City of Hartsville takes initial step to brand itself

Branding, in most textbooks is considered marketing 101.

“Branding is so different now than it used to be just a few years ago.  It is all social media now,” said Crystal Hulsey, Owner of Colours: An Elite Salon.

For both new store owners Crystal Hulsey and Lindsey Dowling it has been more of an incentive.“Yeah, we are the newbies on the block.  They have a great program, Main Street Hartsville, that really helps refine your brand and come out as a new business really, really strong,” said Lindsey Dowling, Owner of De Baz.

“We have clients that are not just coming from Hartsville but we got one from Sumter here now.  Florence, Kingstree and Darlington,” explained Hulsey.

However, branding is something the City of Hartsville as a whole looks to channel as well.

“It is establishing a brand that has not essentially previously existed.  The City of Hartsville government uses behind what you see behind me.  A decades old city seal,” mentioned Russell Cox, Public Information Officer for the City of Hartsville.

From letter heads to trash trucks the seal has been the city’s logo of sorts.

“Hartsville needs a brand a destination.  Hartsville seal is not sufficient for that.  It is not something that you would put on welcome signs coming into town.  It is not something that you would put on water towers and on the signs that help you navigate the historic downtown district,” Cox explained.

The city is rolling out a new branding and marketing campaign working with a team on designs and concepts.

“They came in on Monday and they’ve had just an absolute flurry of meeting with all sorts of stakeholders around Hartsville,” said Cox.

News13 did some research on the company working on this project, Arnett Muldrow & Associates.

We found that the City of Ruthland, VT spent $23,000 for work done to its city.

As of now News13 doesn’t have a dollar amount for Hartsville, but we’ll continue to look into how much that could be.