Continued: Challenge of multimedia campaign is to market Minnesota modesty

"A View of the World," Saul Steinberg's iconic New Yorker cover, pictured a parochial perspective of Manhattan, with three city blocks to the Hudson River as prominent as the next 3,000 miles to the Pacific Ocean.

If "A View of the World" were drawn by a Twin Cities local, it might be inverted, with Minneapolis and St. Paul also drawn out of scale -- but this time smaller than their actual importance.

At least that's the media metaphor reflected in a report by Future Brand, a New York-based international brand development company that studied Minneapolis and St. Paul after completing similar work for locations such as London, Dubai and Montreal. Its conclusion: The local quality of life is misperceived nationally, partly because of it being downplayed here.

"The Future Brand executives said we were almost genetically incapable of bragging about ourselves," explained Dave Mona, chairman of Weber Shandwick's Bloomington office, who along with fellow PR pros and CEOs Kathy Tunheim of Tunheim Partners and Lynn Casey of Padilla Speer Beardsley, moved from competitors to collaborators. Together their shops created a new branding campaign for the region, in an effort described as "a lot of passion and a lot of pro bono" by project leader Karyn Gruenberg, vice president of marketing for Meet Minneapolis (formerly the Convention and Visitors Association).

"Future Brand told us of the irony of having never seen a community with such a list of high rankings from credible publications," said Mona, only to be met with "Did we tell you about how cold it is and how big the mosquitoes are?"

And indeed, the superlative national rankings of local attributes is reflective of another Minnesota location, the fictional Lake Wobegon, "where every child is above average." This would be fitting to Prof. Rajesh Chandy, director of research marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, who was host to the mayors to discuss ideas. Chandy claims that "Garrison Keillor is one of our leading brands."

But those high rankings are barely making a dent nationally, at least compared with Future Brand's regional peers such as Boston, Austin, Chicago, Denver, Seattle and Atlanta. The Twin Cities places fifth and sixth in most key categories, despite several subjective lists and objective studies suggesting it should be first or second. Examples include household wealth, worker productivity and major corporate headquarters per capita.

So how to market Minnesota modesty?

That's the challenge of a new multimedia marketing campaign, "Minneapolis Saint Paul: More to Life," to be unveiled Tuesday at an airport news conference.

"The goal is to be everywhere [with this message], and we will be everywhere," said Dan Seeman, vice president of Hubbard Broadcasting's FM 107, who along with senior vice president Jim Romlin and several of my Campbell Mithun colleagues coordinated campaign placement.

"Other people are telling us where we sit in the world -- it's different than what we're telling ourselves," said Monica Little, CEO of Little & Co., which provided creative work for the campaign.

There is an urgency to getting the message out. September's Republican National Convention will bring "15,000 reporters covering not just politics, but life section stories, the arts and culture scene and business," said St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. But Twin Cities "brand ambassadors'' also will be needed for the long haul, he said, to better position this region to compete for workers after the baby boomer retirement wave.

"This is critically important to the region's future. [Future] jobs cannot be filled by the current number of Minnesotans," said Todd Klingel, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, citing six-year projections that in the metro area, only 266,800 workers will be added to fill an anticipated 655,300 jobs.

"This is not a frill," concurred Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. "It's part of making the economy work."

Just who those workers will be and where they'll come from concerns Minnesota employers such as Target, General Mills and Best Buy, which combined forces -- and funds -- with many others to help pay for the $1 million plus campaign. Recruiting here is always a challenge, and a positive opinion can be crucial, as 22 percent of those familiar with the metro area would consider moving here, according to Future Brand. But only 5 percent unfamiliar with the area would.

"People think we are frozen, homogenous and close-minded," said Rybak. "In reality, we are frozen, incredibly diverse, sophisticated, intelligent and fun."

Although said in jest, the juxtaposition of the perception of the metro area's homogeneity is no laughing matter for many employers, as Minneapolis and St. Paul can be a particularly hard market in which to recruit people of color.

Tunheim cites statistics that members of minority groups say it takes 4 1/2 years "to feel like home, compared to two [years] for the general population."

"Mary Tyler Moore was a wonderful thing for this city, but it doesn't mean everyone here looks like her," Rybak said.

One of those who doesn't is Juan Moreno, a diversity and inclusion specialist at the University of Minnesota Extension Service by day and head of the Ecuadorian Consulate on E. Lake Street by nights.

He describes another barrier to recruitment that the "More to Life" initiative hopes to address: the difficulty for nonnatives -- whatever their ethnicity -- to break into local social circles.

"This is a very hospitable, very compassionate, very socially conscious place to live,'' Moreno said. "But there is an underbelly to this, a streak of exclusion and marginalization. The great paradox of Minnesota culture is that the beauty of this angelic nature has a more shadowy side -- not malevolent, but indifferent."

Indifference hasn't been a barrier in launching the "More to Life" campaign, as it reflects another local trait needed to compete: combining a cohesive civic and corporate community, a sign of how important both deem the campaign to the economic and social vitality of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

"We vote with our feet," said Moreno, who is just the type of professional the campaign intends to recruit and retain. Having made his home here, he says, "I am Minnesota."

John Rash is senior vice president and director of media negotiations at Campbell Mithun advertising. He also teaches mass media classes at the University of Minnesota and writes a weekly column for Advertising Age’s website. His “Rash Report” radio show is on at 11:45 a.m. weekdays on WCCO. His e-mail is jrash@cmithun.com.