By Gregg Hoffmann
WisBusiness.com
MILWAUKEE – “It’s Miller Time” all the time in the auditorium at the Miller Brewing visitor’s center, but on Wednesday afternoon about 60 people in the room seemed to reach a consensus that it’s time to do a better job of branding Wisconsin.
The event was the second Branding Wisconsin forum. Hosted by WisBusiness.com, Forward Wisconsin, and the Small Business Times, it focused on branding success stories.
Panelists Mark Schmitz, Z-D Studios in Madison; Scott Silvestri, Kohler Company; Steve Flatt, Miller Brewing; Tom Farley, Chris Farley Foundation and Mark Vachon, GE Healthcare, joined Michael Armiak of Forward Wisconsin and audience members in discussing whether an entire state or region can adopt branding methods successfully used by corporations, unions and non-profit entities.
Schmitz said it’s a challenge. “A singular message is difficult to develop for a diverse state,” he said. “You have to come up with an over-arching statement, with all categories sort of under that. It has to be strategic. It can happen at a state and regional level.”
Vachon, who recently moved to Wisconsin to be chief financial officer of GE Healthcare, said, “You do need some unifying source.” Flatt said Miller has made community involvement at the grassroots level a big part of its marketing and branding strategy, suggesting that could be applied to branding Wisconsin.
Schmitz said any good branding effort has to start with “What is yours? What do you own? The authenticity of what you are branding is very important.”
Farley said the brand of Wisconsin is “more of a feeling, a quality of life. You’re surrounded by people who work and play hard.”
Armiak said branding involves many aspects of what actually is “intellectual property” that help build “thoughts and expectations.” He said the state could learn from some corporate branding and stressed that states without brands are lacking when it comes to competing with the states that do.
Silvestri said the Kohler Company has been able to transfer its brand from manufactured goods to the hospitality industry in part because it has a “grand champion” in Herb Kohler. All the panelists said such a strong individual at the top is a great asset to any branding effort.
At the state level, the governor can be that individual, but several people said everybody in the state can play a role in branding.
One audience member, who recently moved back to Wisconsin from Boston, said too many Wisconsinites aren’t “arrogant” enough to really brag about what is good about the state.
Another audience member questioned whether state residents “lacked confidence” when talking up the state. She called it the “Midwestern ethic.”
Vachon, who moved to Wisconsin from the East Coast about eight months ago, said he noticed that “confidence factor” within a month of moving to the state. But he added that Wisconsin has a great quality of life that could be branded.
FOR WISBUSINESS.COM BACKGROUND ON ‘BRANDING WISCONSIN,’ click here: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Content=92
