GNO, inc.

The region’s premier economic development organization serving the 10-parish region of Southeast Louisiana.

Overview & Objectives

Greater New Orleans, Inc., (GNO, Inc.) is the region’s premier economic development organization. In the post-Katrina years, GNO, Inc.’s research showed a negative perception of New Orleans in the national business community, as promulgated by the media. Thus, Bond Moroch was tasked with the objective of molding positive perceptions of the Greater New Orleans region by supporting GNO, Inc.’s mission to drive business development and wealth creation in the 10 parish Greater New Orleans region.

Over several years, Bond Moroch helped enhance the image of Greater New Orleans by focusing on aggressive media relations and regional marketing efforts around GNO, Inc.’s targeted projects.

Approach

Focusing on GNO, Inc.’s four dedicated growth areas: energy, international trade, advanced manufacturing, and digital media, Bond assisted with coordination, execution, and media relations on several specific projects.

FAM Tours

Every quarter, GNO, Inc. conducts a Familiarization Tour, where they fly in national site selectors and trade media to tour specific parishes. The tour highlights regional incentives, strength areas, and available sites in an effort to promote the region as a viable location for business expansion or relocation.

Bond’s tasks included targeted site selector database development and outreach to trade media and trade associations to secure participation.

Marketing Missions

In addition to FAM Tours, Bond assisted GNO, Inc. in coordination of marketing missions, where economic development officials, along with local business leaders, travel to ‘hub’ cities, such as San Francisco and New York, to promote the region’s growth areas and incentives by taking meetings with viable new business leads. Bond assisted by coordinating desk-side interviews with relevant media in the respective cities, as well as making introductions to relevant business contacts in those cities.

Conferences, Trade Shows, & Events

During our work with GNO, Inc., Bond assisted in promoting several trade shows, conferences, and events paramount to GNO, Inc.’s mission. Goals ranged from building pre-coverage of the event to drive attendance to securing national media to attend and cover the events. Bond’s team helped to successfully promote and manage media relations for SIGGRAPH (digital media and computer graphics); TribeCon (education); Katrina 10; MLG World Finals (Major League Gaming); RES/CON (resiliency and disaster management); and more.

Legislative Efforts

GNO, Inc. works with regional business leaders and target sector committees in advocating for legislative policies that reduce costs, increase investment and attract new companies to the area. Bond assists these efforts, using media coverage as a tool to increase awareness of and support for such public policy initiatives.

Over the years we have help successfully pass legislation, such as REEL and the RESTORE Act, and have also assisted with pushing through major policies, including the National Flood Insurance Program with FEMA.

Regional Marketing

In addition to promoting GNO, Inc.’s four growth areas, Bond assisted in marketing the region as a viable location for business and development by highlighting unique regional incentives, low costs, innovative new companies, and one-of-a-kind quality of life. We secured feature stories on the New Orleans region from a business perspective in premier outlets such as Entrepreneur magazine, Wall Street Journal and CNN.

Financial Report Development

Each quarter, GNO, Inc. releases a review of the 10-parish Greater New Orleans region, which it then distributes to its stakeholders and disseminates around the region. Bond assisted in development of the entire document before handing it over to the publishing group for final design.

The report included a look at Louisiana’s position relative to the current economic trends, a profile of Michael Hecht, new President and CEO of GNO, Inc., as well as an overview of positive economic indicators and regional success stories.

Results & Impact

Over the several years we worked with GNO, Inc., Bond secured significant media coverage locally, regionally, nationally and in key trade publications—positively supporting the team’s economic development efforts and conversations with businesses looking to move or set up shop in the region.

Sample coverage includes: The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur magazine, CNN, Pacific Standard, Forbes, Associated Press, World Trade 100 Magazine, Site Selection Magazine, CG Society, Gamasutra, Game Developer 2009 Government Game Incentive Report, Platt’s Gas Daily, Water & Waste Digest, New Orleans CityBusiness, all local TV stations, WWNO-FM, The Advocate, The Times-Picayune, Baton Rouge Business Report, The Atlantic, The Washington Times, The Republic, Biz New Orleans, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and many more.

Bond assisted in facilitating significant meetings with partners, key business leaders, media and more. Bond also secured speaking engagements for GNO, Inc.’s key leadership. We successfully managed on-site assistance for conferences and FAM tours.

Our work paid off: New Orleans has been on a positive growth trend for bringing more jobs and business to the region for the past decade. The city has accumulated multiple accolades and awards, from #1 in tech growth to population growth to #7 in business overall. GNO, Inc. was also recently named one of the top 10 economic development organizations in the country. Our region’s economic outlook is strong, and it’s largely due to the work of organizations like GNO, Inc. We are extremely proud of the work we accomplished with their distinguished team.