Tagline up for debate

Live Outside the Ordinary replaces Where Roads and Rivers Meet as suggested new city marketing slogan

Is Peterborough ordinary or not?

Councillors heard the proposed new city tagline Live Outside the Ordinary last week at City Hall.

They were receiving an update from local marketing firm Brand Health on the progress of a new project to create an appealing new brand for Peterborough. It’s still unclear whether council will adopt the tagline.

There was no debate about it last week. Both councillors who offered opinions – Coun. Dan McWilliams and Coun. Gary Baldwin – said they liked the tagline.

City treasurer Sandra Clancy said staff is excited about how the branding process is taking shape, and she asked council to “stick with them” until more work is complete.

The city is also expecting a logo and colours to go with the tagline.

This is the second tagline Brand Health has pitched: the first one, Where Roads and Rivers Meet, was rejected by council in the summer after it was widely panned by the public.

Yet some citizens were equally unhappy with Live Outside the Ordinary – and they weren’t shy to speak up on social media.

The city is paying Brand Health $77,000 to develop a tagline, logo, colours and a guidebook explaining how to use the new branding in material related to the city.

That’s just a portion of what the city will spend on the branding project, though.

Draft budget documents for 2018 state that the city has $152,000 set aside already for branding (which includes new promotional material to implement the brand).

The documents suggest the city also put aside an additional $75,000 in 2019 for more promotional material. That would bring the total cost of the branding project to $227,000.

The Examiner’s website offers livestreaming, tweets and blogging from the meeting. It all begins at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

NOTE: See more city council coverage on Pages A1 and C1.