GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The City of Green Bay is looking for a fresh coat of paint on their branding efforts and logo.
The city council’s finance committee took the first step in by recommending the plan to the full city council.
“There wasn’t a lot of history or background given around it, other than the fact that the current brand that we have is outdated and is something we need to address,” said Alderman Brian Johnson.
Johnson is part of the committee that voted the proposal through, but he says the ‘unanimous’ vote came with a lot of questions.
“I do think that there are some improvements that can certainly be made. From a process perspective, I think there’s some additional steps that can be taken yet and that’s something we need to continue to discuss and explore,” Johnson told WTAQ News. “I’m not sure the city currently has a brand initiative. I think that’s part of the challenge of why this issue was brought before us. But again, I’d like to see a little bit more preliminary work done to really determine outcomes and objectives and what we’re trying to accomplish…Why now? What’s the purpose? What’s the objective? I’m just not sure that we’ve had a real robust conversation around those questions yet.”
Johnson also reminds people that it’s not an idea that has been fully committed to.
“It’s just a recommendation to the full city council. We’ll just have to see how the votes shake out there,” Johnson said. “It’s not uncommon to see individuals change their mind before it gets to the full city council because new information emerges or even the conversation or debate at the full city council is enough to sway somebody’s decision.”
Right now, the proposal would utilize $100,000 from the Oneida Service Agreement. Building a comprehensive brand initiative would spend about $65,000-$75,000 on initial work, and another $25,000-$35,000 to deploy the plan.
“That’s not an uncommon price to pay, particularly for the scope of work we’re looking to do, because you’re talking about more than just a logo. The logo is a very small piece of the overall branding initiative, which much more comprehensive than that,” Johnson said. “I’m not sure that it’s enough. I think there need to be more partners at the table that understand sharing that burden. That was my hesitancy with the proposal. I do think we need more discussion, we need a better analysis of what that funding is going to cost, but more importantly – why we need to do it.”
Another reminder from Johnson – processes like this generally don’t happen in the blink of an eye.
“I personally would not be opposed to slowing this process down to engage in more community discussion, and I think that’s a really important part of any process or initiative the local government takes up,” Johnson said.
The city does plan to work with community input if the re-branding process is put into motion.
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