Cities for Sale: Municipalities as Public Relations and Marketing Firms

Chapter Seven: Patterns, Limitations, and Future Research

99 SEVEN Patterns, limitations, and future research the book began with the premise that cities, especially in the United States, are beginning to not only adopt the practices of private sector public relations and marketing firms but mirror those firms in terms of behavior, values, and reach. organizational communication, one area left critically unexamined in the consideration of market models used in public administration , shifts from the delivery of pure information to selling, promotion, and storytelling. Pure information, as I defined it earlier, is information whose principal purpose is to keep the public informed, and it does not usually refer to a city’s branding logo, slogan, or campaign messaging. For example, a press release might indicate simply the date, time, and place of a meeting. There might be a link on a web site to government documents shown simply as they appear—with no design elements around them. essentially, this is unfiltered public reporting (Lee, 2006) that can help citizens participate in the governance process. Importing a market model into the public sector brings along the model’s purpose: to sell a product (Kavaratzis, 2004). organizational communication has changed to address sales-based goals (e.g., increasing residents, businesses, tourism). organizational communications still include press releases that announce a meeting’s time, date, and location, but under the influence of the market model that same release is likely to include details of why the meeting is important, what benefit you (the stakeholder) might get from attending, and how the city is working toward meeting certain goals you (the stakeholder) have set for us (the responsive administrators). The line might be fine, but comparing and contrasting cities’ communications 100 Cities for sale materials makes these and other patterns appear. For example, compare a press release from orlando, Florida, or Roanoke, Virginia, to one issued by Albany, New York, or Frankfurt, Kentucky. Immediate language and presentation differences become apparent and illustrate cities acting, or not, as PR and marketing firms. while doing research for this book, I encountered three elements not included in the initial research protocol. These appeared often enough to make them worthy of mention herein. They include: the marketing category referenced by the slogan “live, work and play”; the move toward social media platforms (touched on earlier); and the use of web site colors. each lends itself to further exploration into the reasons they are utilized. “live, Work, and Play” • “Annually, Anaheim welcomes millions of visitors to the city, truly making it where the world comes to live, work and play” (City of Anaheim, 2009, p.1). • orlando, Florida, uses live, work, and play as a branding slogan , usually when discussing its downtown development and redevelopment. • Roanoke, Virginia, uses live, work, and play in its Clean and Green campaign. • Coral Springs has what it calls its Live, work, Play, Learn campaign —complete with its own web site (http://liveworkplaylearn .org/). • Columbus, ohio, has a web site dedicated to its Live, work, Play campaign. when all three combine, “it’s easy to see why Columbus really is the best of everything” (Columbus Chamber of Commerce, n.d., para. 1). • Raleigh, North Carolina, encourages people to live, work, and play downtown. These are just a few examples of cities using some form of this master slogan in widespread, far-reaching, and well-developed PR and marketing campaigns. “‘Live, work and play’ is marketing talk for the inarguably less sexy notion of mixed-use development. In 2008, no single phrase, with the exception of ‘green,’ topped it for popularity among those selling urban real estate. . . . The slogan has been gaining traction among municipal boosters who want to attract new blood to their cities” (Cohen, 2009, paras. 2 and 3). Patterns, limitations, and future research 101 If a city’s residents’ perception of what it means to be in a good place to live, work, and play are not met, there is the potential to lose people to other cities (Insch & Florek, 2008) engaging in the competitive market for human resources. All of the themes and characteristics derived from the picture of a great place to live, work, and play—for example, concerning housing, parks, volunteering, access to education, feeling part of the place— go toward building appreciation of the overall quality of life and developing satisfaction with the place. It should be no surprise, then, that cities use this as a slogan. The problem, though, is that “live, work...