With a wide range of artistic opportunities -- but without broad depth in any one particular discipline -- Helena might consider focusing its tourism marketing efforts on making the city known for educational opportunities in the arts of all kinds.

That was the message from a branding and marketing consultant Tuesday morning, who suggested that Helena brand itself as "The West's Learning Center for the Arts."

Roger Brooks of Tacoma, Wash.-based Destination Development, told a group of some 100 civic and business leaders that the infrastructure is already in place, in terms of both variety and facilities, for Helena to become a destination for people throughout the Northwest and the country to visit to hone their particular artistic abilities.

"Helena has no obvious single resource or raw material that would lend itself into leveraging into a brand," Brooks told the crowd at St. Peter's Hospital. "The one thing that struck us was the breadth but not the depth of the art and artisan activity in town, and the intellectual bent of the residents. If there ever was a town with a foundation, you've got it. So how do you leverage it so you're different? Can this be a place people learn? We had to put a spin on it so you're unique."

People could come here to learn ceramics, or sculpting, or even acting or fly-tying, he said. A brand needs to be something people can do and experience and not just something to look at, Brooks said, so local arts groups would need to beef up their educational offerings.

Brooks has worked for several months with Advantage Helena, a committee made of leaders representing a cross-section of the city.

"It feels good to me," said Matt Cohn, Advantage Helena chairman. "It takes so many of the attributes that we love about our town and makes them stronger. It's not creating something that we're not. So in my mind it's a good direction. Now, does it ultimately look like this? We don't know yet."

Brooks acknowledged that his firm developed the learning center idea without much input from local arts organizations, and that those groups will clearly need to take leadership roles if arts education is the route the city chooses to pursue.

"It would be exciting to the arts group," said Tom Cordingley, executive director of the Grandstreet Theater. "It's kind of what we (already) do, but we haven't taken advantage of it to the point that it would be a brand for Helena. We'd have to restructure and hire some people, but there's time for that. I think it would be good for Grandstreet."

Ed Noonan, director of the Myrna Loy Center, also liked the idea, although he cautioned that the arts organizations won't be able to grow the brand without some help.

"We can achieve this. We have the potential," he said. "My only issue is that a marketing campaign needs to go both ways. It needs to offer some support for the kinds of programs that are being marketed."

Brooks described Tuesday's meeting as roughly the halfway point of the branding process. His firm will now take public comment for several weeks before refining the idea, seeking buy-in from the groups that will need to take leadership roles and developing logos and other marketing materials.

He did show several potential logos and slogans, with "Helena: Your Creative Place" being the early favorite.

Brooks collected more than 100 comments from Helenans over the summer, which he said tended to fall into one of several categories: history, outdoor recreation, the city's general character and charm, and the arts.

He rejected the first three, either because they're not specific enough or because, in the case of Western history, they're already done better elsewhere.

"There are dozens of towns with gold mining history and better remaining artifacts," he said. "It fails our feasibility test as a primary lure -- it's not unique or experiential."

But all of those attractions are what Brooks described as "diversionary," or what people do 80 percent of the time once they're visiting for the main attraction.

For more information, check out Destination Development's complete presentation. To offer your comments on the proposed branding of Helena as "The West's Learning Center for the Arts," email TheTeam@DestinationDevelopment.com.

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com.