EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 1 in a five-part series on branding in relation to Mansfield. This series will run the week of May 13 through 17.
MANSFIELD – On a Thursday afternoon in April, downtown Mansfield was bustling – not New York City bustling, but still bustling, especially for a rust belt city that once felt pretty down on itself.
The memories of two tough recessions and the run-down remnants of formerly significant employers like Westinghouse still loom over the city, but signs of revitalization are evident.
A family of four, a young couple and two boys, were walking down Fourth street towards the Little Buckeye Children’s Museum, which will relocate to a larger building on Park Avenue West within the next five years. The boys ran ahead, but the smaller, more rambunctious of the two was swiftly reined in by the hood of his jacket as they approached the museum. The taller boy slowed his pace, as if to avoid a similar scolding.
On Main Street, three people reclined outside of Relax, It’s Just Coffee. Two young men chatted at one table and another man, this one with graying hair, sat nearby with his laptop. He didn’t break eye contact with the screen, even as the coffee shop’s door swung open and closed several times in only a few minutes.
Directly across the street, Coney Island Diner was busy, too. Though it was well past lunchtime, at least four booths were filled and other customers were eating and talking with each other along the bar.
Further down the hill, cars pulled in and out of the Brickyard, mostly to visit the BMV, but during the summer the space will be packed with hundreds of lawn chairs and thousands of people for the popular Final Friday concert series put on by Downtown Mansfield, Inc.
Everyone within a block or so radius can hear music from the Richland Carrousel Park, which on this particular April afternoon had its doors propped open, allowing a light breeze to blow through the building as a few children rode around in circles on the carousel horses.
There’s plenty to experience and enjoy in downtown Mansfield, explained Jennifer Kime, CEO of Downtown Mansfield Inc. (DMI), but there could be a more effective and collaborative means of communicating this to potential visitors and residents.
She and 14 other local leaders — including representatives of the Richland County Foundation and the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development — pitched the creation of a downtown brand in the Mansfield Rising Plan, which was released in late February. Branding is listed as the second of more than 30 action items in the plan and has been called a priority by several of the plan’s authors, including Kime.
“The real Mansfield, it’s all about art, entrepreneurship, higher education, etc. And when you’re trying to capture all that in a brand, you’re capturing what you are, what you’ve been and what you’re going to become all in one. That is really the key,” Kime said.
The brand should be something “unifying,” she noted. It should represent the entirety of downtown Mansfield, feel authentic to its current population and should be able to attract new visitors and residents alike.
“I think everyone has their own visions and ideas of brands for Mansfield, and over the years, there’s always been this kind of struggle for one unified identity around some sort of a theme.”
Jodie Perry, President of the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development, feels optimistic about the city’s potential. She and the other authors of the Mansfield Rising Plan traveled to the South By Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas in March 2018.
“The South by Southwest Conference is a center of innovation and forward-thinking ideas, so I think that every single person that went found something that challenged them, challenged things that they currently believed,” Perry said. “And I think it was really also key that it allowed the 15 of us to do what I would call ‘concentrated bonding.’
“We were out of Mansfield and we were the only people that we knew there, so it gave us the chance to have conversations that we wouldn’t have every day because we’re too busy with our day jobs. It built trust with one another, which I think now having gone through the planning process, I think that was really huge.”
Otherwise, she continued, that trust could have taken longer to build.
“To build that connection with each other, we wouldn’t have even gotten to those conversations for a good year, whereas we were having them by day three in Austin,” she said.
Lee Tasseff, President of Destination Mansfield – Richland County, believes this proposed collaboration between downtown organizations will be essential to launching the most impactful, long-lasting branding initiative.
He imagines hiring a community branding expert, such as North Star Destination Strategies, an organization mentioned in the Mansfield Rising plan.
“Your community brand is your culture’s connection to commerce,” reads a statement by North Star in the plan.
The document goes on to describe a need for “cohesive” and “open source” branding content that could be used by any organization or business that’s looking to draw people to the area.
“I think when you hire the right company, they can guide you as to here’s how you need to bring everybody together because all of us are going to have to be full-fledged partners and accepting whatever comes out of this,” he said.
The next stories in this series will highlight how other communities have created brands for themselves, the challenges they’ve faced and the success they’ve found. Look for the next to publish tomorrow morning.
Cost: Market research, content, artwork and communication strategy are expected to cost about $50,000 to $100,000. Ongoing management of the brand and delivery of the message could average $50,000 per year.
Partners: Steering committee made up of the “public faces” of Richland County, Richland Area Chamber of Commerce, City of Mansfield, Richland County Foundation, Richland Community Development Group, Downtown Mansfield, Inc., Destination Mansfield-Richland County, Richland County commissioners and large employers such as OhioHealth, Gorman-Rupp, Avita and the 179th Airlift Wing.
Timeline: The timeline looks to be between nine and 12 months. Steering committee coordination is expected to take three to six months, and it’d take another three to six months to develop and deliver a branding plan that could then be implemented and adopted across the city.