Preliminary report on Corridor branding to be revealed soon

Marilee Fowler thinks Interstate 380 is “beautiful.”

But that's because Fowler runs the Cedar Rapids Convention and Visitor's Bureau, and she sees the bumper-to-bumper grind as a sign of opportunity.

“It shows the strengths of the commerce we have in the corridor, and it plays a vital role in connecting this region,” she says.

Ever since she moved to Iowa from Indiana in April 2010 to become the bureau's president and chief executive officer, Fowler motors twice daily between her temporary residence in Iowa City past the University of Iowa, The Eastern Iowa Airport, Quaker Oats and all the fertile farmland in between.

“This area is such a wealth of so many things, from education to agriculture to the arts to tourism to technology,” Fowler said. “It's all so close together, but sometimes we forget to look at each other's resources.”

That separation between Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and surrounding communities has been a hot topic for politicians and development officials for years. They have cooperated in some ways, like integrating the term “corridor” into the lexicon. But a divisive mindset still exists, as shown by the competition for economic recovery resources after the 2008 flood.

The complexity of achieving collaboration among Eastern Iowa communities reflects a Midwestern trait - one that pits Midwestern individualism against a growing recognition that global competition compels regional cooperation, according to a Richard Longworth, an author and scholar on Middle America.

Some area leaders believe that to be competitive and grow economically in the Eastern Iowa Corridor, citizens, business owners and community leaders need to alter the way they view where - and how - they live.

In May 2010, the Corridor Business Alliance, which comprises 12 development, business and educational institutions, began working on a regional brand that could replace the former “Technology Corridor” moniker. Leadership at SourceMedia Group, which owns The Gazette, is part of that effort.

Primarily funded through alliance members, the group hired North Star Destination Strategies of Nashville, Tenn., for approximately $125,000. The process will take up to a year to complete but initial research was concluded and North Star Destination Strategies presented its findings on Dec. 22.

John Lohman, publisher of the Corridor Business Journal and chair of the Regional Research and Branding Task Force, said these findings will be released to the public within the next few weeks. The research will serve as the foundation for the next steps of the process, which includes creative design and overall strategy development.

North Star Destination Strategies is slated to present an official branding recommendation in May 2011.

Lohman said this initiative is not being undertaken to usurp community and organization identities. “People say ‘Iowa City is so different from Cedar Rapids,' and I say, ‘You're right,'” Lohman said. “When you come to the Corridor, you can experience big city and rural Iowa, as well as different political and business climates. There are a lot of different things here for a lot of different tastes, and when you put them together, you have a great region with lots of amenities. If you separate them, you wouldn't be as successful.”

Fighting stereotypes

One of the biggest challenges the Corridor faces is the national opinion of Iowa and the Midwest, said Joe Raso, president of the Iowa City Area Development Group and a member of the branding task force.

“When we conduct research about what outsiders think of our region, we get traditional results about our agriculture and being a cold, flyover state,” he said. “But when we look at the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area, there's a lot that doesn't fit into those perceptions; our region has a rich educational heritage, innovative businesses and a productive work force.”

Raso said finding improved ways to combat misperceptions with a national audience could help attract businesses and talented individuals to the region.

Thomas Gruca, a University of Iowa marketing professor and faculty director of the MBA Marketing Career Academy, says the Alliance's re-branding effort is a smart way to communicate cultural activities - like the Cedar Rapids Opera Company or hiking in Backbone State Park. That could not only attract tourists, but also combat the ‘rural brain drain' exodus of young adults from permanent residency in the Midwest, he said in an e-mail.

In Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism, Longworth, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, argues that the Midwest is fighting a losing battle against globalization. Midwestern cities, counties and states are too small to compete in a global market, and therefore must combine assets with geographic brethren. Examples of this collaboration could include interstate cooperation between big Midwestern research universities, common regional marketing abroad and a high-speed rail network.

Longworth said the biggest challenge in implementing Midwestern regionalism is our own individualistic Midwestern mindset.

“We're a region of isolated farms, farm towns, small places, self-reliant and dependent for our very identity on being different and better than the folks next door,” he wrote in an e-mail to IowaWatch. “This never did make much sense, but it was harmless in an era when we really did compete with those folks next door. Now, the real competition is 10,000 miles away.”

Although he projected the Corridor Business Alliance may face similar challenges in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Corridor, he said the re-branding project was a step in the right direction.

By Melea Dau, IowaWatch