Rