Developing a new brand for a community steeped in history an Aria case study

Just 20 minutes south of Austin, off the beaten path, lies Buda, Texas – a friendly city with small-town charm and big plans for the future.

Why rebrand?

In late 2010, with significant time and resources dedicated to future development and long-term planning, the City realized the need for a unified marketing message that all City stakeholders — City leadership, businesses, residents, and future Buda citizens — could believe in and get behind.

To conceptualize and activate a real head-turner, Buda turned to Dallas marketing and advertising agency, Aria, for guidance.

Our approach.

We believed the cornerstone of this new marketing image needed to begin with a redefinition of the Buda brand. With our previous work among many other organizations, we knew exactly how to lead a community-focused branding process in a truly collaborative way. We were able to act as strategist and mediator, leading the process, and letting our client really participate, not run the meetings.

Step 1 ) Audit and research.

After a thorough review and analysis of the existing Buda brand and related marketing materials, Aria led a series of structured interactions with Buda leadership, developers, residents and activists designed to a) inform the direction of the new brand and b) seek input from those who are invested most in the City’s future and well-being, the people who live, eat, sleep and breathe Buda.

The research incorporated surveys of citizen attitudes, perceptions and opinion, a Town Hall focus group, and constant community interaction and feedback throughout the design process.

Step 2 ) Concept development and validation.

Based on the information learned during the initial phase of the project, we drafted an extensive S.W.O.T. analysis, which led to a highly descriptive position statement.

The position statement, refined with feedback from community stakeholders, became the basis for the new brand direction — our yardstick to measure against.

Using this direction, we created and presented five varied logo designs, with accompanying taglines. These treatments went through multiple rounds of revisions, tweaks and modifications, eventually leading to a fully-cooked, completely representative new brand and mark for the City of Buda.

The results speak for themselves.

Need to update or refine your brand or other Aria services? Hire us today.
Interested to learn more? View additional Aria case studies.