If you have driven between Lynchburg and Roanoke on busy Route 460, you have passed through Bedford and may not even have known about it. Perhaps you would have stayed longer if you knew about the cool downtown, the wineries or the four world-class attractions like the Blue Ridge Parkway, National D-Day Memorial, Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest and Smith Mountain Lake.

With such great assets, tourism could be as important to Bedford as it is in places like Williamsburg and Charlottesville. That’s why they hired Mikula-Harris to develop the brand strategy, ad campaign, website and more.

One piece of the strategy is to change the perception of Bedford as a pass-through location between two cities. It’s now being marketed as Destination Bedford. And there is nothing ordinary about it.