MANSFIELD — A $100,000 county-wide branding effort, a key messaging and development idea found in the Mansfield Rising plan, will be finished and ready for rollout later this month.
That was one of the messages Thursday from Lee Tasseff, president of Destination Mansfield-Richland County, who provided an update on local tourism marketing efforts to county commissioners.
“It should be finished this month and will be rolled out,” Tasseff said. “We are already utilizing one of the campaigns selected, starting to incorporate the messaging.
“I don’t think you will see a big ‘ta da.’ You will just see it largely being used,” he said.
The effort began in early 2020, which involved local leaders working with Cubic Creative, an Oklahoma-based company now part of Belo + Company. Efforts were slowed when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but Tasseff said the delay became a benefit.
“People learned how to meet remotely. Then when they came to town to do focus groups last July, we got 4 1/2 days and covered all parts of the county,” he said.
Tasseff has said the branding effort should result in a “brand story, a roadmap on how to use it, how to implement it.”
Leaders in the effort have said the branding company experts would conduct thorough research on Mansfield and Richland County, necessary to create an “authentic brand.”
“If your research is solid, it drives what you do, because then the message becomes clear. It has to be authentic. What you put out there has to match what somebody finds here. You can’t position yourself to be something you’re not,” Tasseff said when the effort began.
Many of Tasseff’s other remarks to commissioners mirrored a presentation he made to Mansfield City Council in late December.
Namely, tourism was down in Richland County during 2020, but it was not as bad as it was elsewhere in Ohio and around the nation.
Tasseff said the negative impact of COVID-19 was felt throughout the tourism industry in 2020, including locally, though tourism remained the fourth-largest overall employer in the county.
However, it was down just 15.3 percent in Richland County, compared to 24.5 percent in Ohio and 40 percent across the country.
“Obviously, people did still come out of their homes. They didn’t go to large urban areas. They came to places like Richland County,” Tasseff told City Council.
“Overall spending in multiple sectors showed a little more resiliency and a little more strength than even we had imagined.
“2021 was way better than 2020,” he said. “We are still not where we want to be, but everything was up.”
Also on Thursday, commissioners voted to appoint Crystal Davis Weese to the Richland County Transit Board to complete the term of Aurelio Diaz, who took office this week as a member of Mansfield City Council.
Commissioner Tony Vero said Diaz could participate in the city’s funding decisions for RCT and could not continue to serve on the transit board.
Davis Weese, the North End Community Improvement Collaborative’s business development coordinator, will complete a term that ends on Dec. 31, 2023.
