Planning and branding for a new era of strategic communications
About this project
Client
City of Tustin
Services
Strategic Communications, Community Outreach, Media, Creative
The opportunity
At the end of 2019, through a competitive RFP process, the City of Tustin selected JPW to completely reimagine the City’s overall communication efforts.
The scope of work included a comprehensive communications audit to determine how the City’s outreach was currently performing; a robust research initiative to understand the City’s audiences, determine key messages and uncover what was (and was not) working; developing the City’s first-ever strategic communications plan, including a crisis communications component; and finally, completely rebranding the City with a new brand story, logo and tagline.
The approach
The massive effort began in earnest at the start of 2020—just weeks before the onset of the global pandemic. In the midst conducting its research for this project, JPW had to pivot all in-person interactions to virtual, including one-on-one interviews and community focus groups, in order to keep the project moving forward.
The research portfolio included:
Comprehensive landscape analysis
Audit of existing communication effort
SWOT analysis with executive leadership team and city council
Twenty-six (26) one-on-one interviews with community and city partners
Several virtual focus groups (Spanish speakers, businesses and seniors)
Intercept surveys at food bank distribution events (still active during COVID-19 pandemic)
Online community survey
Without missing a beat, the body of research was concluded virtually and work began developing the City’s strategic communications plan complete with a key message platform; audience identification; goals and strategies; and a five-year tactical implementation plan.
Once the plan was vetted and approved by Tustin City Council, JPW began working on the second part of the initiative—a new brand for Tustin.
This effort included developing Tustin’s brand platform, tagline, brand story and logo.
The solution
Spring-boarding from the research gathered to develop the strategic communications plan, JPW went to work exploring brand concepts that supported the notion of three significant themes found during the research process:
Community/partnership: The sense of community and partnership that is alive and well in Tustin, and the intention of balancing the City’s while also promoting growth.
Rich history: The City embraces its rich history and how Tustin isn’t a cookie-cutter city; rather, it is authentic with its small town charm, and big city amenities.
Inclusivity: The City strives to create opportunities to be more inclusive in our communications with residents in south Tustin and those harder to reach audiences.
From those themes, the City’s new brand platform was developed:
Tustin is a vibrant and charming city nestled in the heart of Orange County. It remains true to its heritage and robust history, while warmly welcoming neighbors and planning for purposeful growth in the future. Called home by a passionate and diverse community, Tustin is a place for all generations and every walk of life.
Refining this theme even further, a new tagline, “Remembering what connects us,” was selected for the new city brand.
The visual exploration of the brand identified a need to incorporate the iconic Tustin hangars and the modern shapes of the new Tustin Legacy project into the logo design, along with a nod to the area’s rich agricultural past.
There was also a preference for the design to tie into the need for increased inclusivity and connectedness with the entire community of Tustin. The brand and tagline illustrate the strong sense of community, partnerships and collaboration that Tustin is known for.
This concept was designed to read from the bottom to the top. The City’s rich history in agriculture and military presence sets the foundation for Tustin. Based on the data the team leaned into a design that is, playing on the name “Tustin” and how it can create the iconic symbol of one of the hangars with its letters. And illustrated above the hangar there are shapes to illustrate Tustin’s unified and diverse inspiring future.
Finally, the word “us” is nestled intentionally within the hangars symbol, communicating that while the community may be different in some ways, there is a sense of connection and inclusiveness.
The new brand was adopted unanimously by the Tustin City Council in early 2022. Team JPW created an interactive online comprehensive brand guide and toolkit to support the full rollout later that year.
Elements of the brand toolkit included:
Stationery suite including letterhead, business cards and envelopes
Specialty items including apparel and vehicle applications
Printed materials including mailers, brochures flyer templates, newsletters and event invitations
PowerPoint template
Digital outreach materials including infographics and banners
Social media templates
Brand video
Pole banners
Promotional materials
The new strategic communications plan and community brand was lauded by the City Council with unanimous approval and commentary that focused around this being the most inclusive and thorough process they had been a part of, and the community has fully embraced the new look as their new community identity.