Michael Grant: July 2007

July 26, 2007

Branding Abilene

My hometown, Abilene, Texas, is seeking to establish itself as a brand, to better compete in the state, national, and international, public consciousness for the purpose of attracting business and tourism.

A "brand" is a term, phrase, or symbol that makes a product or service unique in the public consciousness ("Xerox," "Google," "Neiman's"). Examples of branded cities are "The Big Apple," "Big D," "Cowtown," "Vegas," and "L.A." Abilene had an original brand, "The Key City of West Texas," and now uses "The Friendly Frontier." The first has lost its scope, and the second is restrictive and not memorable. "Abilene" is the title of a famous song by George Hamilton IV, which rightly describes Abilene as pretty, but lies about the women there, and does not provide any other information.

Abilene has proven attributes which include location, seasons, civic pride and motivation, existing attractions and opportunities, opportunities for new attractions, savvy, future-oriented municipal, civic and business management, a favorable business climate, affordable cost of living, three universities and affiliations with others, strong traditions but no longer straitlaced, and friendliness. Abilene could truthfully adopt a slogan: "America's Home Town." "Abilene" is also a very pretty name, and easy to remember.

I first learned of Abilene's branding effort a few weeks ago in a story in The Abilene Reporter-News. The Abilene Branding Partnership, a consortium of five civic entities, had called for a Statement of Qualifications from eleven marketing companies. I have affection for Abilene, and the Reporter-News, where I began my career in 1969, and I have interest in how people feel about Abilene. In researching a book about Abilene history three years ago, I had the opportunity to spend time there on several visits, and talk to Abilenians about the city's present strengths and weaknesses.

Thus was I compelled to stick my branding iron into the fire. Three or four days later, I had an idea. On June 21, I emailed the Abilene Branding Partnership, but I was too late. The June 14 deadline for submitting my Statement of Qualifications had passed. I asked to be considered if the search was reopened, and that was agreed to.

Today, the Reporter-News reported that the consortium has agreed to hire North Star Destination Strategies, out of Nashville, Tennessee, to develop an Abilene brand, and a branding strategy, for a fee in the "low six figures," should the money be found locally and a contract signed. North Star was one of only three companies, out of the 11, responding to Abilene's call for a Statement of Qualifications.

So the deal is done, and I can publish my idea. For a penny less than six figures - $99,999.99 – I would have provided Abilene all rights to a three-word brand that co-opts an already global brand, has four distinct applications and one state of mind, and it offers multiple branding strategies.
It would identify a place.
It would identify a thing.
It would identify an event.
It would identify a product.
It would identify a state of mind.
It would be:

"Abilene, Texas Style"

Published, copyrighted, protected. North Star will earn its money and give Abilene something that works better than "Friendly Frontier." And I will always know "Abilene, Texas Style" was good, and came in in an x-way tie for second place.

Posted by Michael Grant at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments

July 17, 2007

Mary Galbraith

This morning, I learned that Mary Galbraith had died.

I could not believe it. I'm having a hard time with it, not so much emotionally as physically. Mary Galbraith, dead? Not possible. People die. Physical laws do not. If Mary Galbraith has gone, she has only disappeared from this dimension with a force that has sucked all the air out of the space she occupied.

It is that vacuum that I'm trying to understand. I know about death. Mother, father, icons, wife. I have mourned, grieved, raged, denied, processed, adjusted. This thing with Mary is new. She was fantastic, and those she knew will miss her always, but that's not it. Mary was energy posing as matter. Energy cannot be lost. Or so the physicists say. How, then, to explain the space I'm in, where Mary Galbraith was? What has changed in the universe this morning?

I didn't know the complete Mary. Her third child, Dub, and I became close friends in the seventh grade and remained so until his death in 1981 in a highway accident. I knew Mary from the time I spent at her house, 1349 Ross Ave., which was considerable. If statistics had been kept, I believe that 1349 would rank first in visitor traffic, from 1952 through 1961, in Abilene, and maybe in Texas. Mary and Gubo had six kids, Gail, Gervis, Dub, Julia, Kandy and Deborah. Gail was head cheerleader and Gervis was a quarterback in the middle 1950s, when Abilene High was on a long, historic winning streak, and all those kids loved to come to Mary's house, and Dub and our gang then took their place. I wonder how many people feel as I do, a member of an extended family before which Mary placed thousands of bologna and mayonnaise sandwiches and gallons of iced tea. Her funeral is Saturday in Abilene, at the cavernous First Baptist Church, and I wonder how many of those kids will be there.

