Work continues on new city brand

The City of Lethbridge is working toward developing a community brand to better position itself to attract business.

Economic Development Lethbridge CEO Trevor Lewington appeared before city council recently to provide an update on two specific strategies on the Intelligent Community Initiative, including place brand survey results as well as the development of a place brand.

The process began in 2015. Lewington said the initiative has been community driven and facilitated by Economic Development Lethbridge.

“All the feedback has come from the public and our residents,” he said.

According to the place brand survey, citizens of Lethbridge have a high level of attachment to the city.

“The thing that matters the most in Lethbridge is social offerings,” said Lewington. “The ability for people to get together and connect.”

The survey identified three core strengths as seen by Lethbridge residents.

This City has been perceived as a good place for diversity, especially for families with young children. Education has also been identified as a strength, particularly postsecondary institutions. Finally, aesthetics are important to local residents, but not in terms of attachment to community.

That information is useful in looking at development of a place brand for Lethbridge.

Lewington said research for the City’s Intelligent Community Initiative has shown 86 per cent of place brands fail within one year of their introduction, and that more than $75 million had been spent on those failed brands.

“So we were not interested in failing within a short period of time or wasting money unnecessarily,” he said.

The City of Calgary is an example of successful place branding. Lewington showed how once that city identified its place brand, community and partner organizations slowly changed their fonts, colours and image style to better match the place brand of the city. The result is a unified image as these organizations work to better identify themselves as part of the Calgary community.

The challenge for Lethbridge, then, becomes how to compete with a city the size of Calgary with a unified image.

“If we are going to become competitive at 100,000 people, we need to be sure we do the same,” said Lewington.

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