ST. LOUIS • A group of regional businesses and civic organizations are funding a marketing campaign with a novel approach: They hope to persuade St. Louisans that St. Louis is cool.
STLMade launched on Thursday at the high-ceilinged, concrete-walled, microbrew-serving Venture Café, to a room packed with hundreds of artists, scientists, hipsters, executives and computer nerds.
The campaign’s first goal, said marketing maestro Lee Broughton, is to highlight all of the quirky, artsy, high-tech and innovative things happening here, in the hopes of showing St. Louis how hip it actually is.
“We are being noticed as a place on fire right now,†Broughton said. “It doesn’t matter where you look at it, whether it’s culture, whether it’s community or whether it’s business. Something is afoot in St. Louis. We believe it is renaissance, and it is our time to project that perception.â€
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But telling the story of St. Louis to St. Louisans is just a first step, he said. Soon, Broughton plans on going national. He hopes the combination of local focus and a national campaign will change the country’s view of the region, drive businesses to locate here, and ultimately jump-start stagnant population growth.
St. Louis has a history of trying and failing at civic-pride marketing campaigns, said David Meyer, a founder and partner at St. Louis agency Spoke Marketing. Such efforts are often run by big business, and they’ve generally failed to convince St. Louisans on the value of their own city.
But Meyer said he’s excited about this one. If it reaches out to real St. Louisans, if it depicts a diverse community, if it persuades locals to get involved, it may actually instill pride in the region, he said.
“People always say they live here because of the commute, the cheap living — insert apologetic reason here,†Meyer said. “What if instead it’s because of the art scene, the food scene?â€
It comes at a unique time. Regional businesses, including some of the same people pushing STLMade, are working to combine St. Louis and St. Louis County into one “metro city†via a statewide initiative petition, a move that has already divided St. Louisans. Broughton himself is a key player in the effort to land a Major League Soccer team. St. Louis and Sacramento are competing for one final slot this year.
STLMade started in late 2017, when leaders from the region’s most prominent business associations, the St. Louis Regional Business Council, the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Civic Progress, met with local institutions and civic leaders to talk about a St. Louis “narrative.â€
At first, the group pushed some St. Louis stories nationally. But it soon wanted a more strategic campaign and a more unified story to tell.
At that point, former Regional Chamber vice president and current Arch to Park chief executive Jason Hall asked Broughton to get involved. Broughton was then head of global marketing for Enterprise Holdings. In April, he opened his own firm, Broughton Brand Company, and officially started work on the campaign.
More than 35 groups — from major corporations like Enterprise and Bayer to civic organizations like Washington University and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center — are supporting the effort.
Broughton said the campaign is costing millions of dollars over three years. He declined to say who, specifically, is paying him.
He and his team have now trained more than 400 locals on the use of carefully curated buttons, banners, templates and brand logos.
The main slogan: “STLMade: Start up. Stand out. Stay.â€
Cities competing with St. Louis for business, talent and residents already have these campaigns, Broughton said. It’s high time we do too, he said.
But what Broughton really hopes is that St. Louisans begin using the materials themselves, and seeing their neighbors differently.
Over the next three years, STLMade will like these:
• TJ Hughes is a video game developer and the founder of . Hughes, son of an artist and a jazz musician, grew up in Jennings, went to Crossroads College Prep, and then skipped college to focus on his art. He’s now part of St. Louis’ burgeoning game development scene, which boasts one of the biggest game-jam chapters in the U.S.
• St. Louis University professor Amber Johnson created , a mobile experience that encourages the discussion of race, bias, identity and trauma via “art, dialogue and play†— painting, building Legos, stacking blocks, and other activities.
• Brea McAnally, founder and caretaker of the Luminary arts incubator, is bringing in artists from all over the world — inside a tea shop, outside a Buddhist temple, inside a punk rock club, outside a Mexican panaderia on Cherokee Street.
McAnally has high hopes for STLMade.
“St. Louis can feel like we’re many different parts,†McAnally said. “Sharing stories in this way will help open eyes to what we are building here.â€