Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Rebranding Project Underway; How Will Salinas' Image Change?

FROM KION-TV...

SALINAS, Calif. - For more than a year, we've been telling you about Salinas' push to change the city's image. In January, the city council hired a company based in St. Louis Missouri to start the process. In June, the company sent out survey questions to find out what local people think of the city's image, but since then, silence, at least publicly. Now, a KIONquestion about the efforts to rebrand Salinas… "What exactly is the Avant Marketing Group doing to change the image of Salinas? We found out a new brand for the city could roll out for the start of 2012.

"For being a St. Louis ad firm, they really, really nailed Salinas well," said Salinas Councilwoman Kimbley Craig.

And you may wonder... how so? Salinas Councilwoman Kimbley Craig said the Avant Marketing Group came to Salinas last week with results from June's survey, focus groups, and one on one interviews to get a better understanding of what Salinas is about. On the live line, Avant Marketing said it received great response from the community.

"Very consistent response from Salinas citizens and residents and it really showed us that a lot of people have great pride in your community," said Mark Vogel, Avant Marketing.

As for the results of what Avant found, Councilwoman Craig said she couldn't release those details yet because it's still in the working phase, "We have a couple of tweaks that we've asked them to go back to the drawing board with to make sure that they capture the full essence of Salinas before we roll it out in full. But ultimately, we're really excited about the project and they've done great work thus far."

For more information, including video story go to: http://www.kionrightnow.com/story/15618243/rebranding-project-underway-how-will-salinas-image-change