Writing, and telling, the Edmonton story
Two years of work imagines new way to think, speak about city
A 21st-century city doesn’t need a brand or a slogan.
What a 21st-century city needs is a strong sense of identity. What it needs, perhaps, is an origin myth in which it can take collective pride. A shared defining narrative that feels real, and not like something dreamt up by an out-of-town marketing firm.
The Edmonton Economic Development Corp. is scheduled Tuesday to present a new “brand book” to Edmonton city council, based on two years of work done by a community volunteer group called Make Something Edmonton.
But this brand book doesn’t have a slogan or a logo. It doesn’t really have a brand at all.
It’s more like a storybook, a somewhat idealized vision of Edmonton as an open, tolerant, welcoming city of risktakers and inventors, where your ideas and your initiative matter more than your pedigree, and where people work together to build a community.
It may not be an entirely accurate picture of Edmonton. But there’s no doubt it’s an appealing one, even if it shows the romanticized Edmonton we might like to be more than the Edmonton we truly are.
Instead of one tag line, the brand book features images of a culturally diverse Edmontonians, offering upbeat “statements of encouragement”:
“Take a risk. It’s the most Edmonton thing you can do.”
“Some cities are finished. Others you can change. This one’s your lab.”
“Five minutes here and you’re one of us.”
“What are you making? How can we help?”
But the goal isn’t so much to coin a new municipal catchphrase to put on a bumpersticker, bus bench or a road sign, as to find a new, coherent, shared way for business, cultural and community leaders to think and speak about Edmonton.
“The best place to live, work and play didn’t work,” says journalist-turned-novelist-turned-communications-consultant Todd Babiak, one of the godfathers of the Make Something Edmonton initiative. “Gateway to the North, Festival City, City of Champions, they didn’t work. If they had, we wouldn’t have our image problems. And Calgary words like ‘world class’ just don’t work here. In Edmonton, people make fun of them.”
Instead, says Babiak, this campaign aims to get businesses, arts groups, postsecondary institutions and politicians telling the same story about Edmonton, using the same four core messages about risk, inventiveness, openness and cooperation.
It all sounds a bit highconcept. But Brad Ferguson, president and CEO of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp., says his organization has already used these brand principles to redesign its tourism promotion and its main website. EEDC will use the same tactics to promote the Shaw Conference Centre and its startup initiatives, including TEC Edmonton and the Edmonton Research Park. Next, says Ferguson, they plan to work with flagship Edmonton organizations, including Stantec, the Katz Group, the University of Alberta and the Edmonton International Airport, to get them all onside and on message.
But Ferguson says they would like the City of Edmonton, as a corporation, to buy into the brand-book narrative, too. That doesn’t just mean slapping “statements of encouragement” on roadside billboards or changing the font on the city letterhead.
Ferguson says he wants to see city hall adopt a more risk-taking, supportive culture itself.
“‘What are you making and how can we help?’ I’d like to see that printed on the back of every City of Edmonton business card.”
Council, on Tuesday, won’t necessarily decide anything. The EEDC and Make Something Edmonton are simply presenting the brand book to councillors for information, as a progress report. It will then be up to councillors to decide whether, or how, they want the city administration to adopt any of the brand ideas and whether they’ll budget any extra money for the project.
“Our issue is that we have to get our story straight,” Mayor Don Iveson says. “It’s about changing culture, and you can’t do that by passing motions. It’s about dialogue and buy-in. As a politician, am I going to talk about these messages when I go to Toronto next week? Absolutely, I’m going to talk about these messages.”
And that’s the point. We don’t need a brand, a slogan, or even a collection of “statements of encouragement” — slogans by another name. We need is a shared story, a shared sense of why people should live, invest and visit here. If this new grassroots brand campaign can create that shared sense of pride, that shared origin myth, then we really will have made something Edmonton. psimons@edmontonjournal. com Twitter.com/Paulatics