NEW INITIATIVE
CEG and ACE announce rebranding and talent attraction campaign
ALBANY, N.Y. » The Center for Economic Growth (CEG) and the Alliance for the Creative Economy (ACE) announced a new initiative on Tuesday morning designed to attract new residents and new talents to the Capital Region. The announcement, held online, unveiled the new brand that the Capital Region has been labeled with: CapNY.
The branding work by ACE informs the CEGlead talent attraction campaign that includes a new website and social media channels, along with social media placements targeted at young professionals. The idea to create a brand came from ACE’s early conversations among the region’s creative and business communities and “the fact that the region does not have a way to talk about itself.”
“We don’t want the Capital Region to be the worstkept secret,” said Katie Newcombe, the chief economic development officer for CEG. “We want people to move here because it’s vibrant and fun.”
Newcombe described the Capital Region as a place that is “steeped in history, but at the leading edge of modern technologies.” She believes that the new branding efforts will give the Capital Region “the ability to compete with top metro areas.”
The CapNY brand comes with the slogan “New York’s Capital Region. A million strong. CAPable of aNYthing.” According to Maureen Sager, the lead consultant for the brand initiative, it was developed with input from thousands of Capital Region residents.
The website for the CapNY brand showcases the eight counties of the region - Albany, Columbia,
Greene, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Warren, and Washington. The website is divided into eight main sections, one for each county, which contain subsections highlighting topics such as dining, entertainment, affordability, and success stories. It also links to various social media platforms.
According to Gabby Fisher, the senior producer of the CapNY initiative, the website’s primary function as part of the new brand is to convince millennials and GenZs that moving to the Capital Region to live and work is the best choice they can make. Individuals in New York City and Boston are particular targets of the campaign. Fisher claimed that the Capital Region is better than big cities like New York or Boston for young professionals because it’s more affordable and has more unique features.
Fisher gave a brief demonstration of the new website, https://capny.us/, and then invited several people to share their success stories as transplants to the Capital Region. Speakers included some of the brand’s sponsors.
“This campaign will help young professionals see that that they’re going to write the next chapter of our story,” said Matt Markham, vice president of communications for Albany Medical Center.
Sager pointed out that the new brand and new website is for people already living in the Capital Region as well, not just the targeted individuals.
“CapNY is for everyone who’s here,” Sager said. “We want to make sure we’re telling all our stories in a unique way.”