St. Albert’s new botanical arts brand helped propel the city to three first-place awards at the Economic Developers Association of Canada’s (EDAC) annual conference in Quebec City.
St. Albert won in the branding/brand identity over $600,001 category for its new brand, “The Botanical Arts City” and tagline “Cultivate Life,” which were officially launched in February. The dollar figure refers to the overall economic development budget for organizations in that category.
When looking for a new brand, tourism development co-ordinator Joan Barber said the city wanted something that fit nicely with St. Albert.
“Branding, as you know, is extremely difficult and it seems that lots of communities and cities brand and nobody is pleased with the end result,” she noted.
“We did do a lot of community consultation and I think we worked very hard to make sure that the brand was right for St. Albert.”
So far, Barber said the feedback they’ve received on the new brand has been positive.
“Everyone has bought into it,” she said.
“The Cultivate Life was what really engaged people because they used all the different taglines, ‘Cultivate the athlete in you,’ ‘Cultivate the artist in you,’ everybody could buy into it.”
St. Albert also received first-place honours in the digital media over $600,001 category for its tourism website, www.visitstalbert.com.
When the website was launched in June 2009, Barber said the city was working on its branding initiative and wanted something that could be easily modified to incorporate the new brand.
“We put together a very basic website that we knew we could easily change once our new brand came in, so … it wasn’t a lot of work to just basically update it to reflect the new brand,” she explained.
Although winners receive no feedback from judges, Barber suspects the website’s intuitiveness and ease of use both worked in the city’s favour.
St. Albert’s Cultivate Life seed packs with the tagline, “Cultivate the Gardener in you” earned the city its third first-place win at the September EDAC conference.
The package, which was designed by the city’s in-house designer, Megan Straker, included sweet pea seeds provided by Hole’s Greenhouses & Gardens.
Barber said the city was looking for a low-cost item that could be handed out in bulk and which would convey the city’s message.
“It was really a double-whammy when it came to ‘cultivate’ because you go home, you cultivate the soil, you plant [the seeds] and sow them. We had numerous people report back who said, ‘Wow, those seeds grew really well,’” she said.
“Then, all summer long, you’re looking at your sweet peas and saying, ‘Wow, I’m cultivating life in St. Albert.’”
Barber said the city received three medals from the Economic Developers Association of Canada for their first-place awards.
“We were very delighted because we were competing in the very highest category that you can compete in, we were competing against the Calgarys and the Halifaxes of the world.”
