{"id":47373,"date":"2014-09-25T05:05:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T10:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=47373"},"modified":"2014-09-29T13:52:36","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T18:52:36","slug":"marketing-the-unmarketable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=47373","title":{"rendered":"Marketing The Unmarketable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Want to make a fortune selling your service?  Get invited to the next conference of County Managers or City Managers.<\/p>\n<p>Just sat through a mandatory half-hour meeting \u201con re-branding.\u201d  It\u2019s the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twincities.com\/localnews\/ci_25351379\/washington-countys-focus-turned-green-space-preservation-2000s\">latest<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ci.excelsior.mn.us\/ArchiveCenter\/ViewFile\/Item\/1001\">bandwagon<\/a> for <a href=\"http:\/\/finance-commerce.com\/transit\/2013\/09\/05\/st-paul-street-fair-to-be-held-along-green-line\/\">local governments<\/a>.  There\u2019s even a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hennepin.us\/~\/media\/hennepinus\/your-government\/overview\/Documents\/hc-styleguide.pdf\">handbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ramsey County is changing its logo.  The County Board already spent $100,000 on design consultants and just hired a Communications Director to help implement the re-brand.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/20140924-090748-32868810.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/20140924-090748-32868810.jpg\" alt=\"20140924-090748-32868810.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll have this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/20140924-090857-32937467.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/20140924-090857-32937467.jpg\" alt=\"20140924-090857-32937467.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You notice we got a lot of bang for our $100,000 bucks.  The font is new and a soft grey.  The entity name is all caps, with the subsidiary office below in contrasting color.  And the color has changed: we\u2019re going to a less alarming color of red.  Burgundy and Grey, very 80\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Not right away, of course.  We\u2019ll use up existing stocks of business cards and letterhead.  Public works trucks will change logos as they are replaced. The signs outside our buildings probably will last a decade or longer.  It\u2019s a \u201citerative rebranding,\u201d not a radical abrupt change. <\/p>\n<p>Having different brands now is confusing to the public, which is why we must rebrand. But rather than spend a ton of money to clear up the confusion, we\u2019ll leave the confusing brands in place to leave the public confused as we gradually switch over to the new brand, to make things less confusing.  <\/p>\n<p>As a mid-level bureaucrat, I don\u2019t order letterhead, buy business cards or paint signs; I use what management gives me.  What I want to know is:  how do I code that half-hour meeting on my Time and Productivity Report?  \u201cComplete Waste\u201d does not appear to be an option.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Want to make a fortune selling your service? Get invited to the next conference of County Managers or City Managers. Just sat through a mandatory half-hour meeting \u201con re-branding.\u201d It\u2019s the latest bandwagon for local governments. There\u2019s even a handbook. Ramsey County is changing its logo. The County Board [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pork-patrol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47373"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47508,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47373\/revisions\/47508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}