Breadcrumb Path Hyperlinks
Native NewsLocal BusinessBusiness
Purchase-in from the non-public sector and different organizations, like Calgary Sports activities and Leisure Corp. and Suncor, will probably be elemental if the town desires its new slogan to stay, mentioned a advertising professor at Mount Royal College
Article content material
As Calgary swaps its cowboy and power imagery for a reference to its sunny skies, a advertising professional says the town’s new slogan would require a monumental effort to get it to stay — however early indicators present it could possibly be successful.
A brand new tag line for Calgary — the Blue Sky Metropolis — was unveiled Wednesday by Calgary Financial Growth, Calgary Tourism and a slew of metropolis organizations in tech, the humanities and tradition.
Commercial 2
Article content material
Article content material
Town will ditch its present slogan, Be A part of the Vitality, which was launched within the early 2010s.
“The truth that they obtained to the race they usually obtained the bib on and are working is big — however that doesn’t get (them) to the end line,” mentioned David Finch, a advertising professor at Mount Royal College who’s held a number of govt advertising positions at firms together with Rogers and Bell.
“If it’s only one individual working it, you’re useless.”
The announcement comes after a number of years of “intensive” analysis and focus teams, mentioned Cindy Ady, CEO of Tourism Calgary. A brand will are available in due time, mentioned Brad Parry, president and CEO of Calgary Financial Growth.
“This isn’t meant to be a ‘flip the change and all the things modifications,’ ” Parry mentioned.
A direct nod to Calgary’s maybe lesser-known status because the sunniest metropolis in Canada, the slogan was crafted as an emblem of “sudden prospects, the place ambitions are as massive because the blue skies we converge underneath,” Parry mentioned. It serves as a catch-all, he mentioned, for the town’s variety and increasing mixture of financial sectors.
Parry mentioned the slogan isn’t a deliberate shift away from Calgary’s long-standing status as a metropolis dominated by the power trade and Calgary Stampede. “I feel, if something, it embraces our heritage,” he mentioned.
Midday Information Roundup
Article content material
Commercial 3
Article content material
Companions wanted to assist slogan succeed: professional
Whereas the heavy lifting has solely begun, the preliminary slogan “has some legs,” Finch mentioned.
“You can begin proudly owning quite a bit whenever you’re beginning to lean into one thing just like the Blue Sky Metropolis. I might see how blue — which might contradict and problem the official purple of the town — could possibly be used very successfully,” he mentioned.
However that may all be for naught if CED and the town don’t get buy-in from firms and teams equivalent to Calgary Sports activities and Leisure Corp. (CSEC), who can advocate for the model and assist it turn into a part of the town’s id.
“You want companions like (CSEC) and others who’re ready to lean in and begin proudly owning the Blue Sky Metropolis as a part of their model, as a result of they see it as they’re contributing,” Finch mentioned. “The essence of the Blue Sky Metropolis is the Calgary Flames, the Stampeders, Theatre Calgary and Suncor.”
Calgary looking for to enhance status
The change comes after two research discovered Calgary’s status is comparatively poor amongst Canadians who stay exterior Alberta.
A type of research, authored and printed in June 2022 by Finch and two researchers for the Canada West Basis, discovered 44 per cent of respondents from Vancouver and Toronto mentioned they’d by no means transfer to Calgary. Simply 33 per cent of these respondents additionally considered Alberta as having a various inhabitants regardless of Calgary being the third-most numerous metropolis in Canada.
Commercial 4
Article content material
In the meantime, a 2021 ballot from Maru Public Opinion discovered half of Canadians wouldn’t really feel comfy dwelling in Alberta. It additionally discovered there’s a notion that life within the province runs counter to the frequent objectives of Canadians. On the heels of that report, Calgary Chamber of Commerce CEO and president Deborah Yedlin referred to as for the town to rebrand and alter its status.
Advisable from Editorial
Varcoe: Be A part of the Vitality no extra, Calgary — welcome to Blue Sky Metropolis
Chamber says Calgary wants a rebrand to draw employees, replicate variety
With Calgary slogans, having power cannot compete with being phenomenal
The transfer is Calgary’s third slogan swap in lower than a quarter-century.
Calgary’s present tag line on welcome indicators on the sting of the town learn “Be A part of the Vitality,” a slogan that was adopted in 2011 to draw enterprise and employees. “Coronary heart of the New West” preceded that tag line for 15 years, after being adopted on the flip of the millennium.
‘No expertise is shared extra broadly than our lovely blue sky’
A number of key gamers have already endorsed the brand new slogan: Joel Cowley, CEO of Calgary Stampede, who was among the many group of metropolis leaders at Wednesday’s announcement, mentioned it’s becoming as a result of the Stampede most frequently occurs “underneath Calgary’s blue sky.”
Commercial 5
Article content material
“Once you cease and give it some thought, there is no such thing as a expertise that’s shared extra broadly than our lovely blue sky,” Cowley mentioned.
If the town fails to deliver companions and the non-public sector on board, Finch mentioned, it might go the best way of Alberta’s ill-fated $25 million “Freedom to create, Spirit to attain” marketing campaign, which was cooked up in 2009 underneath former premier Ed Stelmach and despatched to the dustbin two years later by then-premier Alison Redford.
Leaders from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Arts Commons, the Centre for Newcomers, Calgary Lodge Affiliation, Platform Calgary, Ask Auntie Consulting, Calgary Arts Growth and Calgary Immigrant Girls’s Affiliation had been all in attendance at Wednesday’s announcement.
Parry mentioned the subsequent items of the rebranding will probably be an “natural course of” over the approaching months.
mscace@postmedia.comX: @mattscace67
Article content material
Share this text in your social community
