The Motor City: Rebuilding Detroit's Image Post-bankruptcy

Rebranding is a marketing strategy often used by companies. The rebranding of a city is not only less common but far more complex. By 2013, the city of Detroit, Michigan was facing a multitude of problems: declining population, crumbling roads and bridges, abandoned properties, an alarming school drop-out rate, poverty, high cost of pension plans, government corruption, growing crime and crippled emergency services. The 2008 recession had dealt a serious blow to its core automotive industrial sector, and although some high tech companies were moving in, the “Motor City” was wallowing in debt. In July 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection, which was granted that December. Its financial emergency manager was able to strike deals with its major debt-holders, the banks, and with the city’s largest union, but these forward steps were threatened when the water department started cutting off water to households that could not pay bills that had risen 120 per cent over the past decade. How does a city facing outraged residents and investors, that lacks infrastructure to such a degree that almost half of its traffic lights are non-functional and that is in an atrocious financial state repair its image and attract new investors?

This case is intended to be used in an MBA level marketing course on sustainability and public policy with the following objectives:<br><ul><li>To discuss the implications of marketing strategy and product and retail innovation on corporate financial strategy.</li><li>To show how an institution like a city with many diverse stakeholders and conflicting interests can rebrand itself not to seek profits but to survive as a thriving major metropolitan centre.</li></ul>

• Rebranding
• government
• bankruptcy
• urban renewal
• United States