Focus Area Members:
| Member | Organization |
| Doug Kridler (Chair) | Columbus Foundation |
| Nancy Kramer (Chair) | Resource Interactive |
| Alan Sorter | Columbus Post |
| Bev Bethge | Ologie |
| Denny Griffith | CCAD |
| Jim Simon | Nationwide |
| Jon Meyers | Fresh |
| Mike Fiorile | WBNS |
| Paul Astleford | Experience Columbus |
| Paul Strong | Radio One Columbus |
| Sandy Harbrecht | Paul Werth |
| Scott Razek | Limited Stores |
| Susan Merryman | Chamber |
| Meetings: | Work Session 1 - Notes |
| Work Session 2 - Feb. TBD | |
| Work Session 3 - March TBD |
Focus Area Description: The bicentennial event can be used as a launching point to develop a marketing plan for promoting Columbus as well as looking at the 2012 brand identity to attract national and international attention.
Key Question: What is Columbus’ image and how should we promote it?
Public Input about the Focus Area: This focus area challenged citizens to think about the essence of Columbus and help determine how to market the city. The majority of respondents emphasized Columbus’ family friendly culture and high quality of life. Contributors believe Columbus offers big city amenities while maintaining a small town feel. This provides residents with the activities and resources of a large city while making it easy to live in. Some wanted to counteract Columbus’ perceived image as an uncultured cowtown to truly reflect what the city has become; a vibrant, young city. Finally some contributors believed that the strong regional economy and emerging human diversity of the area should be projected as the image of the city.
Public Input Themes for the Focus Area:
1. Market or “brand” Columbus to reflect its family values, citizenship
and quality of life. Respondents wanted to see Columbus’ brand and image as
a more true reflection of the high quality of life and stable family values present
in our city. Columbus has an extremely low cost of living relative to other large
cities while also offering a great atmosphere to raise a family.
2. Promote the human and natural diversity of Columbus. Contributors
wanted to see Columbus branded as a city of diverse backgrounds including a
friendly gay and lesbian city. The recent immigration of Somalis and Latinos
is another piece of the human diversity that helps to define what the city is
becoming. In addition to the human diversity, several respondents believed
featuring our parks and natural amenities would be an effective marketing tool
for the city.
3. Counteract Columbus’ negative stigma as an uncultured urban
center. Comments about Columbus’ outdated ‘cowtown’ image discussed the
need to make a strong push to change this perception and truly reflect what
the city has become. ‘Cowtown’ was the single most prevalent word used to
describe our image and the vast majority of residents felt like it didn’t describe
what the city is today. Many responses in this category wanted to counteract the
negative images they believed people associated with Columbus.
4. Become the state’s economic leader, particularly in technology
and transportation. Still other’s believe that focusing any citywide image or
marketing campaign on economic growth within the city and the potential for
creating a strong reputation as a center of business and technology innovation
is the way to go. Several respondents felt that leveraging institutions like Ohio
State could spur growth in the private sector by providing the human capital
necessary for future business expansion. Also, many felt that capitalizing on the
new growth and young feel of the city could serve as a marketing tool for the
city.
5. Promote big city amenities with small town atmosphere. Respondents
described Columbus as a town that has many big city amenities such as
professional sports and a strong arts scene while its feel is more of a small town.
Getting around the city is easy in comparison to other large cities however the
city does have resources and opportunities that are unique to large cities.