The nonprofit group is spending $1.2 million in the first year of a business-development and attraction effort. The alliance is launching a business-development center and promoting downtown Cleveland through print ads, videos, banners, a new website and social media.
Designer Valerie Mayen, in a magazine ad produced for the Downtown Cleveland Alliance. The nonprofit group is trying to paint the center city as the premiere address for businesses, by telling the stories of successful and growing companies. Mayen appeared on "Project Runway" and runs the Yellowcake label.Ads painting Cleveland as a business destination are popping up in the regional editions of national magazines. During the next few months, that message will appear in local publications, on banners on downtown buildings, on YouTube and other websites and on mobile devices across Northeast Ohio.
In the first year of a long-term marketing effort, the Downtown Cleveland Alliance is spending $1.2 million to open a business-development center, highlight growing companies downtown, reach out to businesses across northern Ohio and trumpet a new image of the city.
The strategy, crafted with three marketing companies, targets a specific audience: The 35 to 55-year-old leaders of 10- to 20-year-old service businesses, with 10 or more employees and $2 million to $20 million in revenue.
"We have to tackle the office market initially," said Joe Marinucci, the nonprofit's chief executive officer. "If we are successful in attracting more tenants into downtown, one of the natural results is going to be an increased need for retail and residents."
The center city has been the subject of many marketing campaigns -- with varying degrees of success. But the alliance and its partners say they are taking a different approach, positioning downtown Cleveland as a premier address through conventional advertising, face-to-face meetings with businesses, a word-of-mouth effort to get companies to replace "Cleveland" with "Downtown Cleveland" on their business cards, and technology including QR codes -- the square bar codes that can be read by mobile devices.
"This is directed toward a very specific type of business that we want to move into the downtown core," said Mike Ozan, president and creative director of Twist Creative Inc., one of the agencies working on the project. "The thinking really is that success breeds success. Do you want to be the best designer, the best architectural firm in a suburb? Or do you want to be the best one in an actual city?"
A handful of companies have signed on as the first faces of the campaign. In print ads, videos and profile pages on the alliance's new website, business leaders describe why a downtown address works for them. For David Gentile, the U.S. general manager of Thommen Medical, a space in PlayhouseSquare "has international appeal," according to one ad. The company, which makes dental implants, chose Cleveland over Boston and Chicago for its North American headquarters.
Rosetta, a fast-growing digital agency that started moving its offices and hundreds of employees from the suburbs to downtown Cleveland this year, also stars in the ads. So does Calfee Halter & Griswold, a law firm that is moving into a historic building on East Sixth Street; fashion designer and "Project Runway" candidate Valerie Mayen; online merchandising company Easy2Technologies; web-design firm Aztek; independent grocer Constantino's Market; and restaurateurs Jonathon Sawyer, of the Greenhouse Tavern, and Zack Bruell, of Chinato on East Fourth Street.
Each of the ads includes a QR code, which readers can scan to reach a profile page about the featured company. Eventually, the alliance could put these barcodes in the window of every downtown building, creating a system for passersby to scan a code and get information about available space in an office building, the history or occupants of a property or the menu and hours of a restaurant.
"It just occurred to us that there's a way to help people engage with their city while they're on the move," said King Hill, president of DigiKnow, a digital firm working on the campaign. "The QR code is only the key to the door."
The alliance, which represents downtown property owners, has focused on making the city cleaner, safer and more attractive. Last year, property owners agreed to pay fees to support the nonprofit for another five years. In exchange, they asked for more attention to business-attraction efforts. To meet that demand, the alliance is launching the business-development center, meant to be a one-stop shop to connect companies to resources and address their concerns about parking, safety and other issues. And Twist, DigiKnow and Falls Communications, a public relations firm, have crafted the marketing strategy.
"When they came to me and said we've got this marketing plan, I had the same reaction as probably everybody else in the world: 'OK, here comes another bullshit plan,'" said developer John Ferchill, chairman of the alliance's board of directors. "But it actually turned out well. I actually kind of like it. I think it's pretty creative and certainly very interesting, and it's gonna be good for the town."