Introduction

In the Spring 2020 semester at the University of Pittsburgh, RJ Thompson (+Public co-founder) was teaching Brand Management in the College of Business Administration and featured the City of Hermitage as the student’s capstone project in the course. The intent of the project was to investigate Hermitage’s marketing and branding potential. The students were placed into groups and produced several reports. Based on the success of this project, Hermitage commissioned +Public to further investigate the discoveries unearthed by Thompson’s students through a community-driven Brand Identity project.

+Public initiated a community-research brand identity project that asked certain stakeholders to participate in two, design charette-modeled focus groups across a 1-month period at Buhl Park. Upon completion of the in-person focus groups, participants were also asked to complete a survey and participate in an optional follow-up focus group via Zoom video conferencing. In addition to this, stakeholders invited to participate that could not attend were also invited to a Zoom-based focus group. Throughout this process, multiple meetings were held with the City of Hermitage team and the Economic Development committee.

The following content highlights some of the key takeaways of this research-driven experience. The best brand identity for Hermitage is one that is defined and designed by its very own community stakeholders.