The Finance Committee met 01/10/2022. Most of the meeting was taking up by the discussion regarding the request to award a contract for brand development services to Unlisted LLC.
Senior Communication Specialist Sheng Riechers gave a brief overview of the memo she had submitted. She said 6 agencies in total responded to the city’s request for proposal. They put together a team of internal staff to review all the proposals. A summary of the scoring was laid out in the memo. Unlisted scored in 3rd place. Their fee structure was included in the memo.
She said that after the scoring the internal review committee reviewed the proposals. They then conducted in-person interviews with the top two finalists chosen by the review committee, and they then recommended Unlisted, LLC which was an Appleton-based branding and design agency.
Chris Croatt, former alderperson for the City of Appleton and the person who had originally put for the resolution calling for a branding study attended the meeting and made comments during the open comment portion of the meeting. He had a number of questions which he asked all at once with Ms. Reicher responding after he spoke. For the purposes of this recap, I will put her individual answers after each of the questions he asked.
He noted that it had been 21 months since he submitted the resolution. He felt very strongly about it then and he still felt very strongly about it today. He was glad to see it was still on the table and being talked about.
He wanted to learn more about the internal review committee, how many members it had, what their backgrounds were, what level of marketing experience they had, and whether any alderpersons were part of the committee.
Ms. Riechers responded that the committee had been made up entirely of city staff without any alderpersons. Most of the members had communication or communication-adjacent roles in their departments. There were 8 members total, and she listed Parks and Recreation, the Police, the Library, Community and Economic Development, Human Resources, and Information Technology as being departments that participated in the committee.
Mr. Croatt was happy to see that the city had received 6 proposals, but he had thought there might be quite a few more based on the opportunity that was presented. He wondered what the process had been for sending out the RFP and what the reach had been both regionally and nationally. He was curious how many firms were exposed to the RFP.
Ms. Riechers said that they posted it online and shared it both on social media and as a press release. They also contacted a handful of agencies and invited them to submit proposals; unfortunately, none of those agencies responded. She did not have any numbers regarding reach and said she would need to look at the city’s internal website stats to see how many views and clicks the page with the RFP had gotten.
Mr. Croatt wanted to know where the 6 firms that had responded were based and if they were all local.
Per Ms. Riechers, the only local firm that applied was Unlisted. The rest were from out of state.
Mr. Croatt said that normally a lot of weight goes into the scoring process and to both the final scores and the cost factors. In this particular case, however, it seemed that those things didn’t carry as much weight as they normally would. He was curious why the top scoring company had been disqualified before the interview process because, although the memo had mentioned deficiencies in their presentation, they had scored considerably higher than the 2nd and 3rd ranked firms and they had the second lowest costs.
Ms. Riechers said that, in retrospect, the aesthetics of the presentation itself should have been considered, especially given that this was a design and branding project. She said that on the main page of Insight Marketing’s presentation, the city’s logo had been rendered poorly and did not look good from a design perspective, and, beyond that, the internal review team had felt that, in terms of talent, the other agencies far surpassed Insight Marketing. Even though they scored highly in the RFP proposal scoring process, the quality of their work did not meet expectations.
Mayor Woodford added that this was something they had learned during the process. The city issues lots of RFPs all the time for various projects, but this particular one was different than the other projects the city is normally taking on. If they had to redo the RFP scoring criteria, they would definitely have added aesthetics and attention to detail into the proposal itself which he thought would have affected the scoring fairly significantly. The internal review committee eventually selected firms for interviews based upon the quality of their proposals.
Mr. Croatt said he was concerned about the recommendation for a couple of reasons. (1) He was really hoping to see proposals come back from firms that had a lot of experience working with municipalities, but he didn’t find that in the one that was recommended. (2) Local awarding was great and he was normally very supportive of that, but in this particular case he was wondering if it would be beneficial to use an outside firm.
He finished up by saying he wondered if, by awarding this contract to this firm based on the criteria in the RFP, would the city be maximizing the value of their investment.
