A New Theme for Pittsburgh

So there we all were on a recent Thursday night, thousands of Pittsburghers watching the Steelers charge to victory over the Dolphins in the first football game of the year. Millions of others were watching nationwide in yet another limelight moment for Pittsburgh which was shining in all its telegenic glory. Too bad the filming of the iconic Primanti sandwich was blocked by a sponsor logo but the night shots of illuminated bridges and the glowing three rivers looked beautiful. Then, sure enough, a steelmaking image appeared on the screen, all roaring fire and molten metal, and the announcer said, in that indisputably authoritative announcer voice: “Pittsburgh, the Steel City.”

What th’?!

Many of us wondered the same thing: Where did they get that shot? And where did they get their information? It’s not that we don’t revere our history of steelmaking. We do. (They're still called the Steelers.) But it’s just that—history. We gave up the Steel City rep decades ago so it’s frustrating to watch this outdated image projected nationwide. The networks did the same thing during the All-Star game, the Super Bowl, and every playoff game the past year. Blast that furnace! Where’s the image of robots? Cutting edge medicine? The Pittsburgh of today and not decades ago?

What do we do to replace the old image with another more accurate and updated one?

Interestingly, the next day the first ever integrated marketing campaign for the Pittsburgh region was unveiled at the Heinz History Center by a group led by the Allegheny Conference. Chairman Jim Rohr, CEO of PNC, was joined by Dan Onorato, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl in his first public appearance, and a team of others as they rolled out the campaign that delivers a new message of an innovative city reinvented.

Imagine…

”There’s a little bit of Pittsburgh in Antarctica,” reads one print ad that touts Pittsburgh as the robotics industry leader of the world. “A robot developed by the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently roved across the terrain of Antarctica, searching for meteorites—and pushing technological boundaries…”

In another print ad, a close-up of a face-painted Steeler fan is juxtaposed with a shot of a busty opera singer (complete with flashy gold brassiere cups) and sports the heading, “Get in touch with your passionate side.” The copy reads: “Whether you’re an avid sports fan or an arts aficionado, there’s plenty to get revved up about in Pittsburgh….”

The idea is to juxtapose an image of Pittsburgh that’s familiar—in this case, that would be the Steeler fan—with an image that’s surprising.

In other ads, the tagline of “Imagine what you can do here” rings out in various sub-themes: Imagine discovering the cure. Imagine breaking new ground. Imagine changing the world. One image after another of the new, vibrant Pittsburgh--excelling in medicine, education, science and culture--that is not well known to the rest of the country. And not a steel photo in the bunch.

Created as a key component for the upcoming birthday celebration of Pittsburgh 250, the intent of the multi-year campaign “is to create a strong strategic platform, the first for our region,” says Rohr. Within weeks, local print ads will appear with national ads—in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal and Business Week—to follow.

The goal is to drive economic development in Southwest PA, attracting business and talent while changing the image and perception of Pittsburgh to one that more accurately reflects our modern city today. To attract tourists, visitors to the accompanying web site, www.imaginepittsburgh.com, will be directed to the VisitPittsburgh link.

Brand New

As anyone can tell you, it’s difficult to brand a city or create a campaign to succinctly capture the spirit of a place. To get it right, the  Imagine Pittsburgh campaign, created by the Southside's Red House Communications, was based on a study of the region which examined perceptions of Pittsburgh both inside and outside the area.

“The study found that Pittsburghers have a less favorable impression of their city than outsiders who know the city, ” says Gloria Blint, CEO and president of Red House. Sometimes It’s easier for a visitor to see a place for what it is, especially in a city like Pittsburgh which has undergone such dramatic change the past few decades. That could be the case in Pittsburgh--in testing the campaign, enthused respondents said they learned things about the city they didn’t know.

Blint explains that they created the campaign based on the brand strategy done by a collaborative group headed by Marc USA CEO Michele Fabrizi. The message to convey: Pittsburgh as change maker to the world.

Seed funding for the campaign was provided by the Pittsburgh 250 Commission, a group that includes more than 80 regional leaders.The group hopes other Pittsburgh businesses and foundations will subsidize funding as well as utilize the tagline and tool kit available for all on the web site. “The Allegheny Conference did a lot of thinking into how this is going to dovetail with other efforts across the city,” says Blint. The objective is to deliver a unified message.

With any luck, the T.V. networks will finally get clued in. Picture this: a nationally televised event in Pittsburgh—say the U.S.Open which is scheduled for 2007—where a steelmaking image appears on the screen. The announcer, in an indisputably authoritative voice, proclaims: “Pittsburgh. Once the Steel City, is known today for robotics and cutting-edge Meds ‘n Eds.”

Imagine that.

Tracy Certo is editor of Pop City.