At A Glance
City Comments
Swirl interviewed about 30 stakeholders in the early stages of the rebranding process. The goal was to find out what Bentonville meant to them. Here are some comments they received:
• “We’re not your grandfather’s Arkansas.”
• “We have a front porch culture.”
• “There’s a hip factor. Stylish and sophisticated. Not what you’d expect.”
• “There is an energy. An unusual entrepreneurship and enthusiasm to make this a better place.”
Source: Swirl
It's a small town with world-class attractions. It's historic and progressive. It offers simple hospitality and sophistication.
It's what Bentonville has become over the recent years, and it's the new image the Bentonville Convention and Visitors Bureau wants to highlight in its rebranding campaign. Part of the rebrand includes renaming the bureau to Visit Bentonville.
"If we were creating a town today, this would be the town I would create," said Tom Sebastian, Swirl co-CEO and chief creative officer. "It's like "The Truman Show" that's real. People talk about Main Street. We are Main Street, and we're the new version of Main Street."
Swirl has worked with Visit Bentonville's staff since March on the rebrand project.
The project's key question was how to pay tribute to the city's history and legacy while leaning into the progressive, fresh and exciting new chapter it's in now, Sebastian said.
A New American Town captures the balance and harmony of both, he said.
"Our ultimate goal is to attract visitors to the city of Bentonville," said Kalene Griffith, Visit Bentonville president and CEO.
The rebrand was needed as Bentonville became more than just a business destination after Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in 2011, she said. The city can appeal to the leisure traveler with Crystal Bridges and other attractions such as the 21c Museum Hotel, acclaimed restaurants, other museums and the city's trail system. They are also incentives for the business traveler to stay longer.
"Like any brand, it's defined by what it stands for, and I think that Bentonville has really found a new self," said Ryan Lincks, Swirl group account director. "It's found a new thing to stand for outside of being a business destination."
The Swirl team started the process by gathering research from people in and outside of the community to find out what Bentonville represents or means to them, Lincks said.
Surprising, unique, growing, dynamic and charming were all ways people described the city.
"The main thing that we uncovered was that there needed to be a balance of the expected (and unexpected)," Lincks said.
The expected is Bentonville is a small, quaint town with Southern hospitality and charm. The unexpected is all the city has to offer in its accommodations, museums, restaurants, its art and music, he said.
"It has a little bit of everything for everyone," Sebastian said. "And they live together in this sort of great harmony and balance. So for us, it's how do we get more people to experience and discover what we have discovered?"
The new logo reads "Visit Bentonville" with "A New American Town" at the bottom. The font for "Bentonville" pays tribute to the city's heritage while the font for "Visit" and "A New American Town" gives the logo a modern feel, Sebastian said.
The logo is already on the organization's documents, and the website domain name has been changed to www.visitbentonville.com. Building signs will soon be changed from the visitors and convention bureau to Visit Bentonville.
The organization's operations will remain unchanged. Visit Bentonville is still governed by the Advertising and Promotions Commission, Griffith said.
There will be an official rebrand launch in January. It will include a short promotional film created by Swirl that illustrates how Bentonville is A New American Town.
"When you look at it, you're just left thinking, 'I've got to go (there),'" Sebastian said. "When you're doing this work, the most important thing (is that) it has to be authentic to what it is."
Viewers of the film should be able to feel the authenticity of the rebrand at its conclusion, he said.
The rebranding is of the community as a whole, not just Visit Bentonville, Griffith said. The city is becoming a tourist destination.
"Our hope is that we create this new vision and new passion to connect with the visitors then following along (will be) all of our community organizations from attractions to hotels to restaurants that adopt that, and we create this new experience of A New American Town," she said.
NW News on 12/22/2014