The Town is one step closer to giving itself a new identity.
Branding Boot Camp Week kicks off on Monday to determine a new brand direction for the Town of Okotoks.
Roger Brooks and his team will be back in town from Jan. 11 to Jan. 15, leading the rebranding committee in sessions from Monday to Thursday. The team will include a graphic artist to provide logo and slogan design.
Boot camp week combines feedback from initial sessions with Brooks in September, when he met with Town employees, business owners and community groups and the public to determine what residents and non-residents want the town to be known for. The sessions were followed by online surveys.
“Roger was here in September to kick-off our branding program and the feedback was generally very positive with a great energy,” said Okotoks economic development manager Shane Olson. “The idea is to find a potential new brand direction for Okotoks.”
The Town’s rebranding taskforce and economic development have been reviewing results from over 900 completed surveys since the fall in preparation for boot camp week, he said.
Results will help guide the committee workshops throughout the week, and will be revealed to the public during a session at the Rotary Performing Arts Centre on Jan. 15.
“We’ve been going through all of our feedback and surveys, pulling out commonalities, and those will be the driving force for our workshops,” said Olson. “It will all unfold and develop over the week.”
He said the branding process is more than creating a slogan, tagline or logo for the Town, it’s about creating a culture that can attract more people —visitors and businesses — to Okotoks.
The 13-step rebranding process, now over half completed, will continue into the spring, he said, as the brand is refined and the next steps are identified.
“We’re all learning as we go and it’s quite an experience,” said Olson. “It’s not every day you go through a process like this with an international company.”
Okotoks and District Chamber of Commerce CEO Cheryl Actemichuk said she is looking forward to hearing the outcome of boot camp week and the surveys.
She said the September session was “eye-opening.”
“You hear so many people talk about their wish list for downtown, and going to (Brooks’) presentation and having those ideas validated was so great,” said Actemichuk. “To see the majority of people thinking the same way was pretty exciting.”
As a resident of Okotoks for 22 years, Actemichuk has seen the town evolve through different brands. When she first moved to town, the slogan was “Spirit of Youth,” accompanied by a logo that had colourful balloons.
While she said she would like to see the brand return to something that reflects the young and active community of Okotoks, she said the most important thing is that a new brand truly represents the town.
“Some people are asking, ‘Does it matter what it’s called?’ It does,” said Actemichuk. “It’s like Nike, Lululemon, they have their brands and their slogans, their identifiers.
“I’m excited to see how Okotoks is going to be rebranded and identified, and how the chamber can collaborate with all of these stakeholders to get this ball rolling.”
The public session with the Roger Brooks team will be held on Jan. 15 from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. at RPAC. Space is limited and filling fast, so pre-registration is required.
To register for the session, visit www.okotoksventure.ca.
A video of the presentation will also be available on the Town of Okotoks YouTube channel and www.okotoks.ca within three weeks, and videos of the September presentations are currently available online.
