Branding California’s other “City by the Bay”

The City of Watsonville, California, home to strawberry giant Driscoll’s, West Marine, Granite Rock and other growing businesses, hand-picked Gerardot & Co. to help brand the city and its economic development initiative. Gerardot & Co. was among 16 branding and advertising agencies vying for this business opportunity and the only firm bidding from outside the state of California.

“When this opportunity came to us, we thought our combined branding and marketing expertise in tourism and real estate development would be a good fit for Watsonville’s economic development efforts,” says principal, Mark Gerardot.

Gerardot’s experience in real estate development includes branding and environmental design for retail centers across the country and marketing a luxury residential development in Sun Valley, Idaho. For over eight years, Gerardot has worked in the tourism industry, branding a number of resort properties in the Bahamas. Since 2007, this boutique creative agency has been the official agency of record for The Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board, a consortium of 55 resorts and hotels.

Watsonville, a city of just 6.5 square miles and 51,703 residents, is located 95 miles south of San Francisco and just a few minutes inland from the beautiful marine life sanctuary, Monterey Bay. Its neighbor to the North is the famous Silicon Valley, a hub for high tech businesses and venture capitalists, a resource that the city hopes to plug into.

Watsonville hopes to attract high tech design and manufacturing firms, clean energy firms, as well as boutique food processing to supplement its light industrial base. A mix of local and national retailers is planned for the city’s quaint downtown district.

“We chose Gerardot & Co. because we think they bring the experience and creative process we need to bring attention to some incredible, but underutilized natural assets, for entrepreneurs and growing businesses in California and around the country. This is a big part of the implementation of our Economic Development Strategy and we are looking forward to having the communications tools we need to be effective,” said Economic Development Manager, Kurt Overmeyer.