2014 – 2017
Collingwood is a vibrant town located in the heart of Southern Georgian Bay.
The area is well known for its many natural amenities and its shipyard building heritage. It has become a destination for tourism and acts as a gateway to the Southern Georgian Bay region, with stunning landscapes that encourage an active lifestyle, and inspire the local arts and culture community. The Niagara Escarpment provides world class hiking provided in large part by the world renowned Bruce Trail. Many of the posts on my website feature hikes along this trail, all of which are local to Collingwood to some degree.
The lifestyle and recreational activities are one of the reasons we relocated here.
More recently, the harbour front area is emerging as an extension to the downtown district. Plans for expanding the amenities and events in the harbour front area promise to make this a much more prominent tourism destination.
When we moved here from Victoria in 2013, I thought it would be good to do some work for the Town as their branding was not as professional as I thought it could be.
After applying for the position as Director of Marketing and not being selected as even a potential candidate, despite having specifically visited the Town Hall Recruitment representative on duty and offering my services for 50% of what the Town was advertising as the salary for the position (I explained that I would spend the other 50% on web development out of that budget), I then approached the fellow who ultimately was given the position and said to him; “You need me.”
Steve played an integral part in developing the branding for the inaugural Collingwood’s Economic Development website. From initial ideas to imagery, photos to finished creative, Steve has provided turnkey, strategic and responsive solutions that have set a new creative standard for the Town of Collingwood.
– Martin Rydlo. Director of Marketing & Economic Development. The Town of Collingwood.
After another meeting or two between us, we established a working relationship and I went on to develop the architecture, strategy and design of the first dedicated Economic Development Website and over a period of three years, created a wide variety of materials ranging from advertising campaigns to marketing materials.
Below are just a few of the projects we conceptualized and implemented for the Town of Collingwood.
The Project
We were asked by the Town of Collingwood to develop the architecture, strategy and design of their first dedicated Economic Development Website.
The project was very collaborative and included both the public and private sector during the development process. We were pleased with the result.
- Complete Re-Branding. Rebranding is a marketing initiative in which a brand’s identity ( i.e. its “look and feel”) is changed, typically for the purposes of influencing how a brand is perceived in the minds of its consumers and stakeholders.
- Responsive Website Design. Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behaviour and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation.
- Custom CMS Development. Custom Content Management Systems mean customized functionality, increased security and the benefit of full ownership.
- Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms, SEO means the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines whenever people search for.
Slider Banners and Ads…
This series of slider banners showcase the Town and the lifestyle available in Collingwood, featuring imagery of Georgian Bay, the iconic Shipyard Terminals and the Town itself. We also used these as a series of ads which appeared in local print media to promote the new website while using local photographers to capture the very best images of Collingwood.
Collingwood’s Economic Development Advertising
The first and most important part of creating exceptional branding and value proposition advertising starts with the photography and building campaigns around visuals. During my conceptual process, I spent several months interviewing a variety of photographers and probably only touched the surface but feel we started the process working with the best we could find – like Jeff Schouwaerts and Colin Field.
The results are visually compelling advertisements (above).
Responsive Design
People who browse while on-the-go have very different needs than those sitting at a desk. Responsive web sites re-organize themselves automatically according to the device viewing them, so that the same website provides a great experience everywhere. We felt it critical that the Town integrate Responsive Design as a crucial element of the new website initiative and the results were an excellent, completely mobile compliant website.
In 2017, Steve mentioned to me in one of our last meetings that he had purchased the domain name discovercollingwood.ca as he felt that was something which our department would be interested in developing. He later donated that domain to the Town, assuring the continued use for the future of Collingwood’s online presence. Thanks Steve.
– Martin Rydlo. Director of Marketing & Economic Development. The Town of Collingwood.
Discover Collingwood
Our first year here gave us the chance to do a lot of exploring, which we enjoyed, spending several months going on short local excursions to see what the surrounding areas offered and where Collingwood fit into the overall scheme of things and what became obvious is that Collingwood had a sense of history and was situated in a very geographically accessible location north of Toronto right on the shores of the incredible Georgian Bay so, we chose to take full advantage of what is so obvious.
While tinkering with these ideas, I realized that no one owned the rights to discovercollingwood.ca so I booked it and later DONATED it to the Town, with the express direction that it be incorporated into the Town’s marketing initiatives.
Branding Collingwood
I like to think of branding a destination as a visual exercise in creating the perception the destination wishes to achieve… a sense of place.
As mentioned, we were new to Collingwood when I began conceptualizing this work, but I believe that’s what has always given me an advantage throughout our travels. That fresh look that others who have lived in an area for decades may no longer see with such fresh eyes.
Here is the first set of ads we created (above).
The Town’s Presentation Folder
With a strong emphasis on developing new branding, the look and feel of all the complimentary elements worked together to create a coherent communications package. This presentation kit allowed the Town to send out informational packages to businesses and families wishing to relocate to Collingwood or considering the move.
A nice piece which allows for several additional elements to be inserted.
Collingwood Sell Sheets
We also developed a series of Sell Sheets, which could be sent to interested parties in investing in Collingwood and followed the new branding. Not surprisingly, I love them. I think they were exactly what the Town needed to shake off the existing old town look.
I wanted to visually show the proximity to Toronto, Ontario’s major business centre to Collingwood, in an effort to entice businesses to relocate to Collingwood.
By the end of 2017, the town and I were moving in opposite directions as to what the marketing message should really be and the promotional and marketing material decisions had come down to my contact person having to request approval for virtually any expense through a committee of staff within the town with no design experience or background driving the direction. Basically, at that point, as is fairly obvious, the Town allowed the in-house IT Department to maintain the websites and of course, that shows. An IT Department has no design or marketing training.
Yes, the town has a lot of housing developments happening, but no new businesses that I can tell have relocated here, or at least any that would attract young educated people to live and work here. All that seems to be coming to Collingwood are fast food locations, Tim Hortons, Pot Shops and Pizza Joints. I see very little to no businesses which would attract young people to relocate here.
I understand the draw of the area totally though as I did maintain my business for 7 years after moving here before retiring, but very little of that business ever came from the area. The small pieces of business that I did work on had very small budgets and were more of a nuisance than a pleasure for me.
Local Success Stories
When we launched the new website, we also launched a section to help promote local businesses by integrating an option for the Economic Development Branch to update regularly. That part of the website is still live and features several business including My Collingwood, Wordjack Media, Mountain Goat Film Company, myself at The Steve Roper Group, Content Refined, and Smash Reality.
You can see this online here >
Postcards
Putting together a complete presentation package for the Town meant inserting a series of postcards which reflect the direction of the website and set a high standard visually.
When sent to businesses, there could be signed by the Mayor easily… a nice finishing touch on personalizing each sales kit.
The Winter Wonderland Website
2014 was our first year in our new home and living in Collingwood, along the Georgian Bay. It’s a beautiful small community with lots of exploring to be done and we were very pleased to get involved quickly with the development of the annual Collingwood Winter Wonderland campaign and website this year.
- Create an Identity for Collingwood’s Wonderland
- Develop a Website
- Create the Ad Campaign
- Design the Billboards
- Design the Signage
The Winter Wonderland Advertising Campaign
The ad campaign started out being nice and simple… a clean statement with a nice visual and evolved as the program developed. However, the red signage became a fixture and a way-finding system for the entire winter festival and looked great in the snowbanks throughout the town.
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