Ohio City Issues Branding RFP

The City of Gahanna in Ohio is seeking a branding agency. The City seeks to develop an insights-based, distinctive brand identity that has the ability to be adopted by community stakeholder organizations to achieve marketing continuity and synergies across the Gahanna community.  The new brand will resonate with businesses, visitors and residential audiences and help elevate the City as a leading, progressive community in the Columbus region, the State of Ohio and beyond.  Resulting deliverables will directly shape the City’s marketing, promotional, public relations and community outreach efforts. The goal is to complete brand development and validation in 2017 and begin the launch in Q1, 2018.

The City of Gahanna, Ohio represents one of the most diverse communities throughout central Ohio. Gahanna is comprised of 12 square miles and has a population of over 33,000. Named as one of Ohio’s Best Hometowns by Ohio Magazine, Gahanna offers more than 750 acres of parkland and waterways, vibrant neighborhoods, one of the best school districts in central Ohio and is home to more than 1,700 businesses. The City’s unique location puts it within minutes of John Glenn International Airport, downtown Columbus and Easton Town Center. Gahanna also holds the designation of Herb Capital of Ohio.

SCOPE OF WORK

The Scope of Work will be conducted in two phases:

1) Research & Brand Development, and

2) Brand Implementation

Prospective agency partners are invited to submit proposals on one or both phases.

Proposals for both phases should be presented as two distinct components.

Phase 1: Research & Brand Development:

This phase requires an agency with experience in community branding and includes primary research, competitive analysis, brand strategy, positioning, validation, development of brand lockups and the creation of brand standards and training.

Scope of Work

• Conduct an analysis of competitive benchmarks / markets and their corresponding branding, positioning, marketing investment and communication
• Analyze the City’s existing research including the National Citizen Survey (2016), Open Town Hall public forum on branding (2016) and other commissioned
• Design and implement a research program to uncover the essence and emotional benefit of brand Gahanna and translate these into a compelling positioning statement. This research should include, but is not limited to, key stakeholders, residents, business community members, community leaders as well as targeted audiences in Central Ohio. Your proposal must outline in detail the qualitative and quantitative approaches and timelines for each that will be used to develop and validate the strategy, positioning and branding. The research program should also include an overlay to gain insights into the existing Gahanna branding.
• Develop an umbrella brand for the City, its various departments (Service & Engineering, Mayor’s Office, Parks & Recreation, etc.) and community stakeholder organizations (Gahanna Convention and Visitors Bureau, Gahanna Area Chamber of Commerce, Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools, etc.) that is effective when tailored with messaging for various targets including residents, businesses and
• Illustrate how the umbrella brand will apply to logo treatments for:

City of Gahanna

City of Gahanna departments (such as Parks & Recreation, Service, etc.) Ohio Herb Education Center (operated by City of Gahanna)

Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools Gahanna Convention and Visitors Bureau Gahanna Area Chamber of Commerce

Gahanna Community Improvement Corporation Creekside District Alliance

• Present findings at key milestones in the project to audiences that may include the City, City Council and other stakeholder groups. The agency partner may also be required to attend and/or moderate a public meeting(s) during the research and development process.
• Create a comprehensive brand standards manual and conduct up to three brand training workshops for City staff, community stakeholder organizations and the City’s agency partner for Phase 2 of this Request for
• Establish a detailed timeline for Phase

Phase 2: Brand Implementation

This phase requires a creative, innovative agency with experience in launching new brands and developing comprehensive implementation plans. This includes re-imaging existing brand touchpoints, traditional and non-traditional media strategy, media buying, media measurement, creative services and production.

Scope of Work

• Translate the Phase 1 strategy, positioning and branding into an action plan for disseminating the new brand and bringing it to life. Develop a comprehensive implementation plan to include two major executions. Each execution should include a media plan for traditional and non-traditional media, advertising production and other collateral and creative support
• Manage the implementation of the media plan including development of creative executions to support the
• Develop a plan for prioritizing and implementing re-branding to existing
• Develop a plan for measuring impact and effectiveness of the brand launch
• Create templates for applying the branding to the City’s new website (currently in development; launches summer 2017)
• Create usable / vector file re-branded templates for key touchpoint items for major community stakeholder (Stakeholder organizations may use the templates to fully execute the rebranding with their own agency partners.)
• Establish a detailed timeline for Phase

Proposal due by April 21, 2017 to:

David Kusz
Director of Marketing & Communications City of Gahanna
200 S. Hamilton Rd. Gahanna, OH 43230

Fahlgren Mortine is a strong Ohio based PR firm.