On Cleveland’s east side there’s a neighborhood called University Circle. It’s an anachronism. The “circle” part disappeared 60 years ago. There is one university. Yet the same area includes three hospital systems, medical and nursing schools, the local biotech trade group and many of the city’s medical startups.
Enough. Down with the name University Circle. Expand the borders a bit and call it what it is: The Medical District.
Branding can be a pithy and overhyped undertaking. But not when it comes to reviving the economic psyche of cities like Cleveland, which have transitioned away from their manufacturing base. An accurate re-branding celebrates and promotes a city’s new economy and can fuel that growth.
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It’s harder to do than you’d think.
Some of the smartest marketing minds in town are rallying around “Medical Capital,” a catchall phrase for Greater Cleveland’s healthcare offerings. Creators plan to insert the phrase into their marketing materials to expand Cleveland’s reputation as a healthcare hub. Ninety percent of the country doesn’t connect healthcare with Cleveland, according to 2006 research by the ad agency Marcus Thomas.
“By tapping into existing communication emanating from dozens of medical and healthcare companies, institutions and organizations we can begin to impact awareness levels without creating a new brand or launching an advertising campaign,” said Rick Batyko, vice president for regional marketing at the Greater Cleveland Partnership.
Medical Capital is a laudable moniker that is fine for locals. But it will elicit eye rolls and derisive snorts in the 15 or so other innovation hubs of healthcare that do it as well, or better, than Greater Cleveland. It’s not that Cleveland should care what others think of it. But in this case, when you’re puffing your chest out you don’t want your industry peers to keep poking it with their fingers.
Medical District, meanwhile, completes the narrative of New Cleveland without excess hype. The city already has its HealthLine: a bus route that ferries passengers from an increasingly impressive downtown through a River Styx-like stretch of abandoned buildings into The Heart of The Medical District (Cleveland Clinic).
That neglected area is due for an overhaul, too. City power brokers are creating a Health-Tech Corridor to work like an economic cluster akin to North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park.
Soon, the Medical Mart — a medically focused convention center — will be operating in the downtown. At which point, someone could legitimately say: “I spent my day at the Medical Mart. Then I took the HealthLine through the Health-Tech Corridor to the Medical District, where I invested in a new startup out of University Hospitals.”
Being able to toss out a phrase like that creates a type of geeky panache that would click with healthcare insiders instead of invite their scorn.
To get there, the name University Circle has to be sacrificed.
It’s easier to create nicknames and brands at the grassroots level. Medical Capital is, by necessity, a politically correct approach that includes everyone and won’t wound egos. Cities like Cleveland are struggling enough where anyone with just enough money can become a fly in the ointment. So everyone accountable to those powers-that-be has to tiptoe.
So let’s get the ball rolling. There’s now a Wikipedia entry to ease the transition. Medical District has a Facebook page. The twitter hashtag is #medicaldistrict. And I’ve already been replaced as the “mayor” of The Medical District on FourSquare.
And we at MedCity News will never again refer to that area as University Circle. It just doesn’t fit. So from now on, in our little slice of the Web, Cleveland has a Medical District.
Those who balk at calling one section of town a “Medical District” will say: “What about the hospitals in other parts of town? Aren’t there medical companies in Elyria?”
David Fitz, spokesman for the non-profit University Circle Inc., said the name “University Circle has brand recognition.” Plus, he said, it better includes the residential areas, museums and other offerings in the neighborhood. Fitz also noted that his group’s director, Chris Ronayne, has touted the idea of a “Medical Mile” section around University Circle.
Yet just like every Chinese restaurant isn’t in Chinatown, every medical interest need not be in The District. Think concentration: University Hospitals Health System; The Cleveland VA Medical Center; Cleveland Clinic, its medical school and nursing institute; Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing; BioEnterprise and the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine are all in the Medical District.
In the end, nicknames and neighborhoods are best created organically. Once they’re established, then the marketers can flog them to death.
When you’re in town on business, ask the cab driver to take you to the Medical District. When you get an odd look just explain: “It’s the area that used to be called University Circle. But they changed it.” There will be a shocked look for a moment and then an acknowledgment that it just makes sense.
And once you’ve won the cab drivers over, it’s only a matter of time.
