Black's magic

Meet Worcester's new marketing director. She may have the best chance of turning the city around

by Kristen Lombardi

In many ways, the city's marketing campaign has become something Worcester can count on for a great, even a howlingly funny joke. For years officials have ushered in one ill-conceived, ill-fated slogan after another, only to find residents snickering and jeering.

Take the insanely ambitious WORCESTER: PARIS OF THE '80S -- a motto surfacing right when the city's manufacturing giants were disappearing and the face of downtown was increasingly soiled. The absurd comparison prompted more than one resident to declare never to set foot in faraway France. Or consider the quaint, albeit badly timed, HEARTBEAT OF MASSACHUSETTS, which L.B. Worm, who headed the Wormtown music movement, re-phrased as DEADBEAT OF MASSACHUSETTS, printing the tag line on innumerable T-shirts, stickers, and cards that have become coveted collectors' items these days.

More recently, of course, the city has trumpeted the ambiguous, highly ridiculed RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME, a slogan that, since its introduction in 1996, continues to inspire the sarcastic retort: For what?

But there does exist one person who hasn't bought into the cynical hype: Susan Black. The city's marketing director was hired in late August 1999 to replace predecessors William Capers, a former Digital Equipment Corporation executive who stepped down after an awkward four- month term, and the well-known original marketer Kevin O'Sullivan. Yet as soon as Black assumed the post, residents quipped about how long she would last in such a notoriously tough position. For she must quickly capitalize on the success of soon-to-be completed projects like the Route 146-Mass Pike Connector and the Worcester Medical Center, as well as tap into the wave of development moving closer and closer to Worcester -- all in a place that lacks strong, charismatic leadership to shore up her efforts.

Black, though, has proceeded as if undaunted. She recently released her own marketing plan -- an informal, still-evolving strategy designed to expand existing businesses, recruit new ones, and attract consumers. Rather than rely on gimmicks, Black's plan puts it to people straight: she will present Worcester as an affordable, pleasant city in which to live and raise a family. She will also try to lure related businesses to a place that's already established itself as the medical, biotechnology, and manufacturing hub of Central Massachusetts. To kick off her efforts, Black will visit businesses within a 50-mile radius to better find out what it would take to bring them here.

So far, her spirited pitch has made an impression. Ever since she released her plan in January, in fact, reactions have been all but effusive -- a rather unusual feat in a city quick to eat its own. Everyone from councilors to company executives to college presidents is talking about Black's "focused," "realistic," and "fundamental" strategy. Even perpetual skeptics like At-large Councilor Konnie Lukes say Black shows promise.

"I'm not sure her plan won't fizzle," Lukes allows, but adds, "It is the most specific plan that councilors have ever seen."

IT SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE that people are convinced Black has what it takes to sell Worcester. She is a seasoned professional, after all, assuming her current city post after 25 years' worth of advertising and public relations work at Norton Company.

At-large Councilor Dennis Irish, himself the vice-president of marketing for UMass Memorial Health Care, sums up the sentiment best. "Susan will be a strong marketing force," he asserts. "She understands the practicality of the situation."

"Practicality" -- or rather a practical attitude -- is one thing the impeccably groomed, energenic Black exudes whenever she talks about her plan. Indeed, she can serve up Worcester with a perky yet genuine confidence that makes it easy to see why folks are impressed; she even seems to like the long-disregarded city, outlining a host of advantages to living here: Worcester, she says, offers strong economic-development opportunities and good schools in a "fun," affordable, and richly diverse setting. She then leans back, her eyes alight, and concludes, "This isn't rocket science. All I'm doing is looking at what we have and what we need to do to make it known."

Her plan appears a bit more refined, however. For starters, Black intends to do what she calls "brand" Worcester, meaning develop and promote a general city image. "Overall you come up with an image," she explains, "but you're successful in marketing when you have targeted messages."

To this end, she will fashion the general into the specific, basically telling certain audiences -- namely, target audiences -- certain things depending on their needs and interests. And while she isn't about to ignore consumers, her primary effort will focus on businesses -- in particular, on 10 key economic industries, including higher education, biotechnology, and health care.

Black will try to bolster economic development by expanding current businesses, as well as by recruiting new ones. In the weeks since the unveiling of her plan, she's created and published a presentation kit designed to give potential recruits an overview of the city, highlighting its central location and its transportation network, among other things.

To boost awareness, Black will indulge in the occasional trade show, business forum, and conference. (She will visit three economic-development conferences by year's end, for instance.) Yet mostly, she'll rely on staple, cost-effective tools like brochures, a Web site, and promotions. So she might distribute maps stressing city attractions to area colleges. Or ask residents for photos of the local landscape to post on the Web.

Perhaps what is most impressive about her plan is her attempt to "benchmark," or measure her efforts. One obvious assessment, for example, would revolve around business growth -- specifically, how many new jobs and new companies move here because of marketing. It is such estimations, Black notes, that will give city officials the results needed to legitimize (read: to keep funding) her image campaign.

