City of Anchorage

How do you Brand a City?

At Stone Mantel and Nerland Agency, we believe every city’s spirit is alive—tiptoeing down its passageways and trails, worn in its pavement and bricks, riding on the waves of its movements and voice, drawing its breath from the life of its citizens. Residents and visitors feel it and recognize it, but can’t always describe it to outsiders. That’s where Stone Mantel (http://www.gostonemantel.com) and our partner, Nerland Agency (www.nerland.com), come in. We observe. We inquire. We listen. We ponder. We root out the core of this spirit. Then we develop a multi-dimensional brand strategy that rings true to the people.

When three of Anchorage, Alaska’s leading civic organizations invited Stone Mantel and Nerland Agency to develop a brand strategy to attract more visitors, residents and businesses to Anchorage, we leapt at the opportunity. We quickly developed a plan to:

  1. Communicate Anchorage as a good place to live, work, visit, and do business,
  2. Develop a single unifying message,
  3. Create a consistent image, and
  4. Develop a coordinated marketing plan.

Misconceptions vs. Realities

Ask any Joe in the “lower 48” states what he knows about Anchorage, and he’ll probably tell you, “It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s remote. It’s hard to get to. It’s expensive.”

Each city office was independently combating those negative impressions with different approaches but none were making any real headway in changing those misperceptions. In reality, Anchorage is a city full of culture, adventure and rich economic opportunity. The phrase “a room with a view” hardly captures the grandeur of the Chugach Mountains that cradle the city. Commuters bike or ski along the Coastal Trail before heading to work. Employees fish for salmon downtown over lunch. Sure, you’ll probably spot a moose—or even the mayor—in your daily travels, but Anchorage also abounds with art shows, theater, ballet, and symphonies. It’s large enough to offer all the amenities of a big city, but small enough that those so inclined can quickly immerse into business and community leadership roles.

An Inventive Approach

To develop a brand strategy that would reflect the true essence of Anchorage, the team looked first to existing research—to understand the findings as well as the gaps. While quantitative research methodologies gather data, qualitative research techniques capture emotions wrapped around meaningful experiences. Buried in those stories lie brand truths.

We sought input from key players—from the visitors to the residents to the community and Alaskan Native leaders. Each group holds a personal stake and pride in Anchorage, and each voice needed to be heard. If we were going to capture the distinctively meaningful experiences, we knew we had to approach each group in a fashion that would get them to open up.

  1. Visitors: We phoned conventioneers and vacationing hikers, mountain climbers, kayakers, fishermen, skiers, dog-sledders, etc. We recorded their adventures, their memories, and their tales.
  2. Community leaders: We conducted a two-hour open forum and harvested descriptors, adjectives, and ideas that embodied the essence of Anchorage. We followed up with individual, in-depth, one-on-one interviews. We probed for examples of community strengths, differentiators, and pride.
  3. Residents: We held multiple public forums. We toured city landmarks with residents to videotape their experiences and impressions firsthand. We issued a citywide call for stories. We wanted to know why they came and why they stayed.
  4. Alaskan Native community: We interviewed leaders from the Alaskan Native community to capture the soul of the city. We sought their histories, their wisdom, and their direction.

The Insights We Gained

After listening carefully and studying their experiences, several themes began to surface:

  • Anchorage is a wild frontier.
    Adventure. Exotic. Mountain goats. Fauna. Eagles. Glaciers. Whales. Salmon. “I think of our wildlife. I just went to Costa Rica for Christmas and there are monkeys and ducks and birds. This is the land of big animals: moose and bear. Where else can you go out on a bike trail and pass ten moose?”
  • Anchorage beckons independent spirits.
    Visionaries. Dog sledders. Creativity. Diversity. Entrepreneurs. Can-do attitude. “Choice is abundant – how you live your life; people aren’t judged by the fact that they choose to live without running water – this doesn’t ruin your economic status.”
  • Anchorage is an ideal location.
    Activities. Public facilities. University. Restaurants. View. Waterfront. Mountains. “Unique weather and climate which makes people feel like conquerors, hard-core athletes, and Samaritans.” “It’s the land of joy. On a clear day when I can see Mt. McKinley, I get this feeling. I feel joy.”
  • Anchorage incubates opportunity.
    Global. Metropolis. Unpretentious. Variety. Spirit. Evolving. “I just run into people all the time that know somebody I know. It’s just fascinating to me.” “We are a young city too, and I think there are social ladders to some extent, but not as deep as in some communities.”
  • Anchorage thrives with spirit.
    Lifestyle. Legacy. Timeless. Life purpose. Tradition. Youthful. “I know what this city is about. It’s about spirit.” “There is still a pioneer spirit about this place. We are young.” “We need to preserve the native, traditional ways.”

The Core of the Brand

Frontier. Independence. Location. Opportunity. Spirit. Our insights revealed a single brand core in each theme: Anchorage connotes abundance.

