As sad as it is for us to say here at MCC, the summer that we grew to love is quickly coming to a close. School supplies are taking over our stores, the weather is growing cooler, and yellow school buses can be seen driving through our neighborhoods. All of these signal the end of a great summer, but we still have one last thing to do before we pack away our swimsuits and sunscreen – hop on over to the Minnesota State Fair!

As every Minnesotan knows, the State Fair is an incredibly unique experience that takes place right here in the Twin Cities. Besides gaining a few extra pounds eating fried and on-a-stick variations of foods, here at My City is Cool!, we think the Fair also a great opportunity to get to know our community. Where else can you see just how many unique restaurants, musical groups and businesses of every shape and size come together to show off what they’ve got? It’s a uniquely Minnesotan experience that showcases not only how special our cities are, but how special our state is. Getting to see baby farm animals isn’t too bad either. Make sure you take in this last bit of summer, and remind yourself how cool our cities really are. See you there!

As you probably know by now, one lucky small business in the Twin Cities is going to walk away from this initiative with $250,000 worth of integrated marketing services, courtesy of Echo Creative. We’ve been taking you on a journey through these services, both to show off how awesome we are, and to really drill it into your head what an incredible opportunity this is for any small business here in our community.

This week, we’re going to take a closer look at a commonly overlooked (but very important) part of branding and marketing – Environmental Design. It’s not just the product itself that matters, or even how beautiful the packaging holding that product is – the type of environment you surround that product with has a huge impact on how well it is going to sell. You want the environment to enhance the product, not to overshadow or undersell it. A well-designed environment not only has the ability to make an amazing first impression on a potential customer or client, but to create those lasting relationships that help small businesses thrive and grow. My City is Cool! is giving one small business the chance to see what a great environment, as well as other design services can, do for their business.

We’ve been pretty busy here at My City is Cool!. Our time has been spent roaming the streets, preparing for the Fall, and most importantly – filming amazing footage of some of the most unique local businesses the Twin Cities have to offer.

Here’s our video production team doing a shoot at Bars Bakery in St. Paul. We were so fortunate to get an intimate look into how the business operates on a day-to-day basis, and were able to capture the spirit of the bakery on film. Bars Bakery and its staff were a pleasure to get to know, and it really solidified the reason we started MCC those many moons ago. Each small business we have here in the Twin Cities has its own unique vision, and we would love to get to know as many as we can. Go ahead and leave us a comment, or visit our Sign-Up! page to get involved.

You know that MCC loves to be involved within our community, because that’s what the initiative is all about – interacting with local people and businesses, getting out on the streets, and celebrating all the diversity that makes our city so cool. But the outcome of this initiative really is to help one local small business grow to produce and advertise like a big business. So every few weeks, we’d like to feature some of the services that Echo Creative will be providing the one lucky small business who is chosen for the prize.

This week, we’ll take a look at branding, which includes logos, color, typography and more. People remember good brands because they connect with the consumer and give your good or service a unique identity. Echo Creative can create a brand identity for your business that is memorable, and leaves the consumer with an emotional attachment that will keep drawing them back in. Brands that have been crafted and maintained well will create brand loyalty and a lasting relationship between the product and the consumer. My City is Cool! is giving one small business a chance to utilize this, and all the other creative services up for grabs.

Whew! The past few weeks have been a great time to be a member of our Twin Cities community – 4th of July weekend brought us the parades, time with friends, and three-day weekend that we desperately needed. And who doesn’t love a good fireworks display?

But what really stood out to us in these past few weeks was the Basilica Block Party that took place this past weekend. We’re always impressed with all of the unique festivals our cities have to offer, but the message of philanthropy and community that the Basilica Block Party promotes struck a chord with us this summer. Seeing our large community come together to support an important historical monument year after year showed us what strength the Twin Cities have. My City is Cool! wants to push that strength and philanthropy to its limit to make these cities we love even cooler.

Happy Pride Fest! Now that the weekend’s festivities have subsided, we wanted to give a quick MCC shout-out to everyone who came down for the parade and festival. We love to see our community get together and celebrate any occasion, and this weekend’s Pride Festival was no exception.

Photo credit: Bailey Sears

The strength of the support for all of our GLBTA community members was so inspiring, and it really solidified part of what the My City is Cool! campaign means – making connections and building lasting relationships within the Twin Cities. Any time a community can come together despite individual differences and simply celebrate with each other, that’s the hallmark of a great city. We had a great time, and are honored to call these vibrant cities our home.

While watching the amazing metalworking process take place in Sign Minds, making our MCC sewer grate icon come to life, we got to thinking about how My City is Cool! was created, and how far we’ve progressed from there.

Creation begins with a singular concept, and ours was simple – our cities are pretty damn cool. We wanted to showcase our beloved Twin Cities, and leave our mark (literally!) on the streets we all travel each day. A lot of time, energy, and maybe a little sweat has gone into building this campaign from the ground up. Seeing this metal sewer grate come to life before us, this physical icon that is tied so closely to the cities we love,  is a strong reminder of why we create, and more importantly – what we are creating for. Thank you so much for our continued support, and keep a close eye on those sewer grates; you never know where MCC might be!

Welcome all to our first blog post! We’re super excited to launch this initiative and see what we can do to help grow our local economy and make our city cooler than it already is!

Stay in the loop by checking back here often with new media including videos that might just muscle-up some local star-power and business moguls that tell the story of why Minneapolis and St. Paul are too cool.  Our small businesses are the back-bone of our economy, let’s see what they can do when they have the opportunity to expose and illuminate the businesses unique personality to its full potential. Thanks for any and all support!