Motor City leans into underdog mentality
When national media coverage about Detroit’s money woes and public corruption scandals began to peak more than a decade ago, Detroit graphic designer Tommey Walker felt his city was being ambushed.
So, he flipped the script in 2012, creating a “Detroit vs. Everybody” brand designed to help restore Motown’s identity.
In December, the clothing and accessories label opened a flagship store downtown.
“Everybody at some point feels like they are the underdog,” Detroit vs. Everybody CEO Sean Williams said. “Everybody has had a moment when they feel like their back is against the wall. That’s what we’re doing with the brand, expanding nationally and internationally.
“…We have kind of bottled that energy up. We’ve told Detroit stories. Now, it’s time to take it to the world.”
Williams participated in a panel discussion titled “Reshaping the Narrative of a City” at the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s recent Intercity Visit to Detroit.
Moderated by Renee McKenney, senior vice president of tourism for the Tulsa Regional Chamber and president of Tulsa Regional Tourism, the panel included Samantha Scott, marketing manager of Visit Detroit, and Eric Thomas, senior vice president of external relations for Invest Detroit.
More than 125 attendees from across northeast Oklahoma – including city and county elected officials, business leaders, regional partners, education administrators and young professionals – participated in the three-day Intercity Visit, which ended Oct. 9.
Elected in 2013, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has led the city’s about-face, helping restore vital municipal services, revitalize downtown and expand affordable housing.
Working with him have been marketing leaders determined to tap into the city’s strength: its people.
“If you Googled Detroit 10 years ago, you would get just dilapidated houses; it was all you would see,” Thomas said. “It was important to me to put into the ecosystem and lexicon that there are positive stories happening, and those positive stories are about people.”
Integral to that effort has been creating videos that rival Hollywood productions, he said.
“We could literally take our stuff and put it on Netflix,” Thomas said. “It was shot that high-quality…I told my team, ‘Shoot everybody like they are Kobe Bryant,’ no matter who it is. Because if you say you value something, you have to treat it like you value something.”
So much tourism energy is misdirected, he said.
“The tendency is to focus on the external, on the visitors,” Thomas said. “Sometimes, you forget the people inside your town…The goal is to remind Detroiters who have stayed through all that tension that we see them, and we care about that.
“When you spend all your time bringing people in and the people who are there get displaced or they leave, you lose the culture that made the place great.”
Visit Detroit is the only organization that promotes metro Detroit regionally, nationally and internationally as a convention, business meeting and tourism destination.
“My advice to everyone here is I’m positive that you are sitting on gold, and you just don’t realize it,” Scott said. “It’s just leaning into your back yard.
“You have people there that will help you, who want to work with you and present different ways to promote your business or support an event. They are there. You just have to look.”