Giving your public works project personality through branding
By SUSANNE BANKHEAD
As we approach National Public Works Week, Team JPW joins government agencies across the country in celebrating the unsung heroes who work every day to create stronger, more resilient communities.
Public works projects have serious range. They include building new pipelines, roads, parks and trails, revitalizing public spaces, and restoring habitat and open space. These projects all serve as tangible expressions of a public agency’s vision and value to the public. On the flip side, they come with real impacts and have been known to inspire the masses to “care loudly” at City Council or Board meetings.
Quote credit: our hero Leslie Knope.
JPW is proud to partner with public works pros as their strategists and translators, crafting a more effective outreach approach for these important, but often misunderstood, projects. The secret weapon in our approach might surprise you. It’s branding.
Yes, branding.
Branding is more than just a logo, visual elements or catchy tagline. It’s a thoughtful, intentional expression of your public agency’s DNA, which we define as equal parts perception (what others think about you), reality (what is true about you) and aspirations (what you hope to become).
We’ve used creative branding time and again to cut through the noise and shine a spotlight on public works projects’ unique benefits through unified and consistent messaging and a cohesive visual identity. The results? Projects with strong branding receive overwhelming neutral and positive sentiment instead of opposition. Beyond that, it helps build confidence in your agency, enhance awareness of your value and cultivate trust and credibility.
This month, we’re sharing our tips on how to leverage the transformative power of branding for your public works projects.
Tips for branding your next public works project
Define your audiences: Start by thinking about the project and who the brand will need to serve and resonate with. We recommend stakeholder mapping to understand needs, preferences and values of the target audience. This is particularly helpful when there are harder to reach audiences, where language, accessibility and equity create barriers for engagement. Your public works brand should be appropriate for all audiences.
Define the project purpose and value to the public: Next, pinpoint “the why” and the project’s unique value proposition, what makes it special or important, to the public. This keeps the focus on the big picture and improvements to quality of life or service.
Define your creative objective, messages and tone, and CTA: It's important to clearly define goals and objectives of onset of the branding effort. Do you want to increase community engagement? Promote transparency? Enhance public perception?
Next, you’ll need to settle on project messaging and tone. What do we want people to know about this project? The benefits and opportunities? The impacts? How to stay involved? How do we want people to feel? Informed? Acknowledged? Engaged? Heard?
Finally, it’s important to define a call to action, a desired outcome you want your brand to inspire. What do we want people to do? Understand the project need? Provide input? Visit website?
Create and launch: Now, the fun part! Using elements above, create a cohesive brand identity for the project, including a logo, color palette, typeface and design templates needed for public engagement. Key messaging should include project specific details, but also connect to the big picture and reflect your mission, vision and values.
Provide training and create shared resources: We recommend training your internal team and creating shared brand resources to encourage team adoption and ensure public materials and messages are consistent. This leads to greater impact and effectiveness with the public.
Evaluate and adjust: Track the effectiveness of your efforts through metrics and KPIs such as website traffic, social media engagement, public inquiries and community sentiment. Use this data to measure progress towards your objectives and make adjustments as needed.
We’d love to work with you to bring your next public works project to life with a brand that resonates with your community or customers. Here are a few case studies that demonstrate our expertise (and excitement!) for giving public projects personality.
Case Studies: