Shelbyville Common Council approves hiring Hirons for rebranding process

shelbyville-common-council-approves-hiring-hirons-for-rebranding-process

The Shelbyville Common Council approved spending $100,000 of racino funds dedicated to economic development to fund the rebranding of the City of Shelbyville.

At Monday night’s meeting at City Hall, the council approved hiring Indianapolis-based Hirons, an advertising, public relations and digital agency, to create and streamline an updated image.

Jenna Martin, the city’s public relations director, explained to the council the proposed rebranding process.

“We have a goal to increase the awareness and the interest in Shelbyville to a greater audience, whether that is those in our community and getting to know who we are and buying into being one to also our surrounding counties as well as our region,” said Martin.

Martin is currently working on the creation of a new website with CivicPlus that will combine four different websites – city government, the parks department, fire department and police department – to one site.  The council approved in March to pay CivicPlus $28,418 for the creation of a new website. Yearly costs to maintain the site will be $7,775.

“We are trying to parallel this timeline (of rebranding) to also match with the website so there is a grand reveal to the community,” said Martin. “Originally, our goal for all of the above was July 1 but it will look more like July 15.”

Hirons will commence with research within the community that will be made available to the city once completed.

“They will meet not only with city constituents but we have also identified some partners that also work in the community on a larger scale like tourism, Mainstreet, the chamber and blue river (foundation),” said Martin, who also stated local business owners will have input as Hirons creates quantitative and qualitative studies. A survey also will be created to involve Shelbyville residents in the process.

New council member Linda Sanders expressed interest earlier this year at updating the city’s “Pride and Progress” motto and logo. She made the motion to approve the request Monday night.

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