The World Champion Colts: Indy's New Brand Equity

Ever wonder what value big league sports actually produces for a region or community? Consider the NFL success of the Indianapolis Colts and how their Super Bowl win has produced an interesting change in Word-of-Mouth nomenclature. For example, when the Colts moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis in the early 1980s, sportscasters and commentators generally referred to the team as "the Colts." Today, the phrase "Indianapolis" is interchangable with the phrase "the Colts" when used popularly.

The brand impact on a city and region once known as "Naptown" or "a cornfield with lights"? Huge.

Before the 2006 AFC title game (and the Colts' subsequent high profile ticket to their winning Super Bowl), I authored a Sunday OP-ED in the Indianapolis Star that appeared on the day of the game. It explains why the Colts' success is critically important for the re-positioning of Indianapolis and the state. If you doubt its impact, then my suggestion is to review the widespread coverage of the city when the NFL opened its season in the former "Naptown" earlier in September. For more information, read on:

The Colts and Indy: An emerging mutual brand of excellence

By Michael Snyder

Taunting and loud, the voice pierced the din of the production bay at the radio station I was working at in Pasadena in 1984. “Hey Snyder,” the news director’s voice mocked, “Can you say ‘Indianapolis’ Colts?”

Long the brunt of many a “cornfield with lights” joke, ironically in a Southern California iconic city whose original name was “The Indiana Colony,” I was an overt lifelong Baltimore Colts fan. Even though the Colts at the time were the doormat of the NFL, I was still incredulous. From a west coast view, the mold seemed shattered. Against all odds, Indy was now part of the National Football League.

What was even more astonishing was the fact that there was even a place for the Colts to play. When I rolled out of Indy in 1976 – universally known in those days as “Naptown” – there wasn’t much of a noteworthy physical brand to leave behind: no Chase Tower, no One America building, and certainly no domed stadium. The downtown Circle was defined by decaying retail storefronts, presenting a strong impression that this was a city enthusiastically racing toward the 18th century.

Even a few years later, the city and state still weren’t projecting a brand that would quite attract the best and brightest. While in New York City on business later in the 1980s, I politely declined a dinner invitation, citing the fact that the Colts were making a rare Monday Night Football appearance and I wanted to catch the game. In the pre-Internet and zillion-channel satellite days, Colts games were seldom broadcast live in Southern California.
In between plays, the sports commentators seemed singularly unimpressed by the Hoosier Capital City. Based on repeated messaging, the national TV audience was left with a shallow brand perception. According to the commentators, Indy’s solitary redeeming factor was that it had a pretty good steakhouse.

Today, as the Colts and Indianapolis prepare for the first-ever AFC Championship here, a completely different city is deservedly on deck for a national re-branding. The sweeping vista shots panning the city during television timeouts reveal a progressive metropolis that has redefined itself as a 21st century global player. The Indy “brand” – that all-important Holy Grail of marketing – is in positive transformation, taking the Hoosier state with it. Representing a marketer’s dream of a worldwide showcase, the reach and frequency of Indy’s new brand message remains firmly at the high end of gold-plated media. Every time a commentator couples words like “powerhouse” with Indianapolis, it rubs off. In a classic marketing matchup, people are presented with a believable reason to reconsider Indiana and Indianapolis as something quite different from years past. All week long, the city’s positive brand equity will grow.

An old saw in brand development goes as follows: “There’s nothing like great marketing to kill a bad product.” Heightened brand awareness of flawed merchandise will drive away consumers.
Fortunately for Indianapolis and Indiana, the product is solid. “Naptown” of old is no more. Want proof of Indiana’s new emerging brand? Consider the headline from the Detroit News last year: “Michigan should fear Indiana, not India” for competitive economic development.
Regardless of how the game turns out today, Indianapolis and Indiana win dual victories. Many corporate site selectors are rabid football fans at this time of year, and the multi-faceted live commentary out of the RCA Dome only reinforces one brand fact: Indianapolis today represents a force to be ignored only at the peril of the unenlightened.

Managing principal of The MEK Group, a marketing consulting firm in Carmel, Snyder returned to Indianapolis from Los Angeles in 1993.

Ignoring blogs - A recipe for reputation disaster

Might seem a bit unusual to write about ignoring blogs on a blog, but a recent conversation with a senior media executive (who intensely asserted that blogs are but a fading fad and should know better) motivated me to write a "Perspectives" column for Inside Indiana Business. As visitors here obviously know, blogs DO in fact contribute considerably to public opinion, shape perceptions and influence information gatekeepers. Anyone with a stake in preserving brand equity or reputation management MUST possess more than a passing acquaintance with the blogsphere. If Word of Mouth (whether electronically transmitted or not) issues aren't being considered in your marketing or PR strategy, well...

