Detroit’s Brand Is More Than The Sum Of Its Advertising

by Erik Proulx, Forbes Contributor

What is Detroit‘s Brand?

If you’re not from there, you might only think of Detroit as the city with the massive population contraction. Or the one abandoned by the auto industry. Or the place with all the racial tension.

Or maybe when you watched the Super Bowl last year, you were introduced to a Detroit you hadn’t considered. You sawEminem driving a Chrysler 200 through a hard-nosed, never-say-die, lunch-pail city with the Joe Louis fist suspended proudly by the riverfront (ironically located just outside of General Motors’ headquarters).

Whatever your impression of Detroit, I can tell you that if you’ve never spent any time there, it’s wrong. You may think you know about the city’s grit, but unless you meet gritty Detroiters, you don’t. You may think you understand the concept of reinventing blight into opportunity, but until you walk through the Russell Industrial Center or the Heidleberg Project, you don’t. You may think that as an enlightened white person, you understand the psychology of blacks who are just a few generations removed from slavery. But until you walk through the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, you don’t. (And even after that, you don’t.)

I’ve spent the better part of two years traveling to The Motor City to film “Lemonade: Detroit,” allowing myself to be absorbed by its zeitgeist, trying to find stories of reinvention that accurately reflect its brand . . . A brand I could have never fully – nor even partially – grasped without the first hand experience of being there.

There are anecdotes of promise everywhere you look that belie what you think you know. I couldn’t begin to list even a tiny fraction of what makes Detroit’s brand so resilient, so proud, so inspiring. But here are a few stories that have been on my mind lately:

• The Green Garage, which what was once an abandoned Model T showroom, has been reinvented into a collaborative workspace for sustainable Detroit entrepreneurs.
• Torya Blanchard, who cashed out the 401(k) she earned as a French teacher, opened a successful 48 square-foot creperie. So successful that she expanded it into a 2000 sq.ft. creperie. Then she opened a second 2000 sq.ft. location across town. And now Torya is about to open a breakfast and lunch joint in Hamtramck called Ootie’s.
• An amazing place called Youthville is giving kids in Detroit a state-of-the-art facility to explore everything from robotics to music video production.
• Lest you think Detroit is only for ambitious hipster entrepreneurs, check out how Dan Gilbert, the Quicken Loans chairman and majority owner of the ClevelandCavaliers, is reinventing downtown with his skyscraper buying spree.

“A rising tide lifts all boats” is the ethos in Detroit. Startups that would be competitors on paper are helping each other with everything from permits to suppliers to marketing.  Try finding that neighborly love in New York or LA.

To be clear, Detroit isn’t Eden. The population retraction? The country’s worst education system? The high unemployment? All true. There’s a mountain to climb, and they’re nowhere near the summit. But those who call themselves Detroiters don’t want your handouts. They don’t want your condolences. And they especially don’t want your pity.

On the other hand, it has also been ranked as one of the top ten downtowns in America, and was highlighted by Forbes as being one of the best cities in the country to be an entrepreneur.

So where does this leave Detroit’s brand? Well, I know it can’t be fully articulated in an ad. Like any brand, you need to see it. Touch it. Experience it on an emotional level. The same way you don’t fully know Apple’s brand until you play with an iPad. Or Chrysler’s until you drive a 200.