Capital Region brand getting a makeover
Campaign aims to attract more millennial and Genz residents
The Center for Economic Growth and Alliance for the Creative Economy, as well as other local agencies, released a new brand and talent-attraction campaign for the region on Tuesday morning, hoping to recruit new residents to the area.
The campaign, called CAPNY, short for “Capable of Anything,” aims to sell the eight counties of the Capital Region — Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Warren, and Washington — as one cohesive metropolitan area with more than one million residents cumulatively. The campaign includes a new website, social media channels, and social media targeted ads for young professionals in New York City and Boston.
“There was a recognition that as a region we didn’t have a way to talk about the place we call home,” said Katie Newcombe, the chief executive development officer at CEG, during Tuesday’s virtual event. “And if we can’t define it ourselves, how do we talk about it to other people in the world?”
“We started asking ourselves, why aren’t we better known? Why aren’t we as well known as the Hudson Valley or the Berkshires right next door to us?” said Maureen Sager, the executive director of ACE. “We had a brand recognition which we were able to test in New York City and Boston of 30 percent. Just two hours away and nobody knew about us.”
The campaign hopes to recruit millennials and Gen Z in particular because there is a trend nationally of them leaving
high-cost cities for more affordable markets, even before the pandemic. But that has since accelerated, Newcombe said.
During the pandemic, there has been a surge of people moving from New York City to the Capital Region, which was confirmed by data The Capital District Regional Planning Committee obtained from the U.S. Postal Service’s change-of-address requests.
Capny’s website includes an affordability calculator, firstperson stories about what it is like to live here written by residents, and lists of how and
where to volunteer in the community. In efforts to thwart the myth that the Capital Region is not a good place to start a career or grow a business, the website also highlights different industries and companies looking to hire, including the campaign’s investor companies.
“(Transplants) have unintended effects on the communities (where they) end up,” Sager said about the possibility of displacement of current residents. “We are committed to managing the impacts this campaign can have. We want to make sure that it benefits everyone . ... We don’t want to lose track of the people who live there. We want to be for the people who live here too.”