We were recently asked to submit some marketing ideas to the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) for the 2012 World Women’s Cup coming to Edmonton in summer of 2012. The bid called for the creation of an identity for the event as well as some ideas on how the IBAF could market it in Edmonton. The great thing about Edmontonians is they love sports! Oilers and Eskimos’ games regularly sell out and smaller sporting events are generally well received as well. Knowing this, we wanted to create an exciting identity that would stand out among some of the larger sporting events.
A couple of us had played baseball when we were younger and felt a strong connection to the project, so naturally when we were brainstorming this new identity we thought it would be easy to come up with something unique and relevant. However, upon putting pencil to paper, we realized this was going to be a lot harder than originally anticipated. The first thought was to come up with something very sporty feeling, not unlike the Final Four or All Star Game logos. First Shot…not so good.
After a few attempts at this, we realized this wasn’t going to create the impact we wanted. One of the first ideas we worked on was using the shape of home plate, or the shape of the baseball diamond. So we started to think about other shapes that showed up in the sport and one that seemed to really work was the stitching on the ball.
Playing with this idea morphed into working the W’s from World Women’s Cup into the stitching. Getting there…
A few failed ideas later we had finally settled on something. The shape abstractly references the stitching on a baseball, while making the shape of 2 W’s.
Added type (Which also proved to be exhausting…8 words and a maple leaf in one logo! Yikes!) and color and after a bit of tweaking here and there it was done!
Check back later for part 2, where we’ll talk more about logo usage and some of our marketing ideas.
The Edmonton Arena District is a hot topic right now. Dare I say even hotter than the closure of the Municipal Airport (which by the way we are completely stoked about—awesome job Councillors!). Let the evolution begin!
That’s right. The Jungleheads and virtually everyone we’ve talked to supported the closure of the Muni, and now support the development of the EAD 100%. We see the vision. We want it to happen. We want to be a part of it. Now it’s just a matter of City Council getting it done.
Why do we support it? Let me count the ways.
The current situation is broken.
If we look at the existing situation and location with Northlands and Rexall Place, be it Oilers games, concerts, exhibitions, rodeos, shows, etc.—it’s broken.
What makes it broken? Because we (Edmontonians) say it’s broken.
Northlands clearly doesn’t think—or care that Edmontonians think it’s broken and there are some people out there with ulterior motives and conflicted interests that will preach to us that it isn’t broken. But all it takes is a quick look at some of the incredibly daft, narrow-minded comments on the various blogs out there and you’ll soon see that it doesn’t matter how broken this situation is, some haters (you know who you are), attempt to knock others down with negative comments and say, “I don’t think it’s broken fool…and here’s why….”
News flash haters—I don’t care that you don’t think it’s broken. If I think it’s broken, it’s broken. If Eric thinks it’s broken, it’s broken. If Sarah thinks it’s broken, it’s broken. If anyone thinks it’s broken, it’s broken!
How many Edmontonians out there love to race home after work, then race to Rexall, then hoof it for 3 blocks in freezing cold temperatures through the dumpiest part of the city; all just to watch mediocre play whilst forking over way too much money for bad beer and worse food; then hoof it for 3 blocks back to their unheated cars in freezing cold temperatures again, trying to beat the rush, and finally race back home? I doubt there’s any, but we do it anyway. What we have is one of the worst brand experiences in the entertainment industry and it’s amazing to see what Edmontonians will put up with just to be entertained. I wonder how positive and successful the situation could be if the entertainment experience in this city was fun? Warm? Easy? Taking this one step further, I wonder what it would be like if the downtown core was more exciting? More beautiful? More desirable to live in and be around?
The bottom line is the Edmonton Arena District solves more problems than it creates.
The evidence. There’s lots of it.
Read some of the blog posts out there. Councillor Iveson’s is a great place to start. Some people choose to look at the information, a.k.a. the “evidence,” and good on them for doing it (someone’s got to). While evidence is important, it’s not what Edmontonians are interested in. Evidence is what lawyers and accountants are being paid to come up with on both sides to rationalize their decisions and to persuade with in their pitches. I’m not interested in commenting on the evidence of either side, which is why I choose not to write about it.
