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Brand New Hartford
Capital launches marketing blitz
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Business New Haven
11/26/2001
By: Susan Cornell
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Leading Hartford civic organizations, with the support of city, state and private partners, unveiled a new brand and marketing initiative for the Capital City. The new brand and tag line, “Hartford: New England's Rising Star,” will be the foundation of a long-term marketing program. The new brand, promotional posters and television advertisements were introduced at a kick-off event featuring University of Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, Gov. John G. Rowland, Hartford Mayor Michael P. Peters and Mayor-elect Eddie Perez.
The new brand is a stylized treatment of the name Hartford with a yellow rising star and trail on a blue background. The brand was created by the Hartford Image Project (HIP), a collaboration of the city, the Greater Hartford Tourism District, MetroHartford Regional Economic Alliance, Hartford Economic Development Commission, Greater Hartford Convention & Visitors Bureau, Greater Hartford Arts Council, Capital City Economic Development Authority, Waterford Development, the state's Office of Tourism and Hartford 2000.
Through advertising and promotional materials produced and distributed by the project's supporters, the new Hartford brand is planned to achieve an estimated seven million impressions in 2002.
The brand and the marketing plan have been built on a framework of creative collaboration, research, interviews with business and community representatives, and testing of creative concepts, images and positioning statements. HIP members employed the services of Bill O'Neal and Bruce Putterman of the O'Neal Group, the New Haven firm of McLaughlin, DelVecchio & Casey, and Witan Intelligence Strategies, to develop the brand and marketing plan.
Television spots were directed and produced by Paul Mayer, executive director of the Greater Hartford Tourism District. The first advertisements, promoting Hartford's restaurant and nightlife scene, will air initially on AT&T Broadband, which serves approximately 240,000 cable television customers in Connecticut.
As part of the campaign's launch, HIP civic partners will each adopt the Hartford brand as the lead image in their respective organizational logos. By featuring Hartford's brand in all of their communications materials, civic marketing and promotional organizations will deliver consistency of brand and message to all audiences, ranging from entertainment and local arts attendees to national tourism and convention audiences.
Officials say the Hartford Image Project campaign will emphasize sustained visibility. As such, the campaign will gradually escalate as it is increasingly applied to the extensive marketing and promotional campaigns of the project's lead organizations, and extended to additional partner organizations. Additional promotional tactics will be announced and implemented as the effort unfolds.
Explains Lori DeCrescenzo, communications consultant for the MetroHartford Regional Economic Alliance: “The target market is everybody - first, the residents and businesses, then the region, and ultimately the country. It's going to be used in as many places as we can put it out.”
“This project is founded on the same principles as Hartford's ongoing economic development,” says outgoing Hartford Mayor Michael P. Peters, whose office was among the founders of the Hartford Image Project. “We are laying the foundation for an extremely promising future in this community that is being built right now.”
Free prints of the first edition of the campaign's poster series are being made available for promotional use. The first poster, “Where's a Great Place To Eat?,” featuring three-and four-star Hartford restaurants, is available at no charge to businesses and organizations wishing to participate in the campaign by displaying the poster in high-traffic areas.
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