But if she knows she must produce fast, the pressure doesn't seem to bother Black, who, with typical aplomb, says, "I'm not out in the stratosphere with what I've recommended. . . . This will work."

She even has a convincing reason for using the RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME slogan -- which, she admits, is vague enough to be rendered meaningless. "It's the tag line," she says, explaining you cannot convey all that's unique to Worcester in a pithy phrase. Nor does she have the time to reinvent her predecessors' marketing theme.

As she puts it, "You don't change your image. . . . You keep reminding people of the image, then you hit them with the edge."

IF ANYONE HAS AN EDGE, it's Black. For unlike past directors, who concentrated on marketing the Centrum Centre and the airport, and who worked for the regionally focused Worcester chamber of commerce, Black is employed by the administration. So she can devote herself -- and her $510,000 budget -- to selling the city.

Which is why City Hall observers cannot help but think that she may end up being, as one watcher says, "the right person at the right time."

Indeed. Now more than ever things look good for Worcester. Boston, for one, has exploded with development, and that boom keeps moving farther and farther west. Like Route 128 in the 1980s, Interstate 495 has become the latest ring of growth to usher in opportunity. And so, says Craig Blais, vice-president of the Worcester Business Development Corporation (WBDC), "It is the right time to look beyond [Boston]. It's Worcester's time to shine."

Not only that, but the city's old, defeatist battle cry -- "We're going to fail, we're going to fail" -- doesn't seem as pervasive nowadays, partly because of the near completion of such megaprojects as Union Station and Worcester Medical Center, and partly because of the remarkable, uplifting compassion that was elicited by the fatal, December 3 fire. For if the tragedy laid bare anything, it's that Worcester isn't a slick, fend-for-yourself metropolis. Instead, it's a city boasting a small-town, neighborly feel that, observers note, Black would do well to capture and capitalize on.

"Worcester is certainly cast in a sympathetic light right now," says one former City Hall insider. "It's an opportune time to spin the fire tragedy into a positive and get out more positives."

This isn't to say that Black doesn't have hard work ahead, however. For she must shape consensus among the city's often competing development interests -- in particular, the WBDC and the administration's development office, headed by Black's boss, Everett Shaw. And she must shape consensus among an often uncooperative city council, made up of 11 politicians pushing for the spotlight, as well as for their pet projects. Although Black isn't perceived as a political person (unlike the original director, Kevin O'Sullivan), and although the current council unanimously backs her plan, City Hall watchers warn she must be prepared for the ever-changing political tide.

"Politics," one observer says, "will remain a factor [of] which Susan has to be careful."

Black must also galvanize the so-called "vested interests," or the organizations, colleges, and businesses that would benefit from a vibrant, growing city. Considering she is a one-woman force, her own success depends on support from groups like the WBDC, the college consortium, and the chamber -- support that she'll probably get. Gerald Gates, for one, who heads the chamber's new marketing committee (the result of a revamped strategic plan), says he and his 14 colleagues hope to collaborate with Black because, he explains, "What we're trying to accomplish is precisely what she's trying to accomplish."

Yet Black's biggest handicap comes down to a fairly predictable one within marketing circles: the lack of money and manpower. It may be true that she is "wisely spending" her budget by using public relations and promotions, rather than advertising. But nearly everyone agrees her budget is "modest" at best; the money she does have, after all, barely enables her to recruit businesses beyond the immediate area, let alone tackle the mammoth consumer market.

As Councilor Lukes muses, "Maybe we should act like a real city and finance [an aggressive plan]. . . . If we're serious about marketing, an increase in resources is inevitable."

Until then, however, Black can take a lesson from the marketing success of the Big City to the East, especially since she'll eventually have to improve attitudes at home. Worcester continues to be a place that professionals overlook for other destinations, and that young people leave in droves. To curb this type of flight, Boston launched its own IT'S ALL RIGHT HERE marketing campaign five years ago. After hosting focus groups in Jamaica Plain, South Boston, and in Mattapan, among other neighborhoods, officials created television commercials stressing what residents love about their city. They sent packages about Boston to real-estate agencies and businesses; they set up tours to show off the latest in home sales.

Success, says Carol Owens, the marketing director in Boston's department of neighborhood development, is now manifested by the substantial number of first-time home buyers. "We are actually in a situation where we don't have to do anything to sell Boston," she adds.

Maybe more important, Owens and her fellow marketers did this on a shoestring budget like Black's -- on $200,000 to be exact. Not only did the TV ads air for free, compliments of local media, but the Boston chamber of commerce and other institutions donated in excess of $1 million to bolster the city's campaign.

If anything, Boston's success in spite of minimal city funds bodes well for Worcester's marketing guru.

And now that Black has caught our attention, we might discover that selling Worcester isn't such a daunting task at all.

As Black herself points out, "There are an awful lot of people who want to see Worcester succeed. I just need to figure out how to maximize all of their efforts."

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com.