How One Community Turned a Brand Into a Decision-Making Tool

Episode 11: A Super Episode With “Super” Dave Quinn

The episode in which we interview a superhero.

Econ Dev ShowDane Carlson

Many communities try to improve their marketing before they have clearly decided who they are trying to become.

They refresh the logo, update the website, commission new materials, and talk about telling the story better. None of that is wrong, but it may be the second step, not the first.

In his conversation with Dane Carlson on the Econ Dev Show, Super Dave Quinn shared a useful example from Texas built around the phrase “progressive on purpose.” What made the phrase work was that it was not simply a slogan. It was an operating idea.

It gave people a way to describe the kind of community they wanted to build. It gave supporters a rallying cry. It gave local leaders a clearer standard for decisions. And, maybe most importantly, it gave the passionate few something simple enough to carry into other rooms.

That is the part many communities miss. A strong community brand is not just something the market recognizes. It is something local people can use.

The Problem: Better Marketing Without a Clearer Identity

Economic development organizations are often asked to improve how the community is perceived. The website needs work. The messaging feels dated. The community is not getting credit for its assets. The story is not being told well enough.

So the instinct is to start with marketing.

But marketing has limits when the underlying identity is still fuzzy. If a community has not clearly defined what it is trying to become, then every message has to do too much work. The brand has to explain the past, sell the present, and somehow point toward the future.

That is a heavy lift for a tagline.

Super Dave Quinn’s example points to a better sequence. Before the community needed sharper promotion, it needed a clearer aspirational identity. Not just a better answer to “Who are we?” but a stronger answer to “Who are we becoming?”

The Move: Turn the Brand Into a Rallying Cry

“Progressive on purpose” worked because it gave people language.

That matters more than it sounds. Communities do not change because a strategic plan says they should. They change when enough people can describe the direction in plain language and repeat it consistently.

An aspirational identity gives local leaders, business owners, residents, and advocates a shared phrase to organize around. It does not mean everyone agrees immediately. They never do. But it gives the people who are ready for change something to say. It gives them a shorthand. It turns a long argument into a repeatable idea.

That is how a brand starts moving from decoration to strategy.

The Lesson: The Passionate Few Matter

One of the strongest takeaways from the episode is that communities often overestimate the need for immediate consensus. They wait for the whole room to agree, but change usually starts with the passionate few.

A small group of motivated people can move an idea further than a large room of polite agreement, especially when the idea is clear, repeatable, and tied to a real vision for the community.

That is why “progressive on purpose” is a useful case study for economic developers. The phrase gave supporters a tool. It helped them explain what kind of future they were trying to build without needing a white paper, a consultant report, or a 47-slide deck.

If the community vision is too vague, too technical, or too generic, it will not travel very far. If it is simple enough to repeat, it can start showing up in conversations all over town.

That is when branding becomes more than marketing.

The Strategic Value: A Cleaner Decision Matrix

The best part of an aspirational identity is not that it makes the community sound better. It makes decisions easier.

Economic developers and local leaders constantly face competing priorities. Should the community support this project? Does this initiative fit where we say we are going? Is this opportunity aligned with our future, or is it just shiny? Should we spend political capital here? Should we say yes, no, or not yet?

Without a clear identity, those decisions get mushy. Everything can sound important. Every project can claim to be economic development. Every new idea can become another rabbit to chase.

An aspirational identity creates a standard: does this move us toward the kind of place we are trying to become?

That does not eliminate tradeoffs, but it gives leaders a better way to talk about them. It helps the community evaluate choices against a shared direction instead of against whoever is loudest in the room that week.

That is strategy.

Why This Matters for Economic Developers

Economic development is not just about attraction, retention, incentives, sites, workforce, housing, or downtowns. It is also about coherence.

Communities need to know what they are building toward. Companies need to understand what kind of place they are evaluating. Small business owners need to see where they fit. Residents need language for the future they are being asked to support.

Marketing works better when it has something real to amplify. A community that knows what it is trying to become can tell a stronger story because the story is connected to actual choices. The website gets better because the direction is clearer. The pitch gets better because the identity is sharper. The local conversations get better because people are not starting from scratch every time.

That is the real lesson from Super Dave Quinn’s example. The phrase was not powerful because it was clever. It was powerful because it helped people act.

The Takeaway

Before asking, “How do we market ourselves better?” communities should ask a more strategic question: “Have we defined our future clearly enough that people inside the community can actually use it?”

If the answer is no, better marketing will only solve part of the problem.

The stronger move is to build an identity that clarifies choices, gives the passionate few a rallying cry, and helps local leaders make decisions with more consistency.

The best community brands are not just external messages. They are internal tools. And the communities that market themselves best are often the ones that know what they are becoming before they start selling it to everyone else.

A strong community identity only matters if your sites, data, and project responses can back it up.

Sitehunt is industrial site selection software built for economic developers who need to move from scattered property information to confident project responses. It helps you organize your sites, evaluate them against real RFI requirements, and quickly understand which properties actually fit a company’s needs.

Because once your community knows what it wants to become, your site data should help you prove it.

Sitehunt helps economic developers respond to site selection RFIs in minutes instead of days.

Learn more about Sitehunt