About District 4

Fourth District, Calaveras County, CA

Altaville | Angels Camp | Douglas Flat | Murphys | Vallecito

Branding

On Monday night at Camps, the Angels Camp Business Association presented a review of the "Branding" study during their monthly meeting. The presentation covered the assessment findings and suggestions reported by Peter Brooks and his team at Destination Development, Inc. They were hired by the City to establish a baseline on which Angels Camp could create a "brand" for itself.

Here in the West, we understand the purpose of branding -- to identify livestock. A civic brand is pretty similar -- to identify our city amongst the many other cities competing for tourist dollars. A world-class brand is vital to successfully developing tourism as a component of our economic revitalization. Given the turnout at the presentation, I would say that a lot of our citizens agree.

The techniques used to set the baseline included reports from "secret shoppers". These individuals form their impressions of our community without knowing exactly who the client is and they document their interactions in the community. It's pretty scary to listen to how others see us. For example, we usually take the meaning of the phase "Home of the Jumping Frog" as obvious. However, the secret shoppers wondered if our attraction was live frogs and did not connect with the Mark Twain story!

Sometimes I wish I had secret shoppers for my campaign -- what do people see about me that I don't see about myself?

If you would like to share your secret voter views with me, please "Write Lee".