Very Interesting

Sometime in the New Year, the city will be holding an open house to unveil the ideas brought her bChris Fields—ideas on branding the city to attract investors, tourists and resident to Castlegar.

Before the open house takes place, though, I have a plea—please, oh please, keep your eyes on the prize as you judge what’s on offer.

There are two fundamental rules that apply to both journalism and marketing: you have a maximum of 10 seconds to nab your reader’s attention before it strays elsewhere, and; know your audience.

Think of an auditorium that’s full to capacity, but in which the performance has not yet begun. All the slogans, taglines, advertisements, billboards and ballcaps we see and hear every day are like the buzz of conversation in the auditorium—they all blend into a single, inarticulate hum from which you might garner a word or two here or there, but never any meaning.

Marketing, like headlines, should be the shouted, “Hey you!” in that auditorium that makes everyone (or at least those within earshot) stand up and take notice—without it, no matter how good or well crafted your message, you simply won’t be heard.

This is why branding matters—it’s the hey-you that sets you (or your city) out from the crowd. You don’t have to like the phrase, or consider the yelling approach a true reflection of yourself—you just have to get everyone’s attention so they’ll hear what you have to say.

This is true of branding as well. You may be conservative, mild, even a little timid—but if your branding reflects that, then you’ve wasted time, money and resources branding yourself at all.

“We have pretty rivers and trees,” may be true enough, but at the end of the day, it won’t be noticed and your city will fade into oblivion, if it hasn’t already. So when you head to the open house, don’t focus on whether the advertisements give you a warm, fuzzy feeling, or even whether they describe Castlegar as you know it—instead, ask yourself if they hit that hey-you high that will make them effective and meaningful in a global media auditorium long since full past capacity.