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One last thought: Branding is key
April 27th, 2009 by Mike Knutson
(This is the 5th in a series of posts about a study title “Attracting College-Educated, Young Adults to Cities” and focuses on “people attraction strategies“. Links to earlier posts may be found at the bottom of this post. )
After analyzing and discussing the “Attracting College-Educated, Young Adults to Cities” with my colleagues at the Rural Learning Center, I’ve concluded the most important take away is that branding is the key to attracting Millennials.
As one of their conclusions from the study (slide #28), the Segmentation Company stated:
Despite this desire to exercise greater control over where they live, college-educated young people do not have well-formed opinions about cities and areas they would be most or least likely to consider. Impressions of cities are most likely to be limited to climate/weather, diversity (or lack thereof), proximity to beaches/oceans and perceptions of safety, crowds and congestion.”
This lack of definition creates an opportunity for cities and communities to brand themselves with positive imagery and messages.
Essentially, what Millennials know about communities is superficial, so developing clear messaging (ie - branding) about communities is very important. After all, if the weather in the Upper Great Plains is the only impression people have, rural communities (and the Upper Great Plains in general) are going to be losers in the people attraction competition.
(By the way, I think older generations understanding of communities is equally limited.)
But how should rural communities shape their brand to meet this opportunity? The Segmentation Company offers the following advice (again, slide #28):
Provide positive reassurance on basic quality of life issues
- Position as a place where individuals and families can grow, meet their goals and live the life they can aspire to
- Emphasize neighborhood personalities and connections
- Particularly for larger cities, neighborhoods can provide attributes such as cleanliness, safety, green space and a welcoming atmosphere that are stereotypically desirable attributes of non-city settings
I’ve always felt branding is important for rural communities because people have a lot of misconceptions about them. That’s why projects like “Get Kansas” are so important.
But at the end of the day, each rural community is responsible for its own brand. Hopefully this study helps rural residents recognize the importance of branding and encourages them to begin developing the imagery that helps connect what they have to offer with the people who are looking for it.
Previous posts in this series include:
- “Are you a jobs first person?”
- “Why the interest in college-educated Millennials”
- “Gen Y Decision-making”
- “What attributes are Millennials looking for?”
Tags: attracting college-educated, branding, millennials, people attraction strategy
Posted in Community Development, Gen Y, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (
2 )
April 27th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Mike
Will the Rural Learning Center be sending someone to the Kansas Sampler Festival in May?
It looks like an opportunity to load up on a lot of valuable information to bring back to SD
Loren Budahl
April 28th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Loren,
I agree it would be good, but I don’t think it’s in the budget, and everyone’s pretty busy. Maybe next year.