Arlington Economic Development
Rebranding a premiere business destination
Challenge
Leading destination, outdated identity
With Amazon selecting Arlington for their east coast HQ, the county was clearly among the nation’s top destinations to locate a business. But the existing identity was outdated and no longer represented the vibrancy of Arlington. Havit was tasked with developing a new positioning and to bring it to life via a new identity: language, visuals, and logo. This would form the foundation for a marketing campaign and newly designed website, also created by Havit.
Solution
Discovering Arlington’s edge
We conducted one-on-one interviews among business leaders and influencer and learned that Arlington’s value proposition has three main components: Proximity to the nation’s capital and the Federal Government, an outstanding talent pool, and exceptional schools and quality of life.
Coming out of the research, we created three “territories” to express the brand position.
Solution
Research that reveals
The client selected the “Be Near/Go Far” brand concept to reflect not only Arlington’s proximity to Washington, DC but its limitless opportunities.
Solution
Exploring logo options
With a brand position in place, we created nine logos to show the client a range of options.
Solution
Defining Arlington’s brand
A final logo design was selected, and we showed color options.
With a final voice, logo and palette, we created Arlington’s Brand Book. A sampling of pages is shown below. This comprehensive guide is the “bible” for how the City of Arlington expresses itself to the business community.
Brand Purpose
Where proximity meets possibility
Be Near/Go Far celebrates how Arlington, VA positions businesses near everything they need to thrive: the prestige of our nation’s capital, close proximity and federal government impact and acess, the power of Amazon, an incredible pool of high-tech talent, easy transportation, and of course, an exciting, yet attainable lifestyle.
While the Be Near highlights the community’s convenience, the Go Far emphasizes its unrivaled ambition. After all, you don’t get ranked The Most Educated City and the City Where Women Are Most Successful by being an underdog. You do it by going above and beyond. And with incredible benefits that range from lower taxes to less regulations, that is exactly what a business will have the chance to do here: Accomplish more than ever before.
Welcome to Arlington, VA. How far would you like to go?
Impact
Building a brand to go far
Arlington has applied this new identity to their new website, also designed and written by Havit, and all marketing materials. The county continues to thrive and has continued to attract new businesses — from startups to major corporate relocations.
