BusinessReport.com

DON’T CALL IT the 10/12 corridor anymore.

It’s now tentatively known as the Creative Corridor.

The branding gurus at GSD&M have come up with that moniker in an attempt to give the corridor an identity that will have worldwide marketing appeal.

The creative corridor will target a demographic known as creative catalysts, a younger generation with an entrepreneurial spirit. Happiness is their measure of success⎯rather than money⎯and experiences and people are valued higher than possessions. They have a tendency to be self-employed or running their own businesses.

Culture and technology are their other two passions. They love to eat, entertain and be entertained, are interested in the arts and other cultures and love gourmet food. They are the first of their friends to try new electronics, will pay anything for new electronic products they want and use the Internet to network and socialize with others.

GSD&M Senior Vice President & Chief Purposologist Haley Rushing thinks South Louisiana and creative catalysts share many of the same values: faith, ingenuity, community, joy of living and a wildcatter streak. More importantly, post-hurricane Louisiana offers creative catalysts the one thing they desire most: Their chance to make a mark on the world.

“A lot of creative class types are living in New York City or Austin or Portland, and they realize they’re living in one of the greatest cities in the world, and as cool as it is to live in, they don’t have the ability to go to bed at night really feeling they’ve made a difference,” she says. “There aren’t a lot of ways to put their fingerprint on a city that’s already gone so far. But South Louisiana is different. It’s a blank page to write.

“Part of the upside of being on the bottom of the lists and being ravaged by two hurricanes is that you’re not trying to build what was here before, but build it better than it was. If you want to be a part of something new, there’s a real opportunity to put your fingerprint on something meaningful. That strikes a chord with people who value what you value, as well as want to be a part of making history.”

GETTING THEM TO TAKE NOTICE will be pricey. GSD&M estimates $3 million for a purely local effort aimed at retaining Louisiana’s own creative catalysts and turning them into ambassadors for the corridor. Winning back creative catalysts who have moved on to Dallas, Austin, Houston and Atlanta will take $8 million. And winning over creative catalysts from across the nation by changing their perceptions of Louisiana will cost an estimated $23 million.

The plan is to create a web site that is truly a one-stop shop to the corridor, says Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s John Spain. A place where prospective residents can instantly find information about jobs, quality of life, prices of homes and chat rooms where talk to people about their plans to move to the corridor. Says Spain: “You want it to be a candid, honest interactive site.”

GSD&M has also worked up a rough draft of a possible advertising campaign called “Louisiana to the rescue.” It’s a twist on the images much of the country still has in its mind of Louisianans needing rescue after the hurricanes, instead portraying the state swooping in to save Americans from their tiresome lives in other places.

One sample shows a helicopter lowering a crate a jambalaya into a boring seminar in a northeast city. Another portrays a helicopter ferreting the owner of an empty big-city coffee shop from a street corner surrounded by competing coffee vendors to a single shop in Louisiana that’s filled with customers.

“I love the idea that the whole country is looking at Louisiana in terms of, ‘How can we help?’ and this turns that paradigm on its head,” Rushing says. “It portrays the rest of America as slaving away with no sense of community, and Louisiana will help you fix that because we’ve cracked the code on meaningful relationships and deep, meaningful work. I just love that creative twist on the problem. It’s Louisiana’s turn to rescue the rest of the world from the numbness and meaninglessness of life elsewhere.

“We play it off in a fun way, and I think it’s going to get a lot of attention and cause people to radically reassess how they think of Louisiana and hopefully reverse the whole brain drain that’s really what this whole initiative is really intended to do.”

The 10/12 alliance is presenting the sample ads and other materials to legislators and community leaders all along the corridor this fall in hopes of generating support for the campaign.

Says Spain: “The next issue is who manages and pays for this campaign.”

To read more about New Orleans joining the 10/12 corridor, click here.