Developing a Brand for Grande Prairie

There has been quite an uproar in the community over the development of the new city slogan. Many have expressed issues with the proposed slogan, some feel that the City should have hired a local company to develop the brand and others feel that the process is a waste of money. I’ll try to address each of these issues.

Branding is the process of creating an image for an organization, company, product or community that allows you to more easily describe a key message you want to relay. In the case of Grande Prairie, the brand that’s adopted should be both an honest depiction of the community today as well as reflecting an image of where we would like to be in the future. Branding is not necessarily something that is mandatory for an organization to do, however, every organization, business and agency gets “branded” whether they like it or not. I feel that if it’s at all possible, it’s wiser to help direct that brand rather than allow it to develop in an uncontrolled manner. Branding also has the potential to attract people and businesses to your community, depending on how well you market the brand.

City Council made the decision almost 2 years ago to develop a brand for Grande Prairie. There are hundreds of cities around the world that have already done this with varying degrees of success. Since the process began, there have been a number of public open houses and focus group meetings to allow for public input. The branding document that was produced, was created based on those meetings and was subsequently adopted by City Council. This document made up the bulk of the work and the tag line (or slogan) and logo, were to be the next steps. It’s important at this time to mention that the city’s nickname, Swan City, is not going to be replaced, nor is the City crest. Those 2 elements are part of the city image, but aren’t necessarily affected by the tag line and logo.

In terms of hiring local companies for this, I wish it were possible. The major challenge we have when choosing proposals for these types of projects is that the City is not allowed to favour local companies over others that bid. There is provincial legislation that allows for fair competition, through the TILMA agreement, and the City could face fines for breaching this legislation.

As for the cost of the branding process, I believe the budget was a total of $65,000 by the time the entire process is completed. At this time, the costs have been “frozen” until the City can get past the slogan and logo phase. There are a few members of the public who are concerned over the costs on a go forward basis. City Council has chosen to keep the costs at a minimal level. Since we aren’t necessarily replacing the City’s crest, the new logo will only be replaced on business cards, letterhead, decaling and so on, when the current stock runs out or in the normal process of replacement. The phasing in allows us to keep additional costs at a bare minimum.

The new slogan and logo has not been decided on at this point and will unlikely go through in its current form. The consultant, GDS, has done a good job at gathering public input and developing the “brand promise” to date. The tag line and logo is a small part in the entire process, but has caused us to reach a bit of a sticking point. As an organization, the City is welcoming additional input from residents to try to overcome some of the differences in opinions. We’ve also changed the process to get all of council’s input in on one session instead of just going to committee. It means a little more work and attention from Council, but this seems to be fairly important to many in the community. In fairness, there are a lot of other programs and issues that Council and staff have been working on that have taken priority over choosing a new slogan. Council has decided to dedicate a working session on the slogan to have one final look at all the input that’s been received and review it in the context of the brand promise that was developed. I expect that a decision will be made and we’ll move on to the final steps.

As a final bit of information, here’s and excerpt from the branding document that summarizes the brand promise that was developed:

“In Grande Prairie, you will have opportunities to achieve your dream. In Grande Prairie there is a willingness to try new things. Your creativity and ingenuity will be received with an open mind. We offer an environment that nurtures your innovative spirit, and a friendly nature to help you achieve your goals.”