Better marketing  a need for Ohio

'Could we afford swimming pools for kids?'
6/24/11
Thumbs up to beautiful homes
6/24/11
Charles Krauthammer: U.S. needs a new way to decide when we’re at war
6/24/11
Treasurer: ‘County finances can be rather complex’
6/24/11
'He's right on target'
6/20/11
> More opinion headlines

2:26 PM Friday, February 5, 2010

Gov. Ted Strickland’s State of the State speech offered an impressive litany of things that recommend Ohio. They don’t necessarily recommend the governor himself — any more than the better-known list of negative statistics about the state can necessarily be blamed on him.

But they are worth remembering. To name some:

• Ohio ranks first among the states for renewable and advanced energy manufacturing projects.

• The Council of State Governments said Ohio ranked first last year for the total number of new green jobs created.

• Ohio residents pay 10 percent less for electricity than the national average.

• The Small Business and Entrepreneurship council ranks Ohio’s business climate 11th in the nation.

• Ohio is the only state where exports have grown every year since 1998.

• Venture capital investments have been growing more than 20 percent per year, which is two times the rate of growth nationwide.

• Ohio’s colleges have had the lowest increase in tuition in the country during the last three years (though it must be said that the cost was high to begin with).

• The Pew Center on the States said, as state budgets go, Ohio is not in as much financial distress as many other.

• Ohio has the seventh-most aggressive energy standards, which is important in spurring utility companies to provide new types of power.

Ohio too often doesn’t get credit for these attributes (and others). The state has always, it seems, been notoriously bad at packaging its advantages and promoting them. We proceed as if we think people will just happen to notice or discover Ohio’s special qualities, and the facts will speak for themselves.

In an age when marketing has never been more sophisticated, relentless and omnipresent, Midwestern humility really can be a problem.

Maybe Ohio can work a trade with people who are better at this sort of thing.

Gov. Strickland said this in remarks that Cincinnati’s Procter & Gamble is excited to have cut a deal with Ohio universities whereby it will start relying more on their research capacities. The company, he said, has come to the realization that, on its own, it can never have enough people working to foster new products and improvements in existing ones.

To ensure this sort of cooperation can happen easily, the governor said Ohio has created a model contract that will take the hassle out of negotiating research agreements (which can be complicated because of concerns about patents, licenses and whatnot).

Such collaborations and knowledge exchanges are the way of the world today.

But has anyone ever thought about getting P&G — and others like it — to share some marketing prowess with the state?

That company can sell shampoo to bald people and improved detergent to people who already have clean clothes. Surely, there’s something state government can learn from it.

If Ohio’s strengths have a low profile, blaming the public for not knowing them doesn’t make much sense.

Cox News Service

Share this article