The sketched lines of a civic marketing campaign are on the drawing board at Initiatives Prince George.
While IPG has had success in recent job fairs to attract skilled workers to the region, and built a comprehensive set of website tools to tell the Prince George story to the world, there has been no multidimensional outreach.
This is now underway after the filling of some vacant positions. The IPG team is back up to full roster with the addition of marketing/communications manager Christina Doll and business development manager Dave Jephcott. They, and CEO Heather Oland, are now building a full marketing plan for boosting the city's fortunes.
"It is a highly collaborative time in the community, right now," said Oland. "We won't be taking a scatter-gun approach to our marketing strategy, it will be carefully targeted, deliberate, and designed to deliver."
The challenge, she said, was getting the Prince George story understood in the Lower Mainland, urban Alberta, Ontario, and other places where the ratio is steep between employment opportunities and cost of living.
"A lot of people in the Lower Mainland don't even think about Prince George, or know it exists," said Doll.
"The key is changing the conversation about Prince George," Jephcott said.
The best thing about Prince George right now, Oland added, is there is no "spin" required. The truth about the city is compelling - house prices, commute times, employment levels, family amenities, social circles, etc. - relative to most other places in Canada.
"We are in it," Oland said. "It's not a message about what our potential will be one day. We aren't on the verge of something, it is happening right now. And the offerings we have are real. We are a very successful city. We have all the ingredients."
