Rebranding project begins in Lincoln County

Team members from Partners Creative, the group contracted by the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners to help create a new brand and identity for south Lincoln County in a post-Superfund environment, spent two days in Libby and Troy last week and spoke with nearly 200 area residents about their vision of what the communities are and what they should be as Libby and Troy struggle to overcome the stigma of being a long-term Superfund site.

“The response was really good,” said Sean Benton, one of the firm’s partners. “We had good attendance in the sessions and got a lot of really good input. I thought it was really a great response for such a short period of time.”

The team brought 11 members to Libby and Troy for the information-gathering phase of the project. In addition to three employees of Partners Creative, the team included two professors and six students from the University of Montana School of Business. The team members met with roughly 75 people in listening sessions scheduled in Libby and Troy, as well as contacted more than 100 people through intercepts – on-site surveys at local businesses and gathering places.

The next step for the team is to analyze the data provided during the visit.

“We need to really dig into the data,” Benton said. “We need to start to map out what the people of the valley can stand for in terms of communicating why people would want to come here and then start making recommendations about the brand and brand management. We need to thoroughly audit the input we got from area residents. It’s important that we’re not coming in from the outside and telling people what’s there, this comes from the people.”

Benton said the goal at this point is to identify and then capitalize on the common threads expressed by the residents who participated in the meetings. While it was still too early in the analysis phase to provide a great deal of detail, he noted two such common threads that were immediately apparent to the researchers, the outdoors and a sense of community and good neighbors.

A love of the outdoors, Benton said, is something that pervades most Montana communities, but the specific atmosphere of Lincoln County is different from most other places.

“There’s something very unique about even the outdoors you have there in Lincoln County,” he said. “There’s the accessibility, the proximity and the sheer volume of it that makes Libby and Troy very different. It’s like Glacier Park without having to go through a visitors’ center.”

The sense of community was another common thread Benton identified from the surveys received by his team.

“You’re good neighbors,” he said. “It’s hard to quantify, but a number of people talked about how if they ran out of gas along the road they wouldn’t worry because someone would come along with a can of gas. We talked to people who were out helping their neighbors clear branches and trees from the wind storm earlier in the week. There’s just a sense of strength and resiliency among the people there.”

The primary goal of the project is to help the area overcome the stigma and negativity related to asbestos contamination. 

“We need to pull the good parts to the surface,” Benton said. “It will help to overcome the negative issues and economic problems.”

Benton said there is another advantage to the project, something a bit less quantifiable but still valuable to the residents of Lincoln County.

“A project like this can help instill pride in a community,” he said. “That’s another advantage of something like this, it helps people see what they have in a place like this.”

Commissioner Mark Peck said the project is a necessary first step toward the communities’ joint recovery.

“The bottom  line is this is a great opportunity for Libby and Troy as separate communities to really come together to start discussing where we’re going to be and who we want to be,” Peck said. “How do we become a place where people want to invest and bring some employment and economic activity back here. I’m looking forward to carrying this through over the next few years.”