In my opinion, rationale is not enough. Why? Because Edmontonians don’t have time for information. We eat on the run, we drive our kids to soccer and dance practice, we work, we workout, we do it all. We do not have the time, nor do we really care to be convinced that what happened in X city and at X arena intellectually was the wrong decision. We don’t care because it has no relevance to us. We are emotional beings and therefore, information isn’t a competitive advantage like it used to be. I'd also like to think that both the Katz Group and Edmonton City Council are smart enough to learn from the past mistakes of others.
This isn’t about the Oilers.
For some reason a lot of people keep bringing the conversation back to the Oilers; and more specifically, the taxpayers funding a billionaire’s hockey team. In my opinion this isn’t about the Oilers. If it were, I wouldn’t have bothered weighing in on this topic in the first place. I don’t care that much about the Oilers—that’s Katz’s business. What I DO care about is Edmonton.
The Edmonton Arena District is much bigger than the Oilers. This is about the evolution of Edmonton as a first class city. It’s about rebuilding a downtown core that we all can be proud of. In Katz’s defense, why should he have to foot the entire bill for a facility his team only plays in a small fraction of the year? Of course he should pay some, but should the City/Province/Nation decide to make a serious push for Expo2017, this is a facility that we would have to build anyway. The only difference is that now we can get it for 50% off. A 50:50 partnership seems fair doesn't it?
Why a partnership? Because a partnership is the only way this idea will work. Partnerships create accountability. Molson failed in the development of Montreal’s arena partly because there was no incentive for the city to make it work. The same goes for the cities that were 100% responsible for building their arenas—there was no vested interest of the teams’ owners. Some people call this proposal "too risky." Yes technically it's a risk, but given the current state of Rexall Place I think it’s a bigger risk for City Council not to pull the trigger on this deal. As a true 50:50 partnership, both sides will make it work because they have to, thus mitigating the risk.
We don’t know how lucky we are.
I think we should consider ourselves pretty fortunate to have a hometown boy that actually gives a damn about investing in Edmonton and evolving this wasteland of mediocrity into an amazing place that everyone will talk about, appreciate, and reap the rewards from for generations to come—not many other cities have this luxury.
Kudos to the Katz Group. Kudos for taking a bashing like they do and still caring about Edmonton. Their hearts seem to be in the right place and we should respect them for it. Kudos for having a vision. Their vision is what has—and will continue to inspire us. As for those who feel a sense of entitlement? Shame on you. You act as if Katz owes us something. Grow up and get real—he doesn’t owe us a damn thing. He is a businessman who owns a team that many Edmontonians happen to care about. At the end of the day the haters and naysayers need to be reminded that he has the right to do whatever he wants with this team—just as any business owner does with their business. Katz has done a lot of good for Edmonton but it still doesn’t seem to be enough. There’s always someone ready to pounce on him for not doing more.
Moving on.
If you are anything like me you want more for our city. Wouldn’t you like it so that when people think of Edmonton they don’t think of “the mall?” Wouldn’t you like it so that when people ask you, “why the heck do you live in Edmonton?!” you have more reasons to give them than, “because my family lives here.” I know I do.
Edmonton is a business, and part of any successful business is caring about customers and creating experiences that we love and are proud of. The Edmonton Arena District (in it’s proposed location) is the catalyst to creating a critically contagious pulse in this city. A pulse big enough to give us not only a minute shot at winning Expo2017, but a chance at becoming a creative and intellectual mecca.
In my opinion we are in the beginnings of what could be one of the most profound times in Edmonton’s history. We are re-establishing our city. This is the age of Edmonton’s self re-discovery.
The sleeping giant is waking up and everyone at Urban Jungle is stoked to live here and be a part of it.
The ripple effects of losing an event like Indy will be detrimental to our City.
