The biggest challenge in branding Boulder, Montana?
Contending with Boulder, Colorado.
That point was underscored repeatedly in a Thursday, April 18 meeting at Boulder City Hall between representatives from the City and Windfall, the Missoula-based ad firm it hired to help brand and market the city.
“We felt more challenged with Boulder than we have with our other branding projects in Montana, in that your name is overshadowed by another national player,” Windfall CEO Jim McGowan said at Thursday’s meeting.
McGowan and his colleague Crystal Glueckert were meeting with City officials to present four logos, three color schemes and three taglines — the firm’s initial designs of the key elements of an integrated branding campaign, McGowan explained.
The main purpose of the meeting was to see if Windfall was “on the right track,” he said.
“All we have is the data to look at,” McGowan said. “The people on the ground” — that is, City officials — “will make the difference, in terms of what we actually roll forward with.”
The data McGowan was referring to was uncovered in a survey of the community Windfall recently conducted.
“We got a really good amount of feedback,” Glueckert told attendees, adding that more than 50 people took part.
Almost half of the responses were from Jefferson High School students, a contingent Glueckert said she was advised “would love to be involved” by Alison Richardson, a community and economic extension agent from Montana State University who works closely with local economic developers.
“Boy, did they really want to be involved,” Glueckert said of the response they got from students after posting a link to the survey on Facebook. “That’s exciting, because your next generation of Boulderites, if you will, are excited to see the City grow and become better, and make it a better place to live for future generations, as well.”
Most respondents indicated being full-time Boulder residents. In addition to noting favorite area activities and attraction, they answered questions about whether and how they would like to see Boulder economically developed and how they felt about their community.
Survey results show that most people believe Boulder’s strengths to be its natural beauty, welcoming attitude, access to outdoor recreation and proximity to two larger cities — aspects that give marketers “a lot to work with,” Glueckert said.
Noted shortcomings included a lack of a greater variety of dining and lodging facilities.
“A lot of people did say there are a little bit worried about the prosperity and growth of the town,” Glueckert said. “That’s what we’re here for, is to help you guys get back on track with that.”
McGowan said one of the problems marketers face is how to grow a community without changing or losing its “special sauce.”
“It’s a very common challenge in Montana,” he said after noting that his firm represents five of Montana’s six tourism regions. “We have two competing elements. We want to protect the small town charm you have. We also want to make you a marketable asset.”
As the Windfall reps presented the logos, colors and taglines, the subject of Boulder, Colorado routinely came up.
“Even when I meet people who are from Montana at conventions or conferences, and I say I’m from Boulder, they’ll say Boulder, Colorado,” said Barb Reiter of the Jefferson County DUI Task Force. “[It’s the] first thing out of their mouth.”
McGowan and Glueckert used their work with Thompson Falls to provide context.
“Boulder’s definitely unique, and you have a unique challenge,” McGowan said. “Thompson Falls did not have a Thompson Falls, Colorado or Utah [to go up against].”
As a result, McGowan said Windfall could be “a little more flowery in their marketing” of Thompson Falls, while with Boulder “we had to be a little bit more to the point.”
“We couldn’t get too touchy-feely with all of our logos focusing on the mountains and the wildlife, because Boulder [Coloardo] does that,” he said.
How that approach was applied in one Boulder logo they developed, for example, was to explicitly point out Boulder’s location within an outline of the entire state of Montana.
McGowan said it was the logo concept he recommended, stating it was different than anything the agency had seen done in Boulder, Colorado, or even Boulder, Utah.
“When people see it all over Montana they’ll know it’s Boulder,” he suggested. “We think we can get this top of mind.”
One other logo design featured a stagecoach and another an outline of a section of Boulder’s mountainscape, while a third alternative placed an artistic rendering of the sun above Boulder’s name and other design elements.
McGowan noted that in drafting the branding elements they presented, they had to consider not only what’s been done in Boulder, Colorado, but elsewhere as well.
“There are a lot of good ideas that died because they’re already being done somewhere,” he said. “We don’t want to … spend all this money and then end up looking like someone else, or confusing people.”
The three color schemes presented were labelled vintage, outdoor and bold; green factored prominently, representing trees and the outdoors, as did variations of purple, which meeting attendees appreciated for its reference to Jefferson High School’s colors.
The taglines McGowan and Glueckert presented were “Immerse yourself,” “In your element” and one that allowed the insertion of any word or phrase before the word “Boulder.”
A spirited discussion followed their presentation, with support building for the logo which literally put Boulder on the map. Boulder Mayor Rusty Giulio and others recommended that Windfall somehow incorporate Boulder’s location on Highway 69 or in relation to Glacier and Yellostone national parks.
McGowan noted that the logo design could accommodate a variety of such secondary elements, which the agency could incorporate into the design for the next round of review.
The group was less certain where to go with the taglines and color schemes, but united in wanting to get Boulder residents more involved in helping with the decision-making process.
“I think it’s really important that we spend the time we need on this, because this is a long-term project,” Reiter said. “I like that we want to have people involved and get more input.”
Sally Buckles, who sits on the Boulder Transition Advisory Committee’s marketing committee, said that she had talked to a number of people who wanted to attend but couldn’t, because the morning meeting conflicted with their work schedules.
“This is an extremely important decision that needs to be made by the community,” County Commissioner Leonard Wortman said in support of Reiter’s comment. “I think it’s important to get it right.”
According to the project’s current timeline — which Glueckert said would be “totally fine” to revise if needed — Windfall is slated to present final branding elements to the City Council at its May 20 meeting.
Prior to that, the BTAC marketing committee and BTAC itself must also weigh in, Richardson noted.
McGowan said that, based on the feedback provided in the meeting, Windfall could further develop two of the logos in combination with taglines and provide samples on posters the City could post to “give the community a week to look at them.”
He said he anticipated having those posters sent to the City possibly as soon as Wednesday, April 24.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to adopt them,” McGowan said. “If the majority of the people like one of them, then we can roll forward quickly” on finalizing the design.
“If we still need more revisions, we’ll go back to the drawing board,” he said.
