Sooy+Co's Clarity branding process helps an economic development organization create renewed interest in and increased awareness of Lorain County, Ohio. Targeting site selectors as its primary audience, Team Lorain County also focuses on business retention and expansion. The re-invigorated brand positions Lorain County as a leading county in the region, a forward-thinking place to do business, and successfully creates a new perception in the mind of its key audience.
Client Story
Team Lorain County realized it need to differentiate its role as an collaborative an
independent economic development organization; and position Lorain County, Ohio as a vibrant and forward-thinking place to do business.
Starting from research and data collected on site selection criteria, the full branding campaign repositions Lorain County as a regional center of economic development, business attraction, retention and expansion. The branding project consisted of positioning, visual branding, marketing collateral, and a new web site, teamloraincounty.com.
Sooy + Co. redefined TLC's brand focus, differentiation and visual brand framework, through its Clarity branding process. To support the focus, a modular literature system was developed, which includes a print and PDF-based marketing kit, with content and design based on research into the information needs of the key audiences and stakeholders.
Supporting the relationship-based marketing, the web site is designed with site selectors as the primary audience, and serves to make information for business attraction, retention and expansion readily available to site selector professionals and stakeholders. A detailed inquiry form was developed to pre-qualify and ask relevant questions of those seeking information about Lorain County.
Team Lorain County, which represents all communities located in Lorain County, is a partner with Cleveland Plus and the Lorain County Growth Partnership.
Results
Team Lorain County's transformed brand has successfully changed the perception of Lorain County in the minds of site selectors. The strong shift in brand perception is evidenced by the choice of words used to describe Lorain County, words delivered in the One Voice that Lorain County now has.In pre-visit and post-visit surveys of site selection professionals, the words which were used to describe Team Lorain County shifted from negative (rust-belt, backward, under-developed) to extremely positive (vibrant, forward-thinking, progressive).
The strong colors of the palette are now very positively associated with the vibrancy of Lorain County, and make the marketing kit stand out when compared to marketing materials from other locations.
Continuing to build upon the momentum of this successful place branding, web site visits continue to increase, and investment in Lorain County continues to grow.