Live Outside the Ordinary tagline scrapped

Council has deep-sixed the proposed new city tagline Live Outside the Ordinary.

Instead, they voted to have city staff come up with some new options for proceeding with the new city rebranding exercise.

City treasurer Sandra Clancy said that could mean tweaking the current tagline – It’s a Natural – which councillors said they prefer, and then coming up with a new logo.

“I’d like some time to come back with some options for you,” Clancy said.

This is the second time council has rejected a proposed tagline from local marketing firm BrandHealth: the first one, Where Roads and Rivers Meet, was dumped by council in the summer after it was widely panned by the public.

Yet some citizens were equally unhappy with Live Outside the Ordinary, which was proposed by the firm last week; there was much chatter about it on social media, over the last week.

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

Coun. Keith Riel said nobody’s in love with either of BrandHealth’s taglines.

He said the feedback he heard over Live Outside the Ordinary has been poor – and he didn’t want to adopt it or continue to use the services of BrandHealth.

“I’m for cutting our losses and keeping the tagline we have,” Riel said, referring to Peterborough – It’s a Natural.

Coun. Don Vassdiliadis said maybe council is overthinking the tagline – and maybe the current one, It’s a Natural, should stick (with new logos and colours).

Coun. Dave Haacke said he hasn’t heard any positive feedback about Live Outside the Ordinary – and he thinks It’s a Natural may well be the best tagline for the city.

But Coun. Dan McWilliams said he’s upset with the idea of sticking to the “same old” tagline.

He urged councillors to think more progressively and adopt BrandHealth’s latest suggestion.

“C’mon guys – let’s move ahead here,” he said.

Coun. Gary Baldwin said the colour scheme and logo is missing, so it’s too soon to decide.

“We don’t have the complete package,” he said.

He also said he doesn’t think citizens will be happy with any new tagline, at this point.

But Coun. Dean Pappas said he heard nothing but terrible feedback on Live Outside the Ordinary, and he wondered whether citizens could receive a number of options and then offer their opinions.

Coun. Lesley Parnell said she doesn’t like Live Outside the Ordinary – and she heard from many constituents that they don’t like it either.

She suggested “flipping” the tagline to Live the Extraordinary, which leaves out the negative connotation of the word ‘ordinary’.

“But we’ll never, ever please everyone.”