The Rock Hall opens it's downtown library and archive

Musicians,Lenny Kaye, Donovan, Andrew W.K.;producer Seymour Stein and others talk about how important the newly opened Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library will be in the study of blues and Rock history.

The hall and the brand are still a vastly under leveraged asset for Cleveland.

Great talk about city brands on Rust Wire: Some advice from Don Draper

Rust Wire put up a post about Cleveland's latest efforts to tinker with or create it's brand.

An Illustrated History of Cleveland’s Varied Attempts at “Rebranding"



Cleveland Rocks by Ian Hunter

A commenter than linked to this awesome article about urban brands with some advice from Don Draper.

"Face it you can't escape from who you are"

The problem, it seems, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what branding a city really means. Talk of “creating a brand” suggests a blank slate, a point of ground zero where we begin the process of establishing who we are. But cities are living organisms, with a legacy of past behaviors and no shortage of current, on-the-ground realities, which means–like it or not–they already have a brand.

Jackie Benson, a long-time player in place-based marketing, puts it this way: “If you’re the guy who doesn’t return phone calls, it doesn’t matter how much you talk about your personal commitment to your clients. You’re still the guy who doesn’t return phone calls. That’s your brand.”

People imagine that folks know nothing about the city and will believe anything pumped out by the PR team. The reality, is often that they know, a bit, and that you already, for better or worse, carry that brand.

Cleveland's biggest moment of civic branding happened in 1969



It was the city where the river caught on fire.

What's the ad guy gonna say? No, The River Didn't Catch on Fire?

Now we have some new branding for Cleveland.



It's the city with the former county executive on trial for large scale political corruption.

OK, and then it's the city that's home to The Cleveland Browns-etc....

My point is you can't hide or evade the things people already know about your city and culture that are true. If they are really, bad like being known for lots of violent crime, pollution or corruption, you likely have to work on changing those facts.

If your leadership fails to engender trust, you can’t sell strength. If your policies are not incentivizing what you want and penalizing what you don’t, you can’t sell vision. If your zoning promotes sprawl and your citizens are disconnected from civic participation, you can’t sell community.

What you can do is build up and sell the great things about who you are even if they won't appeal to everyone.

Like Cleveland might not be a great place to go on a diet.



But you know, a few people might like that. In fact, Cleveland has lots of great and very real things that many people would love.

Part two soon.

Help The Rock Hall Buy The Yasgur's Farm Sign

Yup, lot's of major institutions are now also using kickstarter to raise funds for selective projects.

The Rock Hall recently acquired an old sign advertising the Dairy Farm that became the site of Woodstock.

"An anonymous donor has agreed to help fund half of the $24,000 acquisition costs by contributing $12,000 toward the project. This donation came with the condition that other music fans provide the remaining amount through this on-line campaign. We need your support to meet this goal. It will be exhibited at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum this August to commemorate Woodstock’s 42nd anniversary."

Check out the details and support if you can on kickstarter

"This project will only be funded if at least $12,000 is pledged by Monday Aug 15, 12:00am EDT."

A Few Photos of Cleveland's Rock Hall and Downtown Waterfront

I know, these images will not excite most people who have visited Cleveland, since this is one the places they have been. As you can see, the weather was sort of bad and limited our chance to walk around much--Also the Rock Hall itself does not allow photography at all.

You might notice, also, the huge Football Stadium across the way, which is used only about 10-12 times a year, but manages the rest of the time to make a large area, dead and unpleasant. There may be some tiny park there or something but it didn't look worth looking for. This stadium is the gift that keeps on taking, right in an area, Cleveland really needs park and recreational space--or where The Rock Hall might have expanded--perhaps with exiting small scale performance spaces. There was room for both.

The ship in the foreground is a classic Great Lakes iron ore ship now open for tours.

More Cleveland Public Art: Claes Oldenburg, Free Stamp

I really loved a lot of Cleveland's downtown architecture which tends towards, Classical, High Modernism, WPA era and grand Victorian (with a good dose of Brutalism) Still, there is something bit overwhelming about the scale-perhaps a dose of humor would work well?

Claes Oldenburg's Huge Free Rubber Stamp makes a perfect connection between the formal downtown and the Rock Hall.

From the Artist's website.

Apparently, this little shot of freedom wasn't an easy addition to make.IMHO, the final result is beyond fabulous.

"Our design made it necessary for us to select a short word to be "reproduced" by our stamp -- four letters at most. Coosje chose "free," a word with multiple implications, comparable to "liberty," the word held aloft by the female figure atop the monument across the street. The word was related paradoxically to its compressed position, and could not be read, only imagined by studying the edges of the letters.

The Free Stamp was proposed and approved, and work began on its fabrication. Halfway through, however, the company changed ownership, becoming British Petroleum; as a result the sculpture was abruptly canceled. There were protests in the city and eventually we were offered alternative sites by a committee to preserve the sculpture. At first, the Free Stamp's close connection to its original site seemed too strong, but we then realized that a stamp has no fixed position and is just as often seen lying down as it is standing up. One could imagine that the Free Stamp had been picked up and thrown, landing on its side in Willard Park, one of the sites offered by the city, in view of the British Petroleum skyscraper. The new position also had the important advantage of fully revealing the word "free," radiant in its pink hue, though in reverse."

Read more about the artist couple, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.