If everything’s big in Texas, then it’s mammoth in Anchorage. Have you ever stood next to a moose? It dwarfs the Dream Team. The Chugach Mountains soar over the city. The ocean spans the breadth of the city limits. The sun swirls around the big sky. This is a place burgeoning with opportunities to live, recreate, and do business. Opportunities for work, business, and personal growth abound. Careers skyrocket in this market flourishing with prospects. The experience incubates within people a larger-than-normal lifestyle that stirs something deep inside. And here’s the naked truth: Anchorage residents can do in a single weekend what most folks in the “lower 48” only fantasize about in a lifetime.

When people begin to really grasp the breadth and depth of this city, they cannot help but think: abundance.

The Brand Strategy

Expert at developing brand strategies, Stone Mantel and Nerland Agency defined the following critical brand dimensions to support the City of Anchorage’s brand core.

 

  • Culture
    No other community can claim a similar, distinctive, and meaningful blend of natural wonder, unpretentious attitudes, and a lifestyle convergence that is both grand and intimate. No wonder independent spirits from all walks of life thrive in this abundant environment.
  • Character
    Anchorage is Alaskan—natural, wild, strong, individualistic, outdoorsy. Anchorage is spirited—energetic, adventurous, pioneering, purposeful, opinionated, strong-willed. Anchorage is open-hearted—optimistic, inclusive, connecting, multicultural.
  • Brand truth
    Taking a cue from the abundance of nature, the purpose of Anchorage is to create in everyone and everything a sense of abundance—to perpetuate the tremendous opportunities afforded in a land of promise and plenty. The higher cause that should drive Anchorage is a determination to preserve and promote a spirit of abundance.
  • Stories
    • For residents: Share the abundance
      Folks just can’t help feeling lucky to live here. The magnificence of the nature surrounding them and the opportunities available each day, transform life for the inhabitants to be richer, deeper and more satisfying and inspire them with optimism about their futures and their relationships with the things that matter most.
    • For visitors: It’s all of the abundance of Alaska for you.
      With everything to gawk at as you drive down any Anchorage road, we can’t believe there aren’t more traffic accidents here. Glaciers and eagles and dense mountain forests. Fireweed and whales and moose-mastered trailways. Culture and cuisine amid vistas too exquisite to ignore. Everything and anything that’s best about Alaska permeates this place, converges in this place, and starts with this place called Anchorage.
    • For businesses: Everything is here—the perfect place to do business.
      Abundance in Anchorage goes beyond local lifestyle. At the center of international opportunity and access, Anchorage creates potential for pioneering entrepreneurs. Anchorage is an incubator for opportunity, a nexus between people, places, and larger-than-life possibilities. It’s globally central to the world centers of commerce—just nine hours from New York and London and ten hours from China.
  • What are the critical tasks to do to reach the soul of each target group? Those that address their functional, emotional, and social needs.
    • Include residents in abundant opportunities to bond:
      • Functional—Create settings that capture the sense of Alaskan possibilities.
      • Emotional—Foster in residents a feeling of responsible abundance—to the environment, to society, and to future generations.
      • Social—Finds ways to commit all people to contribute to nurturing a diverse, vibrant culture.
    • Send messages that draw visitors:
      • Functional—One week just won’t do it. There’s too much to see and do and eat and visit and …
      • Emotional—The votes are unanimous: it’s love at first sight—and first climb, first bike, first hike, first cast—in Anchorage.
      • Social—We guarantee you’ll take home stories that will wow audiences at business lunches, church potlucks, family reunions, or anywhere else you go.
    • Nurture a business-friendly partnership:
      • Functional—Provide global access which broadens markets and saves time and money.
      • Emotional—Help businesses feel and participate in the higher purpose of being Alaska-abundant with customers, vendors, and employees.
      • Social—Facilitate the independent spirit of business and provide forums that incubate new ideas.
  • Creative assets
    The campaign theme that evolved from this core of abundance is:

    • Anchorage—Big Wild Life™

    Sure it’s a play on words. The bear and the moose are big wildlife. But this theme speaks to so much more. The theme beckons to every independent soul walking the earth—to those who want to immerse themselves in their passions. To extreme sports fanatics, frontiersmen, pioneers, visionaries, and entrepreneurs alike. There’s a big wild life to be found in Anchorage.

The Launch

City officials grabbed hold of the Anchorage—Big Wild Life campaign like a brown bear snagging a salmon. In January 2007, initial television and radio ads aired, magazine and newspaper ads ran, the website launched (www.bigwildlife.net), and bus wraps began to maneuver around the city. Statues around town were dressed in thematic T-shirts. A licensing program for willing vendors was introduced, with the first items: bottled water and apparel. The theme, paired with an organic icon, is used in each media. Television ads display visuals of the area as well as the big, wild life lifestyle. Print ads portray normal folks involved in epic weekend activities.

Watch the Television Ad (Windows Media Format, 7.6MB - 2:42)

Nerland Agency Worldwide Partners
Contact us at 907.274.9553 or at Kate.Slyker@Nerland.com.

Stone Mantel: Find the Experiences that Matter™
We’ve got ideas to find the experiences that matter the most. We’ve got expertise to translate those experiences into meaningful, distinctive brand strategies. Contact us at 303.814.3627 or at Ideation@GoStoneMantel.com.