25D - AGMT - MARKETING SRVS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Agreement with North Star Destination Strategies Inc. for Community Branding and Marketing Services April 19, 2016 Page 2 Community engagement and input from Santa Ana residents, businesses, members of the development community, partner organizations and other identified key groups will be critical to the success of this effort. An engaged and informed community will be accomplished thru extensive multi - lingual outreach, including, but not limited to focus groups, social media campaigns, educational presentions, stakeholder interviews, community surveys, and other grassroots engagement activities. A successful branding effort will include messaging that captures the cultural values and uniqueness of the Santa Ana community; a consistent and comprehensive verbal and visual identity across City departments; and a unified approach to support overall branding and communications efforts. The City solicited responses between February 19, 2016 and March 10, 2016. Outreach included posting to the City's website and PlanetBids. Staff also communicated electronically to a large network of marketing and public relations firms. Following the release of the RFQ, the City received a total of 20 responses. Appointed by the City Manager, the Evaluation Committee reviewed and evaluated the proposals based on qualifications, references, and experience. Evaluation Committee was composed of the following: Downtown Inc., Santa Ana Business Council, Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, and City of Santa Ana Community Development Agency and City Manager Manager's Office. After careful review of the responses received and interviews with the finalist, the Evaluation Committee selected North Star Inc., as the best qualified firm for this project. North Star is the recognized national leader in community branding, having collaborated with more than 200 communities from 43 states across the U.S. Many of these were high -level initiatives, including the states of Florida and Mississippi and urban hub cities like Jacksonville, FL; Newark, NJ; Aurora, IL; and Sacramento, CA. North Star is noted for their ability to bring together divergent missions and viewpoints around what stakeholders have in common. Their process combines a proven approach with customized creativity and out —of -the box thinking. North Star's proposal includes extensive community engagement and education, detailed research, expert- driven strategy development, award - winning visual identity design and a comprehensive implementation plan, along with on -going post - project evaluation to track results after project completion. Attached is the proposed agreement with North Star Destination Strategies Inc., which includes a detailed scope of work and cost proposal (Exhibit 1). It is anticipated that the community branding process will take nine to twelve months to complete with an additional 12 months to conduct a post - project assessment a year after the brand implementation. 25D -2