Parks & Recreation:
An Essential Community Service

Branding. It is “Topic A” today among organizations of all types, including parks and recreation agencies. We all have a concept of what a brand is, but in today’s terms branding is more than the mark used to identify a product, service or organization. It is the process by which a product, service, organization or – in this case – a profession identifies what makes it stand out from all others.

We think of a brand as the logo or symbol of an organization. However, logos are just the embodiment that the organization or product stands for. The green, white and black Starbucks symbol is immediately identifiable, but take that symbol and put it on an old-fashioned coffee shop and any one of us would immediately recognize upon walking into the shop that it wasn’t a Starbucks, or that perhaps we had passed through some space-time continuum.

That’s because the Starbucks experience is more than its logo, its brand is an expectation about what will be delivered when one visits a Starbucks store… the quality of the coffee, the kinds of coffees, the seating areas, the music, the lighting, the way the employees respond to you, even the kind of people who work there. Take away the logo from a Starbucks store and the experience would still feel like Starbucks. Similarly, Starbucks has many imitators, but none exemplify the brand.

Starbucks brand is more than a symbol, it is an expectation of what will be delivered. In other words, it is what is true and distinctive about Starbucks that the coffee company promises to deliver each and every time. Please excuse this focus and attention on Starbucks. They are presented only to provide for park and recreation professionals an obvious and immediately recognizable example of a company that has successfully identified its differences and turned them into a priceless brand.

Presently, the park and recreation profession lacks similar recognition. Even some park and recreation professionals have difficulty explaining the importance of their work to society. And so, CPRS is beginning a process to brand the park and recreation profession. The objective is to culturalize the idea that park and recreation agencies and professionals provide
essential community services, by demonstrating for what the park profession stands. In coming months, all members of CPRS will be invited to participate in that branding process. They will participate in “Building the Brand” of the profession.

Branding is a process that includes such stages as assessing what is true about the brand, articulating what the brand promises, defining a plan to implement the brand, communicating the brand repeatedly until it becomes culturalized, with the eventual goal of achieving the nirvana of branding, establishment of the brand so completely and effectively that others want to associate with it. As complicated as this sounds, it’s actually a very straight forward process that was begun this past spring.

The first stage in branding is to assess what is authentic. A sizeable body of research has been conducted by CPRS in recent years, mostly to support the VIP Action Plan Creating Community in the 21st Century. That research was reviewed in order to extract what about the park and recreation profession’s brand has been already established. CPRS looked at internal and external studies and reviewed previous conclusions about the profession’s core values and how the profession has been portrayed in the past. From that assessment, CPRS was able to state what the parks and recreation profession delivers and key messages which support that promise. Through the rest of 2007, CPRS members will be involved in refining the outline created by CPRS and building the brand of the park and recreation profession.

Why is this needed?

One of the great frustrations among park and recreation professionals is that their work is appreciated, but not valued. By branding parks and recreation agencies and professionals as providing essential community services, CPRS hopes to help park and recreation agencies and professionals demonstrate the value of their services and expertise to public officials, community members and other professionals. Here is how CPRS plans to go about it.

As described, a foundation of assessing the “profession’s” brand has been laid through the past months. In coming weeks, CPRS members will be asked to comment and add their views about what makes park and recreation agencies and professionals essential to communities and sets them apart from other governmental agencies and people.

A “Building the Brand” e-newsletter will be created that informs CPRS members of this branding effort, focuses on aspects of the profession and involves members in the branding process. Member feedback will be solicited through the “Building The Brand” e-newsletter and a survey that CPRS members will receive by e-mail. Those few who do not get e-mail, will be sent a printed survey to complete and return. In addition to all CPRS members having the opportunity to comment, the Society’s leadership will discuss the brand at district, section and regional meetings.

In later months, the brand will largely have been confirmed or refined to the point that brand training sessions and presentation materials will be provided to help CPRS members reinforce the profession’s brand to their various publics. Four short videos (approximately two minutes in length) will be created. The videos will show how parks and recreation professionals are benefiting society through the application of their skills. Topics for these videos include health and wellness (emphasis on children), the economic value of parks and recreation, natural resource protection and building the social fabric of communities (emphasis on seniors). The videos will show that only parks and recreation professionals provide the depicted services and benefits, which are essential from social and economic standpoints. Endorsements from officials and community members not professionally involved in park and recreation will reinforce the messages.

The videos will be posted on video social networking sites such as YouTube™ and e-mailed to CPRS members once each month from September through December. CPRS members will, in turn, be asked to distribute the videos to local officials, families, supporters, media, etc. and encourage them to pass the videos to others they know might appreciate seeing them. Because the videos will be short, entertaining and salient, they are likely to virally market the concepts espoused in them to audiences far beyond the immediate reach of CPRS members.

These brand videos will also be incorporated into a PowerPoint presentation that will be placed on a custom CD-ROM and provided to attendees at the 2008 California & Pacific Southwest Recreation & Park Training Conference, further serving to establish the profession’s brand within the profession.

This communications effort will be simple, easy to implement, far reaching and fit how park and recreation agencies and professionals communicate, today. For the remainder of 2007 and until the profession achieves “brand advantage,” branding will be “Topic A” as park and recreation professionals identify the value of their services and why they stand out from all others. So, let’s begin “Building the Brand.”