Work
Cherokee Office of Economic Development
Turning a County’s Strategic Plan into a Connected Brand Experience
From Strategic Plan
to Place Brand
Turning a County’s Strategic Plan into a Connected Brand Experience
Background
The Cherokee Office of Economic Development (COED) had an ambitious strategic vision: position Cherokee County as one of the Southeast’s premier places to build a business, launch a company, grow a career, and live a meaningful life. Their strategic plan, Cherokee By Choice, wasn’t simply a marketing campaign, it was the foundation for attracting investment, supporting entrepreneurs, recruiting talent, and strengthening the county’s long-term economic vitality.
Creative Mischief partnered with COED to transform that strategy into a cohesive brand experience, one that could be expressed consistently across digital platforms, storytelling, and communications.
What we did
Strategic Messaging
Digital Experience
Video Storytelling
The Challenge
Economic development organizations often communicate with multiple audiences at once:
- Corporate site selectors
- Existing industry
- Entrepreneurs and startups
- Investors
- Workforce and talent
- Community partners
Each audience has different needs, but they all need to believe the same thing:
Cherokee is the place to choose.
Our challenge was to create a narrative that unified these audiences while giving COED a flexible platform for future growth.
Our Approach
Rather than beginning with design, we began with strategy.
We immersed ourselves in COED’s strategic plan, stakeholder priorities, and long-term vision to identify the central story that connected every initiative.
From that work emerged the idea that became the organizing principle for the entire engagement:
Cherokee By Choice.
Instead of treating it as a slogan, we developed it into a brand story, a narrative that explained why companies choose Cherokee, why entrepreneurs build there, and why talented people decide to live and work in the community.
That story became the foundation for every communication that followed.
What We Delivered
Strategic Messaging
- Brand narrative and positioning
- Website messaging architecture
- Audience-focused content strategy
- Storytelling framework aligned to the strategic plan
Digital Experience
Video Storytelling
- Cherokee By Choice video scripts
- Story development
- Narrative framework
- Audience messaging
One Brand. Four Connected Experiences.
Creative Mischief designed and developed a connected family of digital experiences that bring the Cherokee By Choice brand to life across every stage of Cherokee County’s economic development journey.
At the center is the Cherokee Office of Economic Development website, a flagship destination that reflects Cherokee County’s business climate while making it easy for investors, businesses, entrepreneurs, and community stakeholders to find the information they need.
From there, we extended the experience into a connected ecosystem supporting key initiatives across Cherokee County’s economic development mission.
Together, these platforms create a unified digital ecosystem where each site serves a distinct audience while reinforcing the same central brand story:
Cherokee By Choice.
The Impact
Our work helped translate an economic development strategy into a cohesive public-facing brand, one capable of supporting business recruitment, entrepreneurship, workforce initiatives, and community storytelling.
Together, the four sites created a connected digital ecosystem rather than a collection of standalone program pages. Each experience serves a unique audience while reinforcing the same central idea: Cherokee By Choice.
Instead of creating isolated marketing pieces, we built a scalable communication platform where strategy, messaging, websites, and storytelling all reinforce the same central idea:
People don't simply end up in Cherokee. They choose it.
Why This Matters for Economic Development Organizations
Every economic development organization has a strategic plan. Very few have found a way to make that plan feel like something people want to be part of.
Cherokee By Choice shows what’s possible when a brand story is built from the plan itself instead of layered on top of it, and when that story is designed to travel across an entire digital ecosystem, not just a single homepage.
For EDOs juggling multiple initiatives, program sites, and audiences, the lesson translates directly: find the one idea your strategic plan is really trying to say, then build every site, page, and script to say it in the same voice.
Lessons for Economic Development Leaders
What This Says About How We Work
At Creative Mischief, we don’t start with websites.
We start by understanding where a community wants to go.
Then we uncover the story that makes that vision meaningful to the people who matter most — businesses, investors, entrepreneurs, talent, and community leaders.
Because when strategy drives the story, every touchpoint becomes stronger.