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Gastonia Branding Process
Gastonia to Launch Branding Process
Working in partnership with community leaders and marketing firms, the City of Gastonia wants to develop a strong message that accurately defines today’s Gastonia. To accomplish this, the city will launch a multi-step branding process. The branding process begins with a kickoff dinner at 6:30 Thursday June 29th at the City Club, featuring keynote speaker Jim Palermo, a retired Bank of America executive who is currently the executive in residence at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte. Mr. Palermo spearheaded much of the center city revitalization of Charlotte's fourth and first wards through a re-branding initiative.
On Friday June 30th participants will brainstorm in four breakout sessions from 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. led by Gaston Together facilitators in city hall’s upstairs conference room. Eighty invitations from the mayor and city council were mailed to community leaders and marketing professionals earlier this month and about 50 people are expected to attend. “Branding helps cities re-invent their identities, promote their greatest assets and be more identifiable to economic potentials,” Mayor Stultz said. “A branding process will help us to define our city in a way that captures both our hearts and minds, and it will help others to understand who we are and what we have to offer as a community. We look to have a new logo, slogan and fresh marketing materials to move us to another level of awareness locally, regionally and nationally.”
Mr. Palermo, a friend of Gastonia Police Chief Terry Sult and influential community leader in Charlotte, is highly respected by Charlotte leaders for his vision, tenacity and talent for building partnerships in the Charlotte area. While his “big city” experience is most noted, Mr. Palermo comes from a small textile community in upstate New York that was deflated by the loss of textile jobs and struggled to recover. He will bring a perspective of “a tale of two cities.”
Friday’s breakout sessions will be a time of brainstorming on four topic areas: natural resources and recreation, physical location, livable community attributes, and arts and cultural activities. Gaston Together has provided trained facilitators who have received additional related training from staff with ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc., which is funding Gastonia’s branding program. ElectriCities recently assisted Farmville, N.C., with a branding process that produced a new logo and slogan as well as prepared advertisements for regional magazines including Our State North Carolina.
An established steering committee will present a progress report to City Council in October. Gastonia's new brand will be ready for delivery in early 2007 as we celebrate our city's 130th anniversary 1877 - 2007
For pictures of the kick off dinner and breakout sessions click Here