Vancouver didn’t know what they had until they lost it—and the same might end up happening to us if we’re not more cognizant of that fact. The only difference is we will never—ever get it back if we lose it. Vancouver’s kung-fu grip will be tight. They’ll never let it go a 2nd time. That being said, if (and that’s a big ‘if’) Edmonton gets 1 last chance at making Indy über-successful in 2011, the following is a list of 21 things that must be done in order to have any hope of a shot at Expo2017.
1. Create a shared vision, purpose and strategy.
Instead of a bunch of disjointed events, create 1 major event, with a central theme running through all supporting events. This gives Capital Ex (under a new name), A Taste of Edmonton, The Edmonton Indy, as well as shops, restaurants, pubs and bars a shared purpose and an aligned strategy. More importantly it gives the customers something to rally behind.
2. Establish ownership by all stakeholders.
Accountability rocks! Wouldn’t it be awesome to see all of the companies involved in running the event put their profits on the line? If it’s a success, you reap the rewards. If it’s a flop, sorry pal—no pay cheque. (This only works if everyone is on board and we don’t have dead weight).
3. Articulate innovation as an organization/event-wide commitment.
Without innovation and a sense of “nowness” you’ll have bored, uninspired staff. This trickles down to bored, uninspired customers.
4. Think long-term.
What do we want this event to be 3, 5, 10 years from now? The short-term, ‘year-to-year,’ ‘go with the flow,’ ‘take it as it comes’ attitude is so “Edmonton.” Let’s get our stuff together. Seriously.
5. Focus on the customer experience—the brand; rather than the internal processes.
Otherwise you are just going through the motions.
6. Focus on challenges of the future rather than successes of the past.
Unless you’re in the business of selling Transformers or the Rubik’s Cube, you cannot build a profitable business on nostalgia.
7. Evolve or die.
Be willing to change when your platform is burning. Even more important—be self aware. Know that your platform IS burning!
8. Leave politics out of it if-and-whenever possible.
Politics can open a lot of doors, but in many cases it leads to sustaining the status quo in order to support entrenched, misguided and conflicted interests. See #7.
9. Reward crisis prevention rather than crisis management.
10. Get rid of any hierarchies that exist.
Inspire. Undermanage. Constantly review new ideas.
11. Fund new ideas in the wake of kiboshing current underperforming efforts.
12. Kill any initiatives that are not succeeding, especially ones that are funded and staffed.
13. Think critically.
Fear of criticizing current practices and commitments is a high-risk activity.
14. Make decisions with your heart.
Addiction to left-brained, analytical thinking (“data is God”) is corporate crack. People are emotional and heart-driven beings. Data is no longer the advantage it used to be.
15. Ideate-collaborate-deviate.
Adopt a more user-friendly idea management processes.
16. Find people that understand (and more importantly care to understand) the customers.
17. Be willing to acknowledge and learn from past failures.
Why is this one so difficult? It shouldn’t be. Own up to your mistakes and move on.
18. Make innovation part of the performance review process.
This goes for every single company/stakeholder/employee/volunteer involved. “How much did we/I innovate this year?” “Did we/I raise the bar?” If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward.
19. Create room for more “spec time” to develop new ideas and opportunities.
Good ideas take time. The best ideas might take longer.
20. Coach innovation and creative thinking.
I’m serious. Just as execs would bring in coaches/trainers into the office for their staff, Indy should do it too. This is after all a business (or at least it should be).
21. Create reward and recognition programs for every portfolio.
People like to know that their hard work means something.
That’s next year’s headline. I’m calling it right now.
No, I’m not an oracle, and no, I don’t have Zoltan in my basement. But I can show you why we’re going to lose what could be—should be—a world-class Edmonton event.
Do you know why? Because we haven’t been given a reason to care! There’s no public buildup of excitement. There’s no celebrity endorsement. There’s no branding to turn the Indy into a can’t-miss experience.
I have to be honest: I’m a little embarrassed to be an Edmontonian right now. Our city was awarded an amazing opportunity! The Indy should be a world-renowned event, even more attractive than the Calgary Stampede (racing vehicles at mach speeds is a bit more exciting and relevant than racing chuck wagons). But the powers that be are completely squandering the opportunity.