Ironically, the column was one of the IIB's most popular of the month in terms of page views, and has subsequently been excerpted in a number of forums (of course including other blogs).
If you'd like to see what advice proved to be so popular, follow this link:

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/contributors.asp?id=1019

Fortuna favet fortibus.

"The Conjunction of the Whole World"

While we collectively marvel at the increasing globalization of cultures and economies in the early 21st century, consider the incredible loss of human knowledge and advancement some 1,600 years ago:

--More than two centuries before the time of Christ, scientists in this city knew that the earth orbited around the sun and proved that the earth was round (not flat), accurately calculating its circumference within 198 miles. It took Europeans 1,500 years to rediscover this fact.

--Geometry, astronomy and geography were invented here. Latitude and longitude were invented here, with the first prime meridian drawn through the city. Accurate maps and commentary (translated into Arabic, then Latin) miraculously survived the city's destruction, directly influencing European leaders and Christopher Columbus in the discovery of the New World some 1,400 years later.

--The modern research university-style library and independent schools first appeared here.

--The nearly evangelical spread of Judaism throughout the Mediterranean in 100 BCE began here with the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament text into Greek, exposing ancient Hebrew thought to an entirely new audience outside Palestine. That exposure produced an entirely new group of "God-fearers" (including the mother of Nero, who subsequently kept a seventh-day Sabbath) throughout the known world.

--The western Christian doctrine of the Trinity, developed some four centuries after Christ, has its origins here.

--The steam engine and possibly the first working computer were developed here, as well as the first working clock to measure time.

--More than 1,000 years of recorded human knowledge and advancement was lost with the destruction of more than 5,000 volumes of irreplaceable parchment, first by politically motivated Christians, then completely by Islamic conquerors in AD 646.

--The city's 40-story lighthouse -- considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world -- stood watch on the Mediterranean for more than 1,000 years.

How could all of this rich knowledge have been lost? Consider this commentary:

"Most of us take for granted that two cities, Athens and Rome, completely dominated the classical world...but this is, in fact, a distorted view of history, fueled by generations awed by the might of Rome and the ingenuity of Athens, and perhaps a little too keen to take the native historians of both cities at their word.

"In fact there was a third city that, at its height, dwarfed both of these in wealth and population as well as in scientific and artistic achievement..while Greece and Rome spread their their influence through trade and war, this city set out on another adventure, not at the point of a sword but on the tip of a pen. Its triumph was to be a conquest of the mind -- led not by legions of soldiers but by dynasties of scholars navigating on a sea of books.

"The city was Alexandria...the greatest mental crucible the world has ever known, the place where ideas originating in obscure antiquity were forged into intellectual constructs that far outlasted the city itself. If the Renaissance was the 'rebirth' of learning that led to our modern world, then Alexandria was its original birthplace."

For more information, run, do not walk, to your nearest bookstore or library and pick up a copy of "The Rise and Fall of Alexandria -- the Birthplace of the Modern Mind" (authors Justin Pollard and Howard Reid produce a read that you will never forget).

Boosting Manufacturing Profits

John Layden, CEO of PREVEL Consulting (http://www.prevelconsult.com/), recently published a remarkable column about boosting manufacturing profits. Interestingly, "manufacturing profit" is defintely not an oxymoron from Layden's point of view.

For more than a few surprises, click on the following link:

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/contributors.asp?ID=1057

Advantage Indiana: no legacy systems for ethanol

A little bit of hand-wringing (or perhaps, ahem, tassle-tossing) went on in the Indianapolis Star today regarding ethanol production or the lack thereof. "Indiana could pay a price for joining the ethanol gold rush at a bad time," read the lead from the Muncie Star-Press reprint, another Gannett-owned paper (like the Star).
The headline was even better: "State feels tremors from ethanol shakeout." Given that Indiana was one of the last corn-rich states to get into ethanol production big time, some investors have backed away and a few plants may either not get built or may shutter their fledgling operations.
The story reminded me of an interview I had with Michael Powell, former FCC secretary, shortly after he left office. I asked the question I always wanted to ask the telecom titan: "Mr. Secretary, regarding communications in the 21st century, did the Cultural Revolution in China paradoxically produce a technology advantage?"
Powell's eyes glazed over for a second, then he exclaimed: "Of course! No legacy systems!"
Back to Indiana's ethanol issue for a moment, Christopher Hurt, a Purdue economist, summed it up: "We are calling these growing pains. Almost every industry has to go through a period of excess expansion and over-optimism, and then go through a period of negative markets, losses and generally some bankruptcies and some consolidations."
Transposing Powell's comment, Indiana's late entry into the ethanol market also enabled it to bypass some of the Upper Paleozoic processing technology now underpining ethanol plants in other states. Also, about a year ago the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) stopped handing out state-fueled incentives for additional ethanol plants (although it still favors soy biodiesel plants, a completely different situation), so brakes were being prudently applied some time ago.
The upshot? Indiana will do just fine, particularly as it balances traditional grain exports in the growing "fuel vs. food" geo-battle.

