Update 4/26/2007
Cleveland+ campaign launched
Today the Greater Cleveland Marketing Alliance launched Cleveland + (or Cleveland Plus), a new brand for Northeast Ohio. According to the Alliance, "Cleveland+ is the first integrated marketing campaign to put all of the region’s assets – business, travel, tourism, our residents and quality of life – together under one brand to drive action to strengthen our economy. The campaign consists of branding, national media relations, direct marketing to increase business investment, targeted marketing to increase travel and tourism and in-region communications to instill regional pride and unity. Cleveland+ is a campaign designed to reach three different audiences – economic development, tourism and in-region – with unique messages and tactics, all under the Cleveland+ umbrella brand."

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What do people think about us? What do we think about ourselves?

In recent years there's been no organized, intentional, effective effort to market Northeast Ohio. There have been many fragmented, scattered campaigns by different organizations for different purposes, but no coherent message that supports the economic development of the region.

To fill this void, the business community has created a new marketing program called the Greater Cleveland Marketing Alliance (GCMA). The founders are the Greater Cleveland Partnership, Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Team NEO. The program's manager is Richard Batyko, formerly of The Cleveland Foundation and now based at the Partnership. The GCMA hopes to have a $2 million annual budget, which would make it competitive with marketing programs in other metropolitan areas.

It will have several roles:

• Provide an umbrella marketing campaign that accurately and positively tells our story to key audiences inside and outside the region. This campaign is not being developed just by a couple of corporate leaders and ad guys. The GCMA is reaching out to many businesses, institutions, and nonprofit organizations for ideas about how to shape our regional identity. (For instance, GreenCityBlueLake has been consulted about how sustainability can be a core part the regional brand.)
• Convene different groups that are already involved in regional marketing to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall effort by promoting cooperation, consistency, and measurability of impact. The hope here is that everyone from arts organizations to health care institutions to major corporations will incorporate a few coordinated messages into their own marketing. This will help bring the whole region into better focus, as well as help each individual marketer benefit from a strong regional brand.
• Act as a central repository of regional marketing materials and information that others can easily access and use. The GCMA is developing a website that will allow others to download images and information that can be plugged into brochures, ads, and other websites. And the GCMA will support everyone's efforts by tracking the impact of various marketing efforts.

Baseline research

To inform the marketing strategy and establish a baseline for measuring success, GCMA has been studying how the national media are covering Northeast Ohio, how people around the nation perceive us, and how we perceive ourselves. The results have been interesting:

• National media audit: Greater Cleveland gets a smaller volume of coverage than some competing cities such as Pittsburgh or St. Louis. However, the coverage is generally neutral or favorable in tone, in contrast to places like Detroit which receive a lot of negative coverage.
• Nationwide perception survey: A telephone survey asked people whether their overall impression of the city or region was positive, neutral, or negative. The result was 26% positive, 61% neutral, and 13% negative. From a marketing standpoint, the large neutral group is ok if those people can be reached with a persuasive message. When asked what they based their impression on, many of the positives said they had "heard good things about the area." Thus, positive marketing messages could help build on the positive impressions. On the other hand, many of the negatives said they simply weren't familiar with the area (i.e., their negative impressions were based on nothing). Thus, marketing again could help because for many people the Cleveland area is a clean slate, and a positive story could make a big difference.
• In-market perception survey: This was an Internet survey that tapped attitudes of a relatively educated, younger audience in Northeast Ohio. Most were either lifelong residents of Northeast Ohio or had lived here more than five years. Overall, they were much more positive about the region than people in the national survey. So, again from a marketing standpoint, maybe there's an opportunity to help local people do a better job expressing their positive feelings.

Timeline and challenges

In addition to planning and research, the GCMA is already reaching out to national media by facilitating visits and pitching story ideas (Dix & Eaton has been hired to handle national media relations). During the summer of 2006, the GCMA will be finalizing some basic messaging themes and developing initial marketing tools, as well as training "ambassadors" to carry the messages in the region and when traveling. A campaign targeted within the region will kick-off after the election in November. In 2007, the final branding for the region will be developed and launched nationally.

It will be challenging to come up with a set of messages — much less a "brand" — that pleases everybody throughout Northeast Ohio. One issue will be how Cleveland-centric the identity will be. Even though much of the outside world might think of this as the Cleveland region, Akron and Lorain and Youngstown all want their own identities, too.

Perhaps the most intriguing issue will be how the marketing experts at the GCMA will listen to the aspirations of community and craft messages that respect our past but move us into the future. The surveys asked people, "If you were to compare Northeast Ohio to a car, which car would you say would best represent the area?" And the answer was a practical sedan like a Ford Taurus (24%), a sensible family minivan (21%), or an older pickup truck (18%).

Maybe we can become something cool and green, like a Prius. What do you think our story should be?

Agency search

TeamNEO and the Convention & Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland have agreed to use the same agency GCMA selects for all of their ad/PR/marketing needs, assuming one that can meet each entity’s needs is identified. They collaborated on an agency RFP that should add up to over $3 million/year in work for the winning firm. By using one firm they will significantly reduce overhead costs while enhancing coordination. The RFP was disseminated in early June targeting agencies headquartered or with operations in Greater Cleveland. Fourteen firms responded with proposals. A selection is expected on July 17.

More information
GCMA presentation to Council of Regional Marketers (May 2006) (PDF 1.2MB)
Marketing research results
Submit your ideas for marketing the region