Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Selects Avant Marketing for Branding Assignment

The City of Humboldt has selected the Avant Marketing Group for brand development. Incorporated in 2000, Humboldt is the municipal hub for the east-central region of Saskatchewan, an area realizing significant growth due to the manufacturing, mining, education and agriculture industries.

With the city’s recent growth, and region’s continuing economic development, there is an identified need to articulate Humboldt’s brand promise and to define consistent brand usage across the media spectrum.

“The increasing exposure to the City of Humboldt’s municipal brand requires a more professional approach,” states Jennifer Brooks, Director, Communications & Community Development. “Avant Marketing was selected for the assignment based on their unique combination of marketing strategy and municipal branding expertise.”

Avant Marketing will analyze existing materials and research to distill the city’s brand essence into tagline form. In addition, Avant will provide comprehensive guidelines for Humboldt’s visual brand identity, from logo usage and corporate identity to a new website design and marketing communications.

“We are delighted to work with a firm that can bring an outside perspective and a professional approach to our identity for future branding and marketing efforts,” commented Brooks.

With this assignment, Avant Marketing expands a growing, municipal-client roster of recent and current accounts that includes Salinas, California, University City, Missouri and Medford, Oregon.

Avant Marketing Group is a market-planning firm located in St. Louis, Missouri. The firm provides market research, brand development and market planning to a variety of clients in both the private and public sectors.

Defining The Types of Brand Associations

Did you know that there are four levels of brand associations? We explain the differences among brand awareness, brand advocacy, brand affinity and brand fanaticism in our latest video and why it's important to develop brand fanatics in your market.

Go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxBnAN3KmWw&feature=plcp

New Downtown Medford Brand

October 19, 2012
By Greg Stiles
Mail Tribune

Saying it's proud of its past and looking to the future, the Heart of Medford Association will unveil its new brand for marketing downtown today:

"Metro Medford. Historically centered. Progressively inspired."

"A duality emerged in our process," said Diane Raymond, Heart of Medford Association executive director. "People are very proud of our heritage, and people are anxious to move forward and be progressive. Those two things became clear, but the question was 'How do you marry those things together?' "

The brand, which includes the tag line "Good life. Good living," will be introduced in a series of gatherings beginning with an invitation-only gathering for HMA members and community leaders on Main Street this morning.

The scope broadens during at 5-8 p.m. gathering at Vogel Plaza, on the corner of East Main and Central Avenue, featuring live music and a light show. From 8-11 p.m., a launch party open to the public will take place at the Sparta Building, 401 E. Main St., featuring a 17-piece band. Reservations are required at www.heartofmedford.com/launch.

The new brand and logo, developed by Avant Marketing Group of St. Louis, has a bold "Metro" and a scripted "Medford" with a checkered background. The "Metro Medford" brand gives a nod to the nation's 207th-largest metropolitan statistical area (albeit one that includes all of Jackson County) and fourth-largest in Oregon.

Following a 2010 market survey, city officials, community leaders and residents were asked to fill out online surveys to help the rebranding effort. "We had a very successful turnout," Raymond said. "People told us what they thought and then we synthesized it with our market research. This wasn't something from a bunch of people, sitting in a room wondering what we should call downtown. It was a very organized process. People told us what they thought, we listened, and I think we have a home run."

While the brand is designed to market downtown Medford's commerce, it fits with other recent rebranding efforts as well, she said. "This brand belongs to everyone downtown," Raymond said. "The Commons is another brand, just as Travel Medford is another. This will be complementary to those other brands."

The Commons is the redevelopment area that includes the Lithia Motors headquarters, while Travel Medford is the visitor and convention division of the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County.

A Metro Medford website will go live in about two weeks, Raymond said, with a Facebook page and other social media efforts appearing in the near future as well. "We've done this in such a short time," Raymond said. "We haven't been able to pull off everything at once."

What's the Difference Between a Name and a Brand?

Avant Marketing Group has posted its first video in a series focused on Branding and Market Planning. To view the video, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PYLgkRh2xQ

New Downtown Medford Oregon Brand Coming October 19th

The Avant Marketing Group had the privilege of developing the new brand identity for Downtown Medford, Oregon. As a community that has gone through a tremendous evolution from being the center of the Southern Oregon timber industry to now more focused on the service and education industries, Medford has reinvented itself and its downtown commercial district.

On October 19th, Medford will unveil its new brand identity with a formal brand launch. As Diane Raymond, Executive Director of the Heart of Medford Association commented, “Avant hit a home run in capturing the spirit, values and identity of our community.”

Medford is now promoting its brand launch which will be quite an event for the community. You can follow along with this activity at: http://www.heartofmedford.com/launch

Municipalities, associations and corporations are finding the value of the propulsive energy that a proper brand identity and platform can generate. Though it takes a lot of hard work to develop a successful identity, it is always rewarding for Avant to see such community engagement in their new identity.