Ms. Riechers said that in their proposal Unlisted did highlight a project they did for the city of Oshkosh which had been a joint effort with 9 or 10 other partners. It had been a multifaceted campaign very similar to what Appleton wanted to do with their branding campaign in that it won’t just be a marketing effort or a tourist/visitor effort but truly an effort to attract and retain talent. She encouraged everyone to take a look at that project as relevant experience.
She also pointed out that team member Dawn Dubinka had extensive work doing branding and campaigns for municipalities, most notably in the city of Atlanta.
Mayor Woodford added that there were firms that had examples of municipal branding projects like the one Appleton is going to undertake. What they saw in those proposals was that the approach often seemed to be fairly boilerplate in terms of what municipalities got from those firms. He said that when they looked at recent rebrandings in other municipalities, there were similarities across those, and it was possible to draw inferences as to the one or two firms that were behind those efforts and the boilerplate things those firms were doing.
The internal review committee had liked Unlisted’s proposal because they felt the firm would do something that was unique to the city of Appleton that was tailor made for our community based on the input the firm would gather as opposed to coming in with a formulaic approach and providing a boilerplate branding exercise that didn’t necessarily reflect the community Appleton is.
In terms of value for the price, they were looking for a firm that would listen and co-create the process with the city because they wanted to make sure they get good community input that yields a result both that the community can be proud of and that we won’t see replicated in another municipality.
Ms. Riechers said that one of the internal review committee’s top considerations and questions had been the value of using a local or a non-local firm. They felt that Unlisted, LLC provided the best of both worlds. The creative talent is locally based in Appleton, but they are using subcontractors who are from out of state, one based in Atlanta and another in Chicago.
Mayor Woodford that he thought having a local agency on this would be a benefit to the city because they would actually be able to physically meet and engage with the people working on the project. By using a local firm, they would also be able to achieve a level of community engagement with this project and process that would be difficult to replicate with an out of state firm. “I can’t underscore enough how important the community input is gonna be in this process and in this project to make sure that we get this right.” He said that the firm being located in Appleton helped their proposal rise to the top during the review process. The firm’s agents had also noted to the review committee that, because they are located in Appleton, they will see the result of their work every single day as will everyone in the community, so they feel especially vested in doing a good job and achieving a result that we can be proud of.
After Mr. Croatt’s questions were answered, the discussion was opened up to alderperson.
Alderperson Matt Reed (District 8) said that he had been involved with an RFP interview process for a different project, and he agreed that communication with, listening to, and gathering feedback from the community were crucial. So having a company that they’re confident is going to listen and not come with a preconceived design would be good.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) said his overall impressions and concerns were similar to those of former Alderperson Croatt. The firm had only been in existence for 2 years. They’re a 2-person firm, and based on their proposal and their website, it almost sounded like they were providing project management and outsourcing the work to some of the partners they had mentioned. While that was not necessarily always a bad thing, in this situation he wasn’t confident that would yield the best result. Certainly, having some local people was a good thing, but he worried that perhaps the person who was in Atlanta was never going to step foot in Appleton to be a part of the project. If people didn’t come, he wasn’t sure how they could really understand the Appleton community. He encouraged staff to find out more about whether the various team members would be coming to Appleton.
In terms of Unlisted’s experience with municipal branding, Alderperson Doran had looked at the multi-partner project they had done for the City of Oshkosh and did not necessarily find it to be impressive. He noticed a couple grammatical issues in the proposal, and pointed out that there was a graphic in the proposal that was a mirror image so viewers were looking at it backwards. [It wasn’t just a picture that was backwards but an entire graphic with words on it that were unreadable because they were backwards.]
As staff had mentioned, attention to detail in a proposal of this nature was really important. He could understand overlooking a few grammatical issues in an RFP for a road project, but for a project of this nature, he thought errors like that were of paramount concern. He thought those issues could have resulted for a few reasons. Maybe they were rushed, maybe they were sloppy, maybe their review process was lacking. He wondered if it went back to the fact that it was a 2-person firm. Ultimately, if they saw those issues in the proposal, he was concerned about what the end product would look like.
Regarding the Oshkosh campaign itself, Alderperson Doran thought it was interesting that the slogan was “Only Oshkosh” and the rest of the tagline included “live, work, play, learn”, but “live, work, and play” is something almost 90% of municipalities claim as the reason to move to their community, so he didn’t find the end product to be over impressive. In fact, he thought it was a little ironic that the slogan was “Only Oshkosh” but then the tagline “live, work, play” was not something unique to Oshkosh.
He also found that between the Only Oshkosh website, the page about Only Oshkosh on Unlisted’s website, and the proposal Unlisted had submitted, the Only Oshkosh tagline was written multiple different ways so he wasn’t sure what the actual slogan was. And, again, he found that to be concerning.
[The tagline on the Only Oshkosh website seems to be “Explore, Live, Work, Learn”.
On Unlisted’s website, it seems to be “Live, Work, Play, Learn”, or possibly “Live, Work, Learn, Play”, or possibly “Work, Learn, Play, Live”, or maybe “Explore, Live, Work, Learn”.
In the proposal itself, the tagline is “Live, Work, Learn, Thrive”.]
He was also concerned about the timeline Unlisted had laid out for the work. They indicated there would be 5-10 hours of involvement with city staff for the research and discovery phase, which, for a project of this size and scope, he thought was a really low number to adequately perform research and discovery and gather input from the community. He thought that section was the core of how this company was going to find out what Appleton was about and it would inform every other step along the way. Any mistakes or inadequacies at that point was going to hamper the project down the road. He also thought 2-4 hours spent on brand strategy was a really low number.
Alderperson Doran had previously worked as Appleton’s Communication Specialist. In that capacity, he had spent time over the course of 2 years working on pushing a brand project for the city. He spoke to a lot of local firms as well as some out of state firms and did a lot of research on his own in an effort to further the project. Coming from that background, the issues he now saw with the proposal were concerning to him.
Overall, he thought their lack of municipal experience beyond the Only Oshkosh campaign was not impressive. He acknowledged that some of their other work looked really great, “but municipal branding is much different than branding for a company or a non-profit organization.”
Ultimately, he was going to go with his gut on this one. He didn’t have a good feeling regarding this and his recommendation to the committee would be to deny the request for approval and see if they could put out a new RFP and start again. “We’re not really in any hurry for this, and I think getting it right from the start is gonna be of vital importance to make sure that we’re all proud and happy with what we end up with in the end.”
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) who is the chairman of the Finance Committee asked Mayor Woodford for his response.
Mayor Woodford appreciated the input from former Alderperson Croatt as well as Alderperson Doran. He said they brought this proposal forward with confidence in the firm they were recommending. It was, however, the committee’s prerogative to approve or deny the proposal. They solicited proposals and received them from not only Appleton but other parts of the country as well. They have been trying to carry out the process that former Alderperson Croatt had initiated through his resolution. He mentioned the possibility of relaying the questions and concerns that had been raise to Unlisted LLC and asking for a response from them.
He said that they could also rerun the RFP process. As Alderperson Doran had mentioned, this was not an emergency process, but it would still take staff time to run the process. Additionally, if they did that he said, “I’m not sure that we’re really gonna see a different result in terms of the firms that submit proposals to us.” It was possible, but they received these initial proposals after putting out a call and spreading the word relatively far and wide, short of buying advertising in other parts of the country which they hadn’t felt they needed to do.
He thought that the proposal in front of the committee was a strong proposal. He also noted that although the firm itself had only been around for a couple years, the people working at the firm have deep experience in their fields.
The mayor himself had had some concerns about the agency model wherein they pull in component parts from other companies or consultancies to carry out different aspects of the work. The review committee had talked with Unlisted about that in order to get a better understanding of what the city would be getting if they hired them. The aspects of the work they were proposing to use contractors for were regarding strategy and research. The principals themselves would be doing the actual work, not just engaging in project management. He did not want to speak ill of a team of people who had dedicated their careers to this work, and he wanted to make it very clear that the people involved in Unlisted, LLC have deep roots in their respective areas of expertise.
[I’m not sure I understood correctly. On the one hand utilizing a local firm had been mentioned earlier on as being particularly beneficial in terms of gathering community input, but the mayor then indicated that the people located in Appleton would be outsourcing the strategy and research aspects of the project to their non-local subcontractors which would take away one of the reasons mentioned earlier for utilizing a local firm.]
Mayor Woodford finished up by saying the review committee brought this recommendation forward and believed they could work with this firm and get a great result, but if the committee wanted them to go back and run the RFP process again, they would be happy to do that.
Alderperson Siebers thought that Alderperson Doran had voiced some serious concerns and Unlisted should have the opportunity to answer those concerns. After that he felt the committee would be able to decide how to proceed.
Alderperson Reed agreed with that. He wasn’t interested in opening up the process again and starting from scratch; however, he also thought it was a very fair expectation that they be able to address some concerns about the grammatical and pictorial errors and whether their estimated hours were realistic. He thought that information could give them more confidence in the process.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) liked a lot of things about this agency, but didn’t feel there was any urgency to vote on the proposal immediately and also felt that getting more information would be beneficial. “It’s important to get it right and I feel that we do have time.”
Mayor Woodford said the firm had been very responsive in getting back to the city, so he didn’t expect they would have any trouble getting more information from them.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) requested that Unlisted give an actual presentation to the committee rather than only answering questions. She thought the Finance Committee should see what the review committee had seen.
The committee voted 5-0 to hold the item until the 01/24/2022 Finance Committee meeting, although if that proves to not provide enough time for Unlisted to adequately prepare it could be deferred to a later date.
[Honestly, I think the entire idea that a city can accurately and uniquely “brand” itself is ridiculous. “Live, Work, Play” is something 90% of municipalities claim as the reason to move to their city because, boiled down, that is what everybody in the entire world wants from wherever they live. However, people have different versions of what that looks like to them as individuals, so if you try to get more specific suddenly your city’s tagline doesn’t resonate with as many people and may in fact alienate some groups of people.
Beyond that, a city is not a homogenous entity with a top-down leadership structure that controls its aesthetic. A city’s brand or reputation will grow up organically over time based on people’s experiences with that city. Ask yourself: how many people know that San Francisco’s positioning statement is, “For those who embrace the bold and seek the unexpected, San Francisco’s optimistic spirit is a constant celebration of individuality and the belief that here, in the most beautiful city in the world, all things are possible”? Now ask yourself: how many people think of San Francisco as the city where the sidewalks are covered with human shit and criminals are allowed to steal with impunity?
I have never once seen potential house hunters ask about city brands when trying to decide where to purchase a home. Rather, the four main things I see people asking about are housing prices, the quality of the local school district, the rate of taxes, and the safety of the area. Those are then followed distantly by other things such as local amenities.
I also question whether a local firm will be able to view Appleton in its fullness. People who are based in Appleton have their own social groups, cliques, and bubbles that they are a part of. They already have their own view of Appleton which is probably reinforced by all of the likeminded people they are surrounded with. You can see this in some respects in the proposal Unlisted gave. They present two potential scenarios and how they would respond to those scenarios. The first was what they would do if it was determined the LGBTQ+ community had been “underrepresented in decisions made by the City of Appleton”. The second was what they would do if they determined the People of Color community had been similarly unrepresented.
Those are the two groups that artsy professionals are most likely to assume are underprivileged or, in some way, unheard, and that’s fine so far as it goes. As a part of the Appleton community, those groups should certainly be represented in the process, but I would have been interested to see a 3rd scenario presented, such as what Unlisted plans to do in the event that they discover that the city has “underrepresented in decisions” working class people of any color or orientation, of average I.Q. and education, who are lower middle class and not involved in city politics and don’t have time to follow what Appleton is doing with its brand because they’re busy working their jobs and caring for their families. Those people pay taxes too, and if the city or Unlisted is going to go out and actively target specific groups, maybe they should try to broaden the specific groups they target.
Ultimately, I tend to agree with Mayor Woodford that the city probably won’t get particularly different results if they run the RFP process again. This is probably the best Appleton can do given the money we’re spending. But, ultimately, I highly doubt a city rebranding is going to result in any substantive benefit to the city.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=921478&GUID=6F158D98-E6B3-40FD-814A-D092F9D2F751
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