Castlegar Current
December 4, 2008
By Kyra Hoggan

Sometime in the New Year, the city will be holding an open house to unveil the ideas brought her by Twist Marketing’s Chris Fields—ideas on branding the city to attract investors, tourists and resident to Castlegar.

Before the open house takes place, though, I have a plea—please, oh please, keep your eyes on the prize as you judge what’s on offer.

There are two fundamental rules that apply to both journalism and marketing: you have a maximum of 10 seconds to nab your reader’s attention before it strays elsewhere, and; know your audience.

Think of an auditorium that’s full to capacity, but in which the performance has not yet begun. All the slogans, taglines, advertisements, billboards and ballcaps we see and hear every day are like the buzz of conversation in the auditorium—they all blend into a single, inarticulate hum from which you might garner a word or two here or there, but never any meaning.

Marketing, like headlines, should be the shouted, “Hey you!” in that auditorium that makes everyone (or at least those within earshot) stand up and take notice—without it, no matter how good or well crafted your message, you simply won’t be heard.

This is why branding matters—it’s the hey-you that sets you (or your city) out from the crowd. You don’t have to like the phrase, or consider the yelling approach a true reflection of yourself—you just have to get everyone’s attention so they’ll hear what you have to say.

This is true of branding as well. You may be conservative, mild, even a little timid—but if your branding reflects that, then you’ve wasted time, money and resources branding yourself at all.

“We have pretty rivers and trees,” may be true enough, but at the end of the day, it won’t be noticed and your city will fade into oblivion, if it hasn’t already. So when you head to the open house, don’t focus on whether the advertisements give you a warm, fuzzy feeling, or even whether they describe Castlegar as you know it—instead, ask yourself if they hit that hey-you high that will make them effective and meaningful in a global media auditorium long since full past capacity.

Next is the “know your audience” piece.

Branding aimed at those of us already living in (and, not incidentally, invested in) Castlegar is very much like the pastor preaching to the choir. It won’t hurt to reinforce the message, maybe, but mostly it’s just wasted breath.

The goal here is to draw those not already invested in Castlegar; those who have literally thousands of communities to choose—why should ours stand out to them?

Don’t indulge in the knee-jerk response to whether you like the material at hand—set aside your own feelings for a moment and take responsibility for the city’s goals. Do the more difficult analysis of whether the approach will appeal to our target market.

Do you even know who our target market is? City staff do—ask them. City councillors do—ask them instead, if you like.

Fields said one of our target markets encompasses the “Dilberts” of the world—the big-city, harassed, overworked and under-appreciated mid-level executives, probably between the ages of 35 and 50, who have money to invest in a better quality of life here in Castlegar, and who will bring with them the investment dollars and innovative abilities to contribute to our economy and our lifestyles in a meaningful way.

What appeals to them may not delight the 65-year-old woman born and raised in the Kootenays, and I would suggest to that woman this: get over it.

We need Dilbert to make sure our grandkids have jobs and can stay here after graduation, so what rings Dilbert’s bell is, in this instance, more important than liking our brand enough ourselves to crochet it and hang i on our refrigerator.

Finally, one last bit of advice: I didn’t share with you specific taglines and potential mottoes like “XOXO” — although I think one or two of Fields’ ideas approach genius—for a reason. DON”T let yourself get hung up on the minutiae at the expense of the big picture.

This whole exercise is about big picture—nothing less than the future and sustainability of our community and our lifestyle—and we simply can’t afford to lose sight of the forest for the trees, no matter how pretty those trees (and the rivers, etc.), may be.

Look at the whole campaign, the whole ideas-set first rather than losing yourself in its component parts.

Does it achiever our end goals?

Will it reach, and resonate with, our target audience? Will it help us attract the investment, not just of dollars, but of vibrancy, creativity and innovation we need to fare well in these new and challenging times?

And whatever you do, lease, oh please, don’t reduce it to a simplistic, “Do I like it?”.

Now, more than ever, we need to keep our eyes on the prize.