one of the things I love the very most we use this line is it gets everyone rowing in the same direction. So every department head, matter of fact, in a lot of cities, every employee goes through this playbook from start to finish, learns about the messaging, understands the research, reads the comments that were there, and then sees how it’s extended to maybe their division. It gets everybody rolling in the same direction and that’s really what a city needs. Cause they’re usually, they can be a little discombobulated, you know, people all going in different directions. So
Ryan (16:30):
There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of departments.
Rushford (16:33):
Yeah, it’s, and it’s nice if they all have the same message, they know what it is that the city believes in.
Ron (16:41):
Yeah. So Rushford a question for you, maybe a, a final question or two, but maybe Ryan has one, but if, a city manager, like if you were talking to a city manager who was who, like what are the watch outs that you think a city should keep in mind if they were considering you or anybody else, you know, for this kind of a project? Like what are some things that they should look for? you know I’m sure they’d want to consider you, but if not, like what should they be looking for, right. If they want somebody local or whatever, but help me understand what you think makes for a partner. They’ll be, be happy with when they’re done.
Rushford (17:25):
Get someone who’s professional. I mean, sometimes we’ll say, let’s have a high school design our logo, or let’s go to the local college. and I think there’s merit to that at times, but in reality a, a logo is so much, a brand is so much more than the logo that you wanna find somebody who really will understand your constituents, really understand you. There has to be research involved. It isn’t then we’re just decorating. And a lot of cities just get decorations and they look at it and they go, oh, isn’t that pretty? All it is is a logo. What is the messaging gonna be like? So they need to be able to write great messaging. They need to be able to capture the feeling of who the city is. Gotta have the good research, you gotta have great design. So often outta college people will go, yeah, I’m a greatest designer in the whole world.
(18:15):
Maybe they are, but it’d be nice if they had 20 years experience or 30 behind them to make sure they really know what they’re doing. Create something that’s easily readable. So yeah, find someone who’s gonna do a lot of research, look at their portfolio and see that they have plenty of great samples of work that their brands have. Meaning look at the way they write and can they capture the essence of your city and are they able to extend it out to all the things you need so that now someone inside can follow those templates and, and make sure it works out well. So I think very cool. That’s important.
Ron (18:52):
Well, Ryan, any further questions? What do you think?
Ryan (18:56):
Just a thought kind of on the first question I asked of what’s, what’s the value of citizens residents knowing about the city’s assets? And it seems like one of the big benefits that Ron mentioned from good branding is the pride that the residents have in their city. I feel like my city is modern. My city provides for us, my tax dollars are used well. You know, and people are happier to live in their city. And and it’s also giving credit where credit is due. City leaders work really hard to provide good stuff for the residents. And it’s a shame when all that work goes unnoticed. and it’s, it’s even worse if rather than being wrongly attributed, it’s like they’re just not aware of it, right? People miss out on opportunities and programs and you know, if if better messaging about the library gets more people going and using those services and benefiting from it or from a recreational program, whatever it is, I think there’s more value in branding, like you said, the, just the logo. And I think that’s, it’s great that you’ve shared that insight with us.
Rushford (20:03):
A good example in my own city, I came home one a afternoon and as I’m pulling into my home, some young man runs across the yard, jumps off my wall, runs across the street, gets into his pickup truck, I pulled him over, I got in front of him, wouldn’t let him go, what are you doing running out of my house? You know, what’s going on? Oh, he says, oh, I’m just a meter reader. I said, no, you’re not. You wouldn’t be in some old pickup truck and a t-shirt, you’d have a logo on you, I’d know your vehicle. And so often cities cheat themselves in the fact that they provide all these services, all these great things and and people have no idea. And so then somebody else comes across, uses the city name for their garbage dump and they think that’s all the city does. You know, in reality everything in the city comes from you. Yeah. Your brand is your best asset, it’s your biggest asset if it’s done right. So
Ron (21:02):
Very cool. Yeah, very cool. But this was excellent.
Rushford (21:08):
Well, thank you.
Ron (21:09):
I look forward to sharing this with everybody.
Rushford (21:11):
I hope it helps. I hope it does. Cause cities are so critical and other businesses, but yeah, branding’s so misunderstood. People think it’s a logo and that would be almost like a toenail compared to a whole body. It really is much more than a logo.
Ron (21:25):
Yeah. So, so let me just say Rushford is he called us today from the inside of his van. Yeah,
Rushford (21:31):
Sorry about that. And
Ron (21:33):
That’s, that’s okay. <laugh>, he was away from the office, so he took this call from the inside of his van that therefore the colorful background and you know, but, but from anywhere in the world, he can, he can get his van cooked into the satellite network and he can do his work. So good on, on you Rushford.
Rushford (21:51):
Yeah.
Ron (21:51):
Yeah. It’s Starlink
Rushford (21:53):
Actually. It’s starlink.
Ron (21:54):
Yeah. We’re gonna do a little advertisement for starlink here.
Rushford (21:56):
I’ve loved it.
Ron (21:57):
Maybe they’ll pay a little something. Yeah.
Rushford (21:59):
<laugh>, it’s been, it’s been great. And it’s nice because today I couldn’t get back to the office, so I’m actually parked in a Walmart parking lot right this second. So,
Ron (22:09):
<laugh>, there you go. There you go. All right. Hey, you take care, Rushford. Thanks Ryan.
Rushford (22:14):
Thank you.
Ron (22:15):
Bye-bye.
Rushford (22:16):
All right. Bye-bye.