Indy World Skyport and FedEx's Fred Smith

The first page Wall Street Journal story about Airbus today (10/15) recalled to mind an in-depth interview I had with Fred Smith, founder/chairman/CEO of FedEx about a year ago. Smith was in Indianapolis for the annual Japan-Midwest Summit. My firm was supporting the conference (which had record attendance) in a marketing and media relations project.

The Indianapolis Star sent a reporter for the private interview, who later chronicled the potential impact FedEx would have on the new Indianapolis International Airport when the monster Airbus A380 came into service to Indy later in the decade. What I found fascinating, which was largely left out of the Star article, was Smith's comments about Indianapolis becoming the "Liverpool of the 21st century" as its TDL (transportation, distribution and logistics) operations continued to expand with global implications. Smith spoke at length about the expanding FedEx facility at the Indy airport, which today is second in the world. Liverpool, of course, was a leading (if not the "leader") seaport for global trade during the height of the British Empire.

As Mark Writt, a senior VP at CB Richard Ellis' Indianapolis office, recently pointed out at the 2nd annual CBRE IN Focus conference, few regions in the United States possess the capacity for global TDL growth than do Indianapolis. Writt posted up a map of the region during his talk, which illustrated graphically the incredible TDL-related expansion that the Greater Indianapolis region has undergone in the past decade. More intercontinential Interstates reach Indianapolis than any other American urban area, and with the demise of the hated Hoosier inventiry tax, "big box" distribution growth has been running at record levels. Amazingly, many people still think of the TDL industry as a "sweatshop" of low-skilled workers. TDL professionals well know that the TDL industry is a high-tech industry employing multiple thousands of IT pros for automated inventory, GPS high-speed tracking and robotic distribution (just to name a few). Apart from Indiana's superior interstate trucking and overnight delivery capabilities, the state is also surprisingly one of the top port shipping entities, with major sea-access ports in the northwest corner (near Chicago) and in the south along the Ohio River. If that doesn't win you a bar bet, nothing will.

Indiana has been the Median Center of the U.S. population for more than a century, and it appears -- particularly with the massive highway and interstate improvements currently underway with the Governor's Major Moves initiative -- that Indiana will truly capture and sustain its long-time nickname" The Crossroads of America."

“They say all roads lead to Indiana. Indeed that is true,” said conference chair Yuzaburo Mogi at the conclusion of the 38th annual Midwest U.S.-Japan Conference.

Three Gorges Dam - Engineering run amok?

The vision - first proposed 88 years ago - is astonishing. Damming up the Yangtze River to generate billions of fresh kilowatts for an energy-starved Superpower represented a staggering engineering challenge. The $26 billion project came online recently months ahead of schedule, but at what cost?

To make way for the rising waters behind the massive structure, more than 1.3 million Chinese had to relocated, many against their will. Similar to the Aswan Dam issue in Egypt several decades ago, significant archeological sites will soon lie under fathoms of water. Excessive silt, thousands of yards of algae blooms and deadly mudslides as a result of the dam are already manifest.

As CNN quoted one Chinese professor trying to preserve the Three Gorges eco-system: "No one can guarantee the Three Gorges will be catastrophe-free." Built in part to control the annual Yangtze flooding, many experts feel that strange and unexpected flooding patterns could well make matters worse instead of better.

Looking at the U.S., one is reminded of the Hetch Hechy Dam in Yosemite National Park. Once a breath-taking mirror of the fabulous Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hechy valley was dammed up and essentially destroyed in the early 20th century. Why? The then-booming town of San Fransciso needed billions of fresh kilowatts for economic growth. California today could not readily sustain its economics without that dam, hidden away in the northern section of one of America's most precious parks.

A magnificent engineering feat for the People's Republic? Certainly. But the jury is still out as to whether Three Gorges will truly achieve its goal of improving the spectrum of life in China.