NORTHAMPTON — Western Mass is the new brand being unveiled in a joint marketing campaign by the Greater Springfield Visitors and Convention Bureau and the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts to promote the region to tourists and draw people into the local workforce.

The use of Western Mass means that the former West Mass branding — announced with fanfare in February but immediately met with negative feedback from the public — is being abandoned in favor of a term already familiar to those who live, work and study in the Pioneer Valley.

“We opted to course correct,” said Mary Kay Wydra, the bureau’s president.

“Our hope is that we all start talking Western Mass and use the same language,” Wydra added.

EDC President Rick Sullivan said the decision to put West Mass on pause in April was made as evidence mounted that it wouldn’t work.

“We were asking people to call ourselves something we’re not,” Sullivan said in an interview with the Gazette’s editorial board Tuesday.

But Sullivan and Wydra say the partnership between the two Springfield organizations and the campaign, which will primarily be used to promote the region in Boston, New York City and Connecticut, are important for the companies and institutions throughout the Pioneer Valley that are finding it difficult to fill positions.

“We were really looking for a brand that resonates outside the region to attract people in,” Sullivan said. “Why not tie the message for economic development to travel and tourism?”

There have been constant challenges in recruiting, training and retaining talent in the region, something Sullivan learned when he began in his position 2½ years ago.

“The biggest issue, in fact pretty much the only issue, was workforce,” Sullivan said, referring to the region’s employers.

Sullivan said members wanted to deploy a marketing term that would allow the region to be talked about in a positive way.

“That hasn’t been done before,” he said.

The marketing work is tying in with one of the primary strengths of the region, specifically the community colleges and vocational schools.

EDC is working to match skill sets and ensure this translates into what is needed by employers. Sullivan pointed to Chinese rail car maker CRRC MA USA working with students at the Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy, the close connections between Holyoke Community College and MGM, which will operate the casino in Springfield, and Greenfield Community College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst teaming up on environmental sustainability education.

Sullivan said his organization is working to create career pathways and better training to supplement existing workforce development programs that have proven insufficient to meet the demand for current and projected job openings.

“It’s a different place with different opportunities than it was 10 years ago,” Sullivan said.

Both Sullivan and Wydra are confident that the marketing campaign can be successful in getting people to learn more about what is offered in the region, in addition to the well-known attractions such as the Basketball Hall of Fame, Yankee Candle, Six Flags New England and the Eric Carle Museum.

“It’s all about a geo-locator for us,” Wydra said.

Critics OK with pivot

Wydra said she remains pleased with the work done by Cubic Creative, a company based in Oklahoma, observing that it was an internal decision to push for West Mass. The company was hired at a cost of $80,000 to help with the branding effort, according to Wydra.

“The work of Cubic got us to Western, we went one step further,” Wydra said.

After the organizations reached out to detractors, the Isenberg School of Management at UMass surveyed members of both organizations, people in the GSCVB’s leisure database, EDC’s site selectors, millennials and others through social media. The results found 97 percent preferred Western Mass to be the term used for promoting the Pioneer Valley region of Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties.

Cubic’s work has created a style guide and a campaign that uses the phrase “find your firsts.” Local designers are being hired to translate elements of this into print and video.

Dylan Pilon, an East Longmeadow digital marketing and e-commerce intern who launched a petition against West Mass at change.org, praised the leaders of the organizations for making the pivot to a term that is used in the region.

“It was very nice of them to acknowledge and listen to the people,” said Pilon, who was among those invited to participate in the follow-up survey.

Pilon wrote on the online petition that “there is zero value to changing the name from ‘Pioneer Valley’ to ‘West Mass.’”

“I’m glad they made the pivot,” Pilon said. “It’s very good for the area that everyone who lives here can embrace that.”

“I think it's great that they listened to feedback from people and decided to stop the West Mass angle,” said Aaron Wood, a design consultant who works in Northampton.

Michael Ash, an economics professor at UMass who lives in Amherst with his spouse, Krista Harper, agreed with this sentiment.

“My wife and I are both fond of Western Mass as the term for our region,” Ash said.

Wood said the visual branding still seems dated and could be revamped, but he understands that is likely not going to happen with the money already spent.

While the style guide remains an issue for Ash and Harper, too, it’s a minor consideration.

“We were not especially partial to the font and layout of the West Mass campaign, which we thought looked outdated, but they are less obtrusive to residents than was the proposed name change,” Ash said.

MGM will help region

Meanwhile, next year’s opening of MGM can only benefit the region, Sullivan and Wydra said. Sullivan said MGM has made efforts to tie itself into local businesses and pledged to spend $50 million locally, while conventions and other visitors could fill hotel rooms.

“From a tourism perspective, we see it as bringing tourists here,” Wydra said.

While there may only be so many dollars people can spend, Sullivan said the economic pie can get bigger, and that cities and towns worried about losing out to the casino should welcome people who otherwise might not come to western Massachusetts.

“When you knit it all together, it’s a compelling story why people should come here to visit, but also why people should come here to live and work,” Sullivan said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.

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