Marketing Whitewater Over the Last Decade

Yesterday, I mentioned that I would share observations from a longtime resident about marketing efforts on behalf of Whitewater.

First the observations, then my remarks.

….Ten years ago I think all the rhetoric about a perfect Whitewater was meant to set the tone for those already living in and around the town. They wanted to make sure everyone believed the narrative.

The top-tier insiders already understood the game plan, which was mostly to make sure those moving into the area understood that their resources were kindly accepted, but their ideas were not. The idea was to give the impression that the place was perfect, and the perfect management team was already in place, watching over everything, and all newcomers need do was go along, support the status-quo and be happy they had arrived.

Today, I think the campaign is much quieter, and it’s more about attracting new people to the area. Same idea: it’s perfect here; just come. I hear and see less of it though. I think their energy level has decreased over time….

1. I think these observations are, generally, spot on. The more one considers how Whitewater’s insiders craft messages ostensibly for people outside the city, the more evident it becomes that these messages are effectually for people already in the city.

One comes to this conclusion in significant part because messages supposedly intended for newcomers are so awkward, smarmy, or self-serving of town notables that it’s almost impossible to believe local authors could possibly believe newcomers would be persuaded.

Whitewater is beautiful, with so much to recommend to others, but official messaging about the city is under-thought and over-done. It’s as though someone chose particular Hollywood scriptwriters as Whitewater’s public-relations team.

See, along these lines, The Failure of Marketing (and the Marketing of Failure).

2. Whitewater’s town squires – with a few striking exceptions – do look less energetic, and less creative, with each passing year. They’re running out of sham claims. (There are only so many times you can tell people you’ve built a flying car before they’ll stop believing.)

3. To the extent marketing about Whitewater is really about local self-promotion within the city of a few to many others also within the city, then it’s evidence of a myopic political culture.

One needs to look farther, and gazing outward, bring the best that one finds to local discussions. Starting and ending from what one sees close at hand is a less-advanced approach.

That narrow approach is easy, of course, so it suits the lazy, entitled, etc. Most people are very sharp; some, however, become complacent, and thereby underuse their abilities.

Years of prior error mean that even genuine efforts to speak to newcomers will be unpersuasive.

Under these conditions, insiders lose the ability not only to see what outsiders find attractive, but what outsiders find unattractive or embarrassing. This is why insiders are so often startled by outside criticism – they don’t adequately imagine what people outside their small circles think. By the time there’s outside criticism, it’s already too late.

The problem: looking only close at hand produces limited insight, and limited insight leads to looking no farther than close at hand.

Errors of this kind beget more, and perhaps even worse, errors of this kind.

Thereafter, what myopia does not conceal pride will insist is unimportant: one starts with not knowing, and later insists knowing is unimportant.

4. Acknowledging actual problems and flaws is more useful to this city and her residents than all the sugary tales one reads. See, How to Make Whitewater Hip and Prosperous.

This is why, every day, it’s better to begin anew, working hard, and living the life of a dark-horse underdog.