Baltimore in 2022: right product, wrong audience

Mayor Brandon Scott’s 2022 State of the City Address is the latest installment in a series of annual reckonings of Baltimore’s promise and peril. While crime and safety were clearly on the Mayor’s mind, he rightly spent time talking about his plans to bring families back to Baltimore.

I applaud him for this, as I’ve applauded every mayor’s best intentions to tighten the tourniquet on the continuing drain of residents and deliver an infusion of middle-class taxpayers.

In 2015, former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake pledged to attract 10,000 new households to Baltimore by 2020. The date has come and gone — as have nearly 37,000 residents from the city’s population.

In his address, Mayor Scott announced his plan to give a half-million dollars to nonprofit Live Baltimore’s marketing and recruitment efforts to attract middle-class families to the city.

It’s a noble effort, and Live Baltimore has done an admirable job since its inception, making homeownership a reality for thousands. But the mayor may get tripped up by that same thinking that ensnared many of his predecessors.

He’s failing to acknowledge the current product doesn’t fit the desired audience.

Having worked in Baltimore’s advertising industry for over 20 years, I’ve seen what a $500,000 ad budget can do.

A half-million is a drop in the ocean for a campaign hoping to persuade a tough audience to buy into a product that’s not ready for them yet.

Baltimore’s current iteration doesn’t appeal to the audience the mayor wishes to reach. He must understand that the real investment for families to move to the city isn’t money. It’s their children. It’s their future. And they’re not willing to take that risk.

Directing significant amounts of cash and resources to this audience will yield the same result as dumping bushels of cash into the Inner Harbor.

As I would tell any client, look at your current product and position it for those who can see the value. For all its flaws, Baltimore has tremendous value — for the right buyer.

The city’s boom in high-end residential construction, innovation in bio-tech, stalwart blue-chip employers, world-renowned educational institutions, and an appetite for experimentation comprise an authentic message that will resonate with a diverse set of young professionals, highly-skilled workers, and social advocates. It’ll land far better than trying to choreograph for middleclass families an elaborate “Baltimore Two-Step” around high crime and low performance in schools.

Focus on recruiting the young and successful first. Build a strong tax base around them. And invest the increased revenues wisely in the infrastructure that every city seeking middle-class residents requires — reliable transportation, education, safety, health, and innovation.

Then come back for the families.

Mr. Mayor, if you’re willing to consider a phased approach to winning over families, you’ve got several great ad agencies in Baltimore willing to stand by you — including mine. But any partner that believes they can do it by focusing on middle-class families first is doomed to repeat the same mistakes leaders have made for decades.

Know your audience. Improve the product. Give them a reason to believe. And then we can talk about bringing the middle-class household back.

Focus on recruiting the young and successful first. Build a strong tax base around them. And invest the increased revenues wisely in the infrastructure that every city seeking middle-class residents requires.