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Community Branding

Greetings from Mansfield & Richland County!

If you’ve made it to this page, you are interested in working with our community to find our brand story. On behalf of the Branding Steering Committee, we Thank You for your interest.

You are invited to prepare a community branding proposal as outlined in the RFP. The following RFP includes a background of our area and describes the purpose of the community branding, its desired components, and specific requests relating to the proposal.

In providing these details, our intent is not to convey that we have all of the answers in creating the best possible community brand. The ideal vendor will bring their own ideas and vision based on industry expertise, technical capability, and client relations, guiding us to incorporate our goals into that vision.

We understand that details may be subject to change upon vendor recommendation and/or research of more optimal solutions. In your proposal, please feel free to suggest alternatives where noted.

Please note that answers to any questions you have will be posted on this page.

Community Branding Co-Leaders
Lee Tasseff, President, Destination Mansfield – Richland County
Jodie Perry, President, Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development

Agency Questions & Answers

Thank you for submitting your questions! We appreciate the interest and it was good for the committee to take a closer look at our RFP when answering them. We look forward to receiving your proposals!

Will our proposal be public record? If so, what level of visibility is provided to the public?

While we are not subject to open records, we do plan to share the proposals with our Community Branding Steering Committee, which includes elected officials who would be subject to Ohio Public Records Law, and at our discretion, other community leaders and the media.

Are there any standing meetings the agency partner should plan to attend throughout the life of the project?

The winning agency will be expected to attend a number of community meetings throughout the project.

Will the agency partner be responsible for scheduling the qualitative research?

Yes.

For the evaluation plan, do you currently have KPIs to help evaluate success?

We are looking for bidding agencies to propose KPIs for the project.

What is your selection criteria for choosing your partner? Is there a scorecard you are leveraging?

There will be a scoring sheet, but it is not available at this time.

The timeline outlines six months for completion of this project. We know that this is possible, but we have also found that often a community needs to work at a comfortable pace to achieve inclusiveness and consensus. Is your May 1, 2020 date a hard deadline?

The timeline seems reasonable to us, but we would welcome feedback on the timeline.

What is spurring the RFP at this time?

As noted in the RFP, there is strong community support for moving to a unified branding message for Mansfield/Richland County.

Although it’s clear that the branding and marketing initiative must service all economic development activities – community, downtown, business attraction and expansion, entrepreneurship and tourism – are some areas more important than others?

No, the branding needs to work for all community marketing efforts.

Will you be able to host focus groups of your stakeholders (which we would lead) or is securing a facility up to us?

Yes, we will be able to host focus groups.

In #5 on page 6, can you explain a bit more what you mean by “two creative samples” — one overall for economic development marketing and one for tourism promotion?

As a deliverable for this contract, we require two creative executions of the new branding, one for marketing the community for economic development and one for tourism promotion. We want to see samples of how the brand might be executed for both purposes. We may adopt the creative executions to build a campaign or campaigns, or we may interpret the brand with other executions.

You mention that two creative samples will be required from the selected agency partner. Are these simply to serve as inspiration for how the brand will translate to ads and campaigns in the future? Will these samples then be adapted by your team to support campaigns and marketing efforts?

See response to question #10.

Do you have a scoring matrix or can you provide any insight on how proposals will be weighted?

See response to question #5.

With many partners and stakeholders involved in collaborative community initiatives, can you share your vision for how input and approvals will work as the project takes shape? How many approvals/reviews do you anticipate at key milestones in the process?

We are seeking process recommendations from bidding agencies. Final decisions will be made by the Community Branding Steering Committee.