Downtown Tempe Community: Brand Rehab
In early January 2009, Keane was contracted by Downtown Tempe Community (DTC) to help solve a major problem: over the course of 15+ years, the once-vibrant downtown area known as the Mill Avenue District had gradually wandered astray of its roots in independent culture and unscripted urban spirit. And they wanted to get it back.
Services provided: Comprehensive brand rehabilitation, including various methods of primary/secondary research, audience redefinition, repositioning strategy, development of core brand principles, tactical/strategic recommendations for public reintroduction.
DTC’s Identity Crisis
We faced a relatively short timeframe (six weeks) to analyze and untangle a 2005 rebranding effort, probe the heart of Tempe culture and ultimately deliver a comprehensive new brand foundation.
The 2005 brand exercise, though detailed and well put together, had built Mill Avenue District’s foundation on tenuous ground. As we pored over discovery session notes, research reports, creative concepting and PowerPoint after PowerPoint, we concluded one of the main weaknesses was an imprecise construct of brand principles: its core was overly generalized, lacking specificity.
As we sought to incubate a more narrow brand and position for the city, we reached out to Valley residents for insight. Key recurring perceptions of the downtown area included:
- A strong desire for community development, involvement and cohesion. When asked what programs could be initiated to make downtown Tempe a better place to live and work, recurring themes included farmers markets, art co-ops and galleries, neighborhood recycling programs and more interactive festivals/events than currently presented. The absence of a single grocery store within walking distance of Mill Avenue, many said, is contradictory to the notion of a walkable downtown area.
- A gloomy nostalgia for the heyday of downtown Tempe. Particularly strong among key groups was the memory of Mill Avenue in its “good old days” – a period of time roughly spanning 1985-1995 – during which the downtown area was widely known for its thriving local music scene, nonchalant night life and relatively bohemian culture. Noteworthy in our findings was that this particular notion was prevalent across past, present and new residents – indicative of a sustained narrative throughout social circles.
- A distrust and exasperation with city leadership. To a large extent, those we listened to attributed the current state of the downtown area to city leaders, whom they felt enacted policies that steered Mill Avenue District toward becoming “just another shopping destination” – bringing in national retail chains like Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, Hooters and Ruby Tuesday’s, among others. In general, the public felt as if the city had squandered its unique commercial and cultural elements, then continued to ignore its voice by constructing high-price high-rises as those elements proceeded to wither and hollow.
In a sentence: the people of Tempe felt like the city sold out and, over the past 10 years, had failed to recognize and foster an independent community distinct from other areas of the Valley.
Insight, Recommendations and Outcome
While it was clear the negative perceptions needed to be addressed directly, it was also important to position downtown Tempe within the appropriate context. Though certain aspects of the city garner attention on a national scale, Mill Avenue District was intrinsically on a quest for distinctiveness among neighboring urban areas. Our focus, therefore, was mainly on the Phoenix Metro area – though a secondary tier encompassed the larger realm of out-of-state tourism.
Our positioning recommendation to the city was to candidly embrace its raw, buzzing and entertaining urban mood, leveraging its eccentricity to differentiate it among the reputed vanity of Scottsdale, disjointed Downtown Phoenix and domestic East Valley.
Supporting the position were the amended brand principles, which retained those still relevant from the 2005 platform but included essential course-correcting elements.
Chief among those tenets was a dedicated recognition of independent spirit, wherein the Mill Avenue District aligns itself with the unassuming, creative and freethinking – both as a renewed allegiance to its cultural roots and as a nod to the youthful disposition of those walking its streets.
Secondly, it was critical that the DTC organization become more openly communicative, transparent and personal in its involvement with the public. Our shared vision was to slowly repair those feelings of distrust and disconnection by emphasizing two-way communication with the community, forging meaningful relationships with Tempe residents while granting them equity in its cultural and commercial renaissance.
DTC’s Circle of Friends
Hand-in-hand with detailing a more faithful brand foundation was re-evaluating the way DTC related to the citizens of Tempe. The 2005 brand exercise had outlined a relevant, though basic and impersonal, set of ten “consumer” characteristics. Keane felt it imperative to dig deeper into the Tempe constituency, outlining audience profiles detailing behavioristic and motivational aspects of work and leisure life, values/attitudes and the emotional relationships each have with the city.
Additionally, we encouraged DTC to consider these core groups as “friendships” rather than “consumers” – a fundamental shift in relational thinking that is more closely aligned with the new brand principles.
While working closely with DTC throughout this process, we finally presented our findings in a 43-page report highlighting the entire process, research and recommendations to the organization’s Board of Directors, which oversees and approves such course-correcting measures.
End result: unanimous adoption, no changes and, with dedicated adherence in implementation, a bona fide and beloved downtown Tempe for all.