Mary was brunette and loved music, loved to dance. She could be a little rambunctious. She would much rather have been one of us. She had the lowest threshold of pleasure of anyone I have known. She did not have an off switch. When it was just them, her kids might have had to beg her for some peace and quiet, and not the other way around.

She never lost a friendship, that I know of. Ours continued after Dub's death, and my move to Southern California. I would see her for iced tea and a visit and nine million laughs when I was in Abilene. Pictures would never do Mary justice; you need the sound track, too. In the 1960s, I said to her, "You look like Suzanne Pleshette." She laughed and took to it, and after that, whenever I called or saw her, I said, "Hi, Suzanne." I loved having a unique connection with her.

After Gubo died, she moved into a house on Blair Street, filled it up with photos and memorabilia and lived alone. I don't imagine she was hard-up for company. If it were up to me, I would position an easel in the church on Saturday, and on it place an enlarged photo of Mary, just her face, looking up at the moment more kids are trooping into her kitchen at 1349 Ross. In that face, you will see the energy that this morning has created a strange void, like air displaced behind lightning. No doubt Mary's life was a bolt of lightning. Now that it's over, the air is closing behind her, just taking awhile following along behind a bolt that was decades long. It will reach us as thunder. When I hear it, I will know that it is her, and what a unique experience I've had. If thunder rumbles through First Baptist on Saturday, it's the sound track.

Posted by Michael Grant at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments

July 11, 2007

Dodging bullets

It is 12:37 p.m. I am second in line at the pickup window behind a low-end white Toyota Tercel with dirty windows. The driver is smallish. I can only see the top half of her head over the headrest. I take her to be a woman, by the length of her hair, which is being blown by a strong current. The Tercel's windows are down, but the afternoon is relatively calm. She must have the fan blowers turned up to high. Her head is in constant movement, swiveling. I see no evidence of anyone else in the car. Somehow all this bodes ill for the speed with which I will be getting home with my Jumbo Jack.

She extends her arm out the window. In her hand is a card. Maybe a coupon. Damn. Coupons mean trouble. Now she reaches the card toward a device mounted on the lip of the pickup window. She turns the card sideways and vertical. I see a magnetic strip. Oh, my God. It's a credit card!

I am screwed. A smallish, nervous woman in a dirty low-end Toyota with the fans turned up high is trying to use a credit card at a fast-food pickup window. I didn't even know they took plastic! I have never before seen a card reader at the window!

Into my mind flashes recent television commercials for Visa cards. One is at a nursery, one is at – yes – a fast-food place! As long as everyone is using a Visa card, business flows smoothly, like clockwork, and everyone is happy. Then some Luddite cretin pays with cash. The clockwork slows and stops. Plants wither in the delay. Lettuce rots in the fast-food tacos. In the line, happiness turns to dismay. The offender notices and appears to feel small. At last he is gone and the happy Visa choreography returns.

Ahead of me, the woman, leaning halfway out the Tercel window, slides the card. She waits, turns the card over so the name side is toward me, slides it again. I wince, and look away. Look down. In my left hand are three dollar bills, exactly what my order will cost, unless inflation kicks in before this woman can get her food paid for. Into my mind flashes the small world wars I routinely witness between credit card users and card readers at the supermarket checkout.

Now the woman has handed the card to a hand appearing in the pickup window. I sigh and wonder if I should just cut off the engine. Then, just as quickly, the card is handed back. Out the window is handed what appears to be a cup of coffee and a small sack. I feel I have dodged a bullet. After the usual moments of receiving, positioning, and preparation to drive, the Tercel pulls forward, and I am grateful.

Of course the bullet I have dodged comes in many calibers. Sometimes, and you don't see this much anymore, it is a woman watching her groceries go through, purse slung over her shoulder, and not until the total is rung does she take the purse off her shoulder, look in it for her checkbook, and start to write the check. Sometimes it is a wad of coupons, being scanned one at a time, and every third one needing some kind of extra attention. Sometimes it is someone's diabolical need to pay in cash, down to the penny, counting out thirty-eight cents one coin at a time.

I am always glad when it is over, and I am smiling at the clerk's apologetic shrug. And behind the Toyota, seeing the difference between real life and the Visa commercial, was really funny. And therein, of course, is the truth, or the fib, about the commercial. It isn't a Visa card that creates a clockwork life. It would have to be clockwork people. I really don't think I would want to live that way. I wouldn't want to be a bullet to dodge, either. It's an interesting tension.

Posted by Michael Grant at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments