One thing that’s always bothered me when discussion of “Spirited Energy” comes up is when people simply respond with “what was wrong with Friendly Manitoba?”
Look, I think “Friendly Manitoba” is a perfectly quaint little slogan that makes us feel good about ourselves and looks nice on a license plate, but I’d be just as down on a major ad campaign based on that theme as I would be about the continuation of “Spirited Energy.”
The problem here is that the provincial government and a few half-interested business folks are trying to market Manitoba like it’s a soft drink. A province like ours is far too big and diverse to be encapsulated with one neat little slogan, and attempting to do so just trivializes all the things that make us great.
Further, place marketing slogans are lame across the board. Seriously, other than “The Big Apple” (which is really more of a nickname than a brand descriptor), does anything else immediately pop into your head? Maybe “Beautiful British Columbia,” which I have visited many times, but never because of the slogan, but rather because it’s actually beautiful!
Which isn’t to say Manitobans aren’t friendly, but unlike mountains and ocean it’s not something to build a campaign around.
So yes, let’s dump Spirited Energy. After all, if Manitobans themselves don’t buy in then it’s never going to catch on elsewhere. But please, let’s not advocate for an equally wasteful campaign built around a nice but equally generic catchphrase.
Related:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: friendly manitoba, province of manitoba, spirited energy
Actually I still think Friendly Manitoba could work. As I mentioned on The Hack’s site, the campaign could be predicated on the environment Manitobans live in.
Family Friendly. Manitoba – you can raise your kids with big city amenities and a small town sense of community.
Business Friendly. Manitoba – ok, this one is going to take a lot more work. But if a government could show prospective businesses it was serious about cleaning up the Crocus mess and being fair to both business AND labour (unfortunately forced unionization of major capital projects will have to go), this could be another plank in the campaign.
Friendly Manitoba is how many Manitobans do view themselves. As such, it wouldn’t have to go through the silly sell-job that was the first phase of Spirited Energy. I think the campaign would speak to the work-life balance most Manitobans seem to have achieved.
You make a fair point, but there’s A LOT of groundwork required before I could endorse a campaign like that. Especially on the business side of the equation.
I think it really comes down to my belief that place branding is silly, and slogans are completely pointless if they’re not backed up with demonstrable actions or experiences.
We’d all be better off spending our time and energy building a province that people and businesses want to come to, rather than marketing a false vision of Manitoba today.
Build it and they will come.
Well, that’s not quite right either Froggie.
I *heart*
NY
Things Are Bigger In Texas
What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas (though that’s been dropped for the “Your Vegas Is Showing” because too many husbands were stumbling on the “Did you go out and get a lap dance?” question)
The Show Me State
The Windy City
Music City, USA
* * * * *
Not the least to mention, that you could name at least another dozen cities and states (and provinces) that have built up their reputations on having a distinct culture about them. (Think Newfoundland, New Orleans, Nova Scotia, other N-related jurisdictions.)
In the end, I believe this whole discussion is falling towards a discussion about Manitoba’s identity – or possibly the lack thereof.
It seems we’ve got a few different things going on here. For starters, I never should have used the “Big Apple” example, because it (like most of the examples you cite) really is a nickname, not a tourism slogan or positioning statement.
“What Happens in Vegas…” actually is a good example of a great marketing campaign, but it has a foundation. Vegas is the kind of place that people go to let loose and get in trouble. And it has all the appropriate ingredients to do so: booze, gambling, hot clubs and women.
The problem with both “Spirited Energy” and “Friendly Manitoba” is that they’re based on nothing of substance.
In the first case, unless someone engages in some sort of aboriginal tourist experience, the whole “spirited” thing is going to miss them. And the “energy” part is laughable. New York has energy, Tokyo has energy, even Calgary has energy. By comparison, Winnipeg is pretty sleepy.
As for our legendary friendliness, I can’t honestly say if that’s even true. Are we really any more friendly than folks from Saskatchewan or North Dakota or Iowa or Minnesota? I think it’s more of a Midwest/Prairies thing than specifically a Manitoba trait. I also think folks from the Atlantic provinces are pretty amiable in their own right. And as for the visitor experience, I find employees in the tourist and retail trades are much friendlier south of the border than they are here.
So in the end, I agree this is about Manitoba’s identity, and I think it hasn’t been very well defined by anyone yet.
“It’s a warm cold” and it will fit on your license plate