How did this happen? (Please circle the best answer.)
a. Many years ago the City awarded an exclusivity deal to Northlands to market and manage all major events (whether penned or implied is irrelevant)
b. Corporate greed, laziness
c. Politics
d. All of the above
If you chose “d,” awesome! You get a gold star.
Exclusivity promotes laziness, complacency, short-sightedness, and greed.
Don’t believe me? How inspiring and memorable is the “Make it your Indy” campaign? Laziness brained it, and laziness approved it. What you see in this campaign is the business model of “let’s do the least amount of work possible and still get paid.”
I’m sorry, but that doesn’t work for me. Organizers should be going above and beyond to make this one of the most memorable events in Canada. Northlands isn’t working hard or getting creative because they don’t have to. They’ve got the job. They’ve got all the jobs. Why put any effort into creating vibrant and exciting events that tell the world that Edmonton is the place to be when you don’t have to?
Northlands is not a marketing or branding company.
Northlands’ business is to provide space and coordinate the logistics of events (and they do a really good job at it), but that’s it. They are not a marketing company. They have failed to generate buzz and excitement around events and draw the throngs of people that should be attending because that’s not what they do!
That’s right. The wise decision makers in our city made an exclusive arrangement to market events that could draw who knows how much tourism with a company that isn’t a marketing company. While this might not be killing Edmonton, it’s definitely holding us back.
Instead the City should award the contracts for creating buzz around events and attracting large crowds to branding and marketing companies. (Earth-shattering idea, isn’t it?) Then they should hold those companies accountable. The current zero-accountability situation simply doesn’t work and is a waste of taxpayer money.
What would happen if accountability existed? For starters, the marketing of the Indy wouldn’t be left up to the sponsors, as it seems to be now. This is ridiculous and something no professional marketing and branding company would do. When sponsors are solely responsible for marketing, they aren’t getting the potential value out of the partnership. No wonder they’ve had an impossible time trying to secure a title sponsor and must find new sponsors every year. I wouldn’t renew my sponsorship either.
Make us care, and we will show up.
We are blessed with a many great cheerleaders in this city. @MasterMaq, @CaryWilliams, @ChrisLaBossiere, @KenBautista among others are all doing their best to help Edmonton evolve into a world-class city. But I’m worried that they too will one day give up, (Please don’t. You guys are awesome!).
Edmonton city council needs to start acting like a business. That means caring about its customers and creating brand experiences that we love and are proud of. Like any business, Edmonton must give the people what they want; otherwise, we will suffer the consequences of our customers’ choosing the competition. Vancouver is our competition. Calgary is our competition. Right now, they have much more to offer our customers.
I find it odd that Mr. Mandel is scoping Shanghai’s World Expo right now. It’s great that he’s taking the initiative, but I find it a little presumptuous. We can’t even manage a little Indy event properly. Does anyone seriously believe that Edmonton could land Expo 2017 if we were to lose Indy? And if we did, what impression would be left at the end of it?
Enough is enough. Quit killing opportunity. Quit killing creativity. Quit killing evolution. We need some new players—people and companies willing to do all it takes to make Edmonton a world-class city. The exclusive arrangement with Northlands has to stop if Edmonton is ever going to have a chance.
I bet the Indy will be pulled from Edmonton’s portfolio within the next year. Perhaps it will be given to a city that actually gives a damn about evolution, creativity, and inspiring its residents to live there. Vancouver—you’re well in the lead. Calgary—you are a close second. Edmonton—you are the dark horse I am rooting for.
Alright…let’s start this entry off with a Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote short, easily one of my favorite duo’s in cartoons.
Now that your brain is thinking cartoons, I want to talk about the Art Gallery of Alberta’s Warner Bros. exhibit that opened up last week. While I personally have not had a chance to see the actual exhibit itself, some of the promotional pieces and events promoting the exhibit are definitely creating a lot of excitement and buzz.
AGA commissioned local illustrators Keith-yin Sun and Judi Chan to do a post card series, where they took classic Warner Bros. characters and gave them an awesome retro-minimalist spin. Check some of them out below…
If the beautiful postcard series and an art gallery exhibit about cartoons isn’t enough to entice you, how about a full blown opening gala? On July 10th, AGA will be hosting a Late Night Art Party, part of their Refinery party series. The event will feature performances from Alberta artists and DJs including interactive live drawings by local designer Sarah Jackson and a limited edition graphic novel penned by Josh Holinaty, an Edmonton illustrator. Sounds like it’s going to be a great time! Come hang out with Urban Jungle that night!
A couple weeks ago, I was discussing mystery and its integral role in creating solid relationships with your customers and clients. Today we’ll outline 2 of the 5 keys to successfully creating a mysterious brand.
1. You have to tell great stories.
If you choose to continue to live in the information world, you will undoubtedly find it is too difficult a place to stimulate action, let alone passion. It is not to say that information doesn’t matter – it does. Absolutely it does. (And all those stats and figures, those matter too). But it is not what attracts people to you. The sale is made long before information even becomes important.
Consider the greatest brands in your city. The greatest brands in your city are probably the greatest story tellers around, plus they probably use their stories to show why the information matters.
Have you ever been to a seminar where the speaker goes on and on with loads of stats, figures and reports? Did that promote you to act and create change? On the other hand, have you ever listened to someone tell a really great story? How did that make you feel? A great story at the right time can change our minds and release the vital “Ah-Ha Moment” because it taps into our emotions (positive and negative, whimsical and painful).
Stories are how you explain the world to yourself. It gives value to the things you love in life. Alice in Wonderland is one of the most interesting and beloved stories of all time, and it will endure forever. Why? Because there will always be someone new ready to hear the story for the first time.
So where do you find the Alice in Wonderland for your company? It comes from people. From the people who love what you do and care enough to tell you. Their experiences can harvest stories worth their weight in gold. Urban Jungle recently received a testimonial from one of our best customers. This story is so valuable we can only begin to describe it. What is it worth? 100 sales calls? Maybe a 1000? Actually now that I think about it, it’s probably worth 10,000; I really hate ‘sales’ calls! But to me it’s worth much more than that because it’s proof that stories and mysteries exist within Urban Jungle. And stories, like ideas are eternal. A good story about you and your company proves that you have fans, people love you, and you are a good person to develop a relationship with.
2. Exercise your past, present and future.
The world’s greatest brands unite learning from the past with understanding the dynamics of the present to create fantastic futures. They recognize that emotional legacy can inspire passion for the current and it can inspire the most loyal of fans.
Look to sports if you ever want to see the past working brilliantly together with the present and the future. When you close your eyes and think of the Edmonton Oilers, historically you’ll envision Mark Messier making plays; Wayne Gretzky scoring goals and shattering records; and Grant Fuhr stabbing his lightning quick glove hand into the air.
With the rush of the past should also appear nightmares of the present with ridiculously overpaid Horcoffs and hilarious losing streaks. And with the disdain of the present, comes dreams of the future in guys like Dustin Penner, Jordan Eberle, (and a 1st round pick yet to be determined) and ‘Oh Canada’ being sung by thousands of fans at deafening decibel levels once again.
Stanley Cups, game winning goals, hockey fever at Rexal Place; the energy created is something truly amazing and it is what will continue to inspire those who love sport to keep coming back for more.
I heard an inspirational saying by the New Zealand All Blacks once that sums this point up so beautifully,
“Preserving your body never enters your mind. Preserving your history never leaves it.”
The hairs stand up on my neck just whispering that.
Craig Blackburn is confirmed to speak at 1:30pm on October 10, 2009 at the Professional Development Seminar for AISEC Edmonton and the University of Alberta School of Business.
Branding Home Run? World Women's Baseball Cup Part 1
Venturing into the Dragons' Den
Remember when you were a kid?
Edmonton City Council - Please Approve the EAD
Edmonton Loses the Indy! (Part 2 of 2)
They recognize that emotional legacy can inspire passion for the current and it can inspire the most loyal of fans.
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