Bayfield town trustees got an update Tuesday evening on a consultant's efforts to create branding for the town.
The town hired Avant Marketing earlier this year to do the work. Town Manager Chris La May told trustees that Avant representatives met with 39 adult community members and surveyed 96 Bayfield High School students. From those meetings, Avant created a list of town attributes, two branding platform statements and vision, mission, and brand essence statements.
La May went through those for board response.
Attributes were ranked 1 to 10 based on how often they were mentioned. A good place to live topped the list, followed by friendliness of residents and then schools. Next are public safety, recreation, home values, sporting events, senior facilities, proximity to higher education, community events, cost of living, and medical facilities.
Ranking lowest are business climate, economy, arts and culture, and visitor amenities.
Then Avant created a "word cloud" of key Bayfield descriptors, with the size of the words indicating ranking. The largest ones were sense of community, down to earth, conservative, family and kids. Next in size were Christian, Old West standards, education, and work ethic. Next were heritage, honesty, pride, private, integrity, and connected to life.
Avant also created a word cloud of town weaknesses. The largest ones were access from highway, lack of amenities, and no attractions. Next were lack of retail services and no direction for growth. After that were drugs, don't like change, bureaucracy, poor business climate, not well marketed, old-fashioned, and community involvement.
From those came an initial branding platform statement that emphasized friendliness, faith, family, patriotism, stewardship of natural resources, and small town Americana. That led to a brand essence of "Bayfield: Pride in down-home American living."
La May said that was reviewed in a conference call with the downtown development group. "The term came up that we want to be an inclusive community," he said. Avant came back with a second branding platform statement that was very similar but with the addition of valuing and welcoming diversity. The brand essence with that said, "A place where you can breathe."
La May said he told Avant, "I don't think you've really nailed the brand essence yet."
Trustees generally agreed. Audience member David Black commented, "It sounds like 'Bayfield, after you've tried everything else.'"
La May said the focus group went through several versions with different emphasis, such as economic growth and the environment. One idea was "Come grow with us." Another was "Come home to Bayfield."
Trustee Michelle Nelson said Avant's brand essences don't match the feeling of the things from which they were distilled.
"Everything else I could identify with," she said. "I think they are close."
"It's been an interesting process," La May said of the branding effort. "The original schedule was we'd make a final decision tonight. I told them we aren't there yet. I want to get it right." The hope was to have it all done in June, but it could be July, he said.
The town received a grant last year to help pay for implementation of some recommendations from a downtown revitalization assessment done in March 2015. Trustees agreed to use half of it to hire a consultant to develop town branding. La May noted trustees will have to decide soon how to use the rest of the money for another project next year.
