The Town of Sundre’s strategy to foster farther-reaching interest in the municipality continues to evolve.
During the Monday, July 30 meeting, council was presented with an update on potential slogans and concepts for advertising campaigns guided largely by data that indicates family women with children are the prime target demographic.
Representatives from Bragg Creek-based AdMaki Creative outlined the new branding direction in the marketing effort to promote Sundre as not only an affordable and convenient destination to spend quality recreational time visiting and exploring, but perhaps even also living in and setting long-term roots.
“They’ve come up with some really great concepts that they’re here to present to you to inform you before we move forward and finalize some of the ads that will be created and shown,” said Jon Allan, economic development officer.
The intent of the presentation was “to ensure that the messaging that we’re doing meets the expectation and satisfaction of council,” said Allan, who then introduced creative director Mark Kamachi, manager of client services Tanya Kamachi, as well as art director Kate Bushey.
“We were quite involved in the rebranding of Bragg Creek post-flood in 2013,” said Tanya, adding work remains ongoing with that municipality among others including Mountain View County.
Despite a temporary power outage — lights were restored later during the presentation after first flickering back on and off several times — the delegation proceeded in the dark without the PowerPoint slideshow, although a printed package was circulated.
“We, as a communications company, cannot do our job without good research and analytics — some actual facts,” said Mark.
“We don’t just pull things out of the air,” he said, explaining the presentation before council was based on research collected from the previous 2015-17 marketing campaign.
The foundation of the "Visit, Live, Explore" initiative, which helped bring exposure to Sundre, laid the groundwork to further evolve the campaign to establish a brand that seeks to build an emotional connection, he said.
“We know our target audience is a working mom who has a family,” he said, describing the demographic as often being a household’s main decision-maker.
“Whether you want to go camping, hiking, fishing, whatever the activity, mom’s a decision-maker, so we have to make sure that we can connect with her,” he said.
He added that in no way means forgetting about “dad, the kids, the family dog, relatives, friends visiting — all of that are part and parcel of growing Sundre’s reputation.”
However, a main goal nevertheless remains to elicit an emotional response from working mothers that entices them to add Sundre to their busy itineraries, he said.
“If we just throw a statement out there that’s blank and invokes no emotion then we’re not doing our job…we want to appeal to our target audience.”
Equipped only with rough hand drawn draft designs, Mark said first conveying a coherent message that resonates is more important than a flashy, full-coloured slogan that lacks substance.
“If you can get a concept based on a Sharpie and a piece of paper, once you add colour, font, photographs, illustrations, music, sound design — it all evolves the personality of Sundre.”
Among the first concepts shown was a highway billboard, a challenging form of advertising that offers a rather narrow roughly three-second window to extend a clear, concise message to motorists passing along on the highway at speeds of 100 kilometres per hour, he said, adding frequent commuters are likely to see the sign more than once.
“The first concept here is the bull rider, and the headline is ‘Visit one of our playgrounds for a few bucks,'" he said, a play on words referring to the municipality’s numerous available playgrounds, parks, trails and recreational amenities as well as of course two major annual rodeo events.
Another design features the slogan “Explore the limits of your vanity,” illustrated by a woman enjoying the time of her life on a whitewater rafting adventure, unconcerned by dishevelled, wet hair as her mascara runs down her face. A third design encourages potential visitors to “Explore many dinner options in town” depicted by a fly-fishing angler reeling in his catch.
Other important considerations in the campaign are the Sundre Pioneer Village Museum, local golf courses as well as horseback riding opportunities out on the backcountry trails — teased by the play on words “Explore the backcountry on quads," referring to horses as quadrupeds, said Mark.
“Those are experiences that people don’t realize are here,” he said, adding Sundre is barely more than an hour from Calgary’s massive market.
“Play up on the assets that you have.”
Although places such as Ya Ha Tinda are not a part of Sundre, the municipality serves as a gateway to that vast outdoor expanse.
“That is something you have to harness.”
Wrapping up his presentation, Mark said the company was hired in part through funding from a Travel Alberta grant.
Coun. Paul Isaac asked the presenters how their company would assist the municipality in encouraging more through-traffic to stop in town.
“What information would you give us to help tourist people coming from Calgary stop in Sundre?”
The best form of advertising is word of mouth, said Mark, and social media plays a significant role in increasing exposure to a town’s assets. Many moms are "social media junkies" with networks of other people to potentially tap into. But businesses also have to create a memorable experience that compels people to commit to making a return trip, he said.
Additionally, as the municipality works to develop a new web presence, AdMaki will play a consulting role to help maintain advertising synergy across platforms, said Tanya.
“Your website will play a key role in capturing people,” she said, adding that creating an emotional connection is just one step.
“But we need to get them to act.”
Developing partnerships tying local businesses such as hotels and restaurants with regional enterprises including whitewater rafting or horseback riding to perhaps offer combo travel packages is another avenue worth pursuing, she said.
“Because there is such close proximity, I think that will become key to get people to do these outskirt adventures, but then draw them into town because now they’re not having to travel super far.”
Council proceeded to carry a motion made by Coun. Rob Wolfe to endorse the conceptual destination brand marketing campaign as presented.
Coun. Todd Dalke raised the sole hand against the motion, telling the Round Up the marketing campaign seems perfect for local events but not, to his perspective, for the municipality.
“I don’t want to be a punchline,” he said, referring to the puns used.
The councillor said he voted against the motion as he felt it should not yet have been brought before council and that he had anticipated more options for consideration.
The existing Visit, Live, Explore campaign’s photographs are essentially postcard worthy and to Dalke’s mind elicit more of an emotional response than what was presented to council.
However, he conceded that the proposed advertisements remain early on in the sketch design stage, and once complete with professional stock pictures might yet turn out to become something quite captivating that he could get behind.
