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When you think of Northern Kentucky, do you think of the iconic water tower, or maybe the region’s ties to bourbon?
Northern Kentucky is a community of 37 cities, three counties and over 400,000 people, many of whom are chest-beatingly proud to be a Northern Kentuckian, said Julie Kirkpatrick, president and CEO of meetNKY.
Yet Northern Kentuckians and their businesses are struggling with how to identify the place they call home.
NKY growth organizations are working together with a branding agency to get the narrative on how they should be talking about NKY from a tourism standpoint, a business attraction standpoint and a talent development standpoint.
“We hear it from large companies, small companies, nonprofits,” Kirkpatrick said. “We also hear it from people who live here that they struggle with the narrative to describe Northern Kentucky.”
The growth organizations involved in the branding are the NKY Chamber of Commerce, BE NKY Growth Partnership, OneNKY Alliance and meetNKY.
Kirkpatrick described Northern Kentucky as the place where the North ends and the South begins.
As Northern Kentucky’s official tourism bureau, Kirkpatrick said, meetNKY does market the Cincinnati region but differentiates by marketing what only Kentucky can bring to the table.
“From that aspect, it’s about — we are the portion of where bourbon starts, we’re the portion of where Southern hospitality starts, where Southern culinary starts, Southern music tradition starts,” Kirkpatrick said.
The region is unique because it is where two cultures combine, mixing the Midwest and South. Kirkpatrick said that gives visitors the best of both worlds.
When it comes to meetNKY’s more southern partners, Louisville and Lexington, Kirkpatrick said one big distinguisher for our region is the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, known locally as CVG.
“We really say that we are the gateway to the commonwealth,” Kirkpatrick said. “You look at the multimillion visitors that come through I-75 or CVG International Airport. We try to be their first sip of Kentucky hospitality.”
BE NKY is the region’s economic development company. Lee Crume, president and CEO of BE NKY, said that to create the region’s brand identity, the organization surveyed 70 regional employers of various sizes and sectors, from industries includingIT professional services, financial services, food, life sciences and manufacturing. One thing he said they heard from clients, especially on the talent side when recruiting people, is that there is a hurdle of where NKY is and what it represents.
Regarding differentiating the region to clients, Crume said there are some standouts.
“We sit at a really great crossroads of interstates,” he said. “We sit on I-71/75. You’ve got I-74 that goes to Indy. We’re a short hop up to I-70 that goes to East/West. So, from an access and transportation perspective, compared to other Kentucky communities, we’ve got river, rail, and highway. That is outstanding.”
Crume also said the region is geographically located well with CVG.
“If you want to do professional services, whether you’re a TiER1 organization or Fidelity or Citi, just to name a few, the fact that we’re in the eastern time zone, and you can jump on a plane at CVG and within 75 minutes you can be in Atlanta, Chicago, D.C., Boston, New York, Toronto (is key),” he said. “Just as easily as you can drive a truck to those cities, you can put a person to serve clients in those cities.”
Crume said that, if BE NKY were to come to a situation where it was competing with an organization in the Cincinnati Metro, it might then sell the advantages of being on the Kentucky side of the metro area, such as favorable tax situations, cost of land, cost of doing business and cost of labor.
Even though the growth organizations want to create a brand identity for the region, Crume said that when working with clients, especially in the early selection phase, the organization wants them to know that NKY is part of Kentucky and the Cincinnati metropolitan statistical area. Crume said this helps them understand where NKY sits on a map.
Crume said Kentucky has a favorable business climate perception in how it works with companies and its cost of doing business — something he said BE NKY wants to trade off with. When it comes to the Cincinnati metro, Crume said when the group is selling a company to come to Northern Kentucky, it talks about the Reds, Bengals, Kings Island, the Ark Encounter, Creation Museum and all the attractions encompassed inside of the metropolitan statistical area — because NKY is a part of that.
Kirkpatrick said everything right now comes back to the workforce.
While someone’s primary reason to come to the region might be a Bengals game, and they may have come up from Florida to attend, the goal is to have them visit five to six other things in the area while they’re here, she said.
“Eventually, we want to show you enough that you fall in love with this region, and you move here,” she said. “That is how we get talent.”
Crume echoed those remarks and said that people are reluctant to move to a place they haven’t visited, so tourism often becomes that front door.
She said from the tourism industry standpoint, there is a significant need for talent, but the region has also benefited from the halo effect of talent recruitment in the region.
Kirkpatrick gave a hypothetical that if the region recruited 100 pilots and their families moved to the region, then their spouses might be, for example, a teacher who could work in education. Their kids might pick up a part-time job in the tourism industry.
“That’s the halo effect of talent recruitment, and that’s a real win for the tourism industry,” she said.
The final deliverables of the branding, Kirkpatrick said, involve creating a hub that businesses and entities can use when they’re recruiting.
Quality of life is also a focus for meetNKY.
“What is the quality of life here in this region? What’s the vibe, per se? That kind of stuff is really important when you’re looking at young talent,” Kirkpatrick said.
Affordability and value, Kirkpatrick said, are phenomenal in the region. It’s also easy to get around. She said sitting on I-75 for 20 minutes in traffic is nothing compared to other areas of the country she has experienced, like Dallas.
Kirkpatrick said a lot of Midwestern and mid-Southern destinations struggle with their identity.
MeetNKY has found three successful identifying symbols for the region. The first is the “Florence Y’all” water tower. Kirkpatrick said this is a mile marker when coming from the South; you are “almost there.”
The next symbol is the span of the Roebling Suspension Bridge, which symbolizes the connection of NKY to Cincinnati.
Lastly, Kirkpatrick said the big glass span of New Riff Distilling in Newport showcases NKY as a region of “makers.”
“We make things here, and we make great things here, whether it’s bourbon, whether it’s Mentos, whether it’s incredible manufacturing at Mazak or Bosch, or the fact that Amazon is here. And we move things, as well,” Kirkpatrick said. “We are a region of makers.”
