Jackson Free Press

Tripp Muldrow is a busy man. In the past year, he has spent 150 days traveling throughout the country, listening to residents and compressing often-complicated stories into brands that instill community pride.

The Hinds County Economic Development Authority recently signed a $10,000 contract with Muldrow's urban-planning firm, Arnett Muldrow & Associates, to develop a brand for Hinds County. Muldrow says the goal of branding Hinds County is to unite the county, attract industry and new residents.

The Greenville, S.C., firm will host a three-day branding session July 11 through 14, with meetings open to the public. The process involves a series of meeting with community leaders and the public to form logos, taglines, marketing plans, web pages and signage that will represent Hinds County.

Which of your firm's branding campaigns is most similar to Hinds County?
That's tough because everything is so different—as far as it being county wide. We haven't done as many counties as we have cities because counties don't often ask for this kind of thing to be done. We have done work in Hancock County, Miss. ... Another county we have done is Dorchester County in South Carolina, but it's outside Charleston, and it doesn't have a capital city as its centerpiece. But it does have a fairly large city with a population of 50,000.

What about demographics?
The demographics differ so widely. We have done branding for San Pedro, Calf., a neighborhood of Los Angeles. ... We just did Starkville last week as a charrette. Everything is so different; it's hard to do comparables. I will say that this is a little unique because it is a county that is home to a capital city, and I can say with all candor that we have never done a county that is home to a capital city.

How are you able to brand the county if you aren't from here?
It's the same reason why we wouldn't be comfortable branding our hometown of Greenville: We know it too well. We are too vested in it. The outside perspective allows us to look at Hinds County in relation to other places, whereas someone who is in Hinds County and has been here all their lives—how do you do that objectively? And this is just me being blunt: We have done it in 200 places. That's what we do. Our specialty is community branding. ... We have done branding all over Mississippi—Pascagoula, Clinton, Hancock County, Cleveland. We know Mississippi, and that puts it in perspective, too.
It seems like there are some competing rebranding efforts taking place in Jackson. How do you make sure they don't overlap?

If there are already other things going on, we want to be very respectful of those. ... Often times, every brand slots within another brand. The easiest way to explain that is to think about General Motors. General Motors is a car company. General Motors also owns Buick. Buick also has a car called the LaCrosse. Each one of those is a brand identity. GM has a brand identity that makes it different from Ford or Mercedes. Buick has a brand identity that makes it different from Chevrolet or Cadillac, but both of those are GM cars. ...

There are communities within Hinds County that have their own identity. In that case, we want to think of this brand as a platter that is serving up these communities. We want that platter to be as good as looking as we can create it. ... The communities get to look good on the backdrop of something that also looks good. Sometimes people look at it as an umbrella, and that's where the threat comes in. We are not creating an umbrella to shield the communities within, or force them to come under something else.

This is a tight budget year, and a lot of public services are under the knife. It this is best use of taxpayer's money?
We are working on a very small budget. The way we like to think about it is the way we do branding. It's like when you throw a party. If you are putting investment in and you're trying to do economic development, create industry and retain people to stay in a place, and you're investing in quality social series, education and making your place look good. Those are very important expenditures. But if you're not telling people, it's like having a party and not sending out an invite. A lot of investments are taking place (in Hinds County), and we need to make sure the invitation is reading right.

How do you encourage collabor­ation and make sure it is part of the process—instead of com-petition?
A short window makes it easier. Often times, when you draw the process out, you create more friction. It's more time to study it to death. In a short time frame, we allow people to give a lot of input, and then they get to almost instantaneously see the result of that input. It's one of the rare experiences that a citizen can say something on a Wednesday and see results on a Friday. ... If you want an example, we were in Starkville last week, and the tagline we came up with is "Mississippi's College Town."

Won't Oxford be mad at you?
We looked at Oxford and what Oxford was saying about itself. In none of its publications was it claiming it to be a college town. It was almost like you should know that already. If Oxford isn't going to claim it, then Starkville ought to dog-gone well claim it. Then we went a step further, and suggested that on football weekends in the fall, Starkville work with the university on what we are calling "New South Weekend." That was gutsy because we knew New South was a juxtaposition to Ole Miss. We were nervous because we didn't know if the community was that ready, but they loved it, and the next thing we know, they are buying the rights to http://www.Mississippicollegetown.com.

For more information on Arnett Muldrow & Associates, visit http://www.arnettmuldrow.com.