Tourism Consultant VI - Uh, how about art?

In October of 2007, Tourism and community "branding" shill Roger Brooks of Tacoma, Washington-based Desintation Development delivered his latest assessment of how Helena should market itself nationally. That assessment, as reported in the Independent Record, was less than inspiring.

As detailed in previous posts to this blog, Brooks began his process of deciding a "brand" for Helena in January of 2007. After collecting a $75,000 fee and making several visits to the city, Brooks has now decided that, "Helena has no obvious single resource or raw material that would lend itself into leveraging into a brand."

Imagine that.

But fear not, Helena, for Brooks went on to say that the city might consider promoting itself as an art-education center -- "The West’s Learning Center for the Arts".

As Brooks explained: "The one thing that struck us was the breadth but not the depth of the art and artisan activity in town, and the intellectual bent of the residents. If there ever was a town with a foundation, you’ve got it. So how do you leverage it so you’re different? Can this be a place people learn? We had to put a spin on it so you’re unique."

Spin is Brooks' stock-in-trade, but his implication that Helena is a city of dilettantes might not resonate so favorably in some circles. Let us not forget that this is the same man who opined that Helena should scrap the name "Last Chance Gulch", because to him it sounded a lot like "ditch"

At the October meeting, Brooks showed several potential logos and slogans with "Helena: Your Creative Place" being the early favorite. He is very fond of logos, slogans and signs.

So, what of Brooks' idea of marketing Helena as a center of art education? Sure, it sounds good; who could be against Art and Education? Granted, It sounds better than Brook's recent lame proposal to brand the city of Stockton, California as "The Event City". He got paid $125,000 to come up with that one.

Taking Brooks' proposal for Helena seriously brings numerous questions to mind:
-- Who foots the bill for bringing into Helena qualified art instructors?
-- Who foots the bill for the physical spaces required?
-- Who foots the bill for production and promotion?
-- Who really stands to gain?
-- Who decides which art gets promoted and which art doesn't?
-- And the uncomfortable but necessary question: Is Helena, as a whole, socially tolerant enough to be hospitable to a big influx of "artistic" types and their lifestyles?

It helps me to look at it this way: if Brooks' scheme to brand Helena as "The West’s Learning Center for the Arts" was itself a piece of art, it would be of the Conceptual kind -- basically a big nothing, accompanied by a ream of babble written to make people think otherwise.

Brooks stated last October that he was roughly halfway through his "branding" process for Helena. For somebody with such a long way to go, he seems to be running pretty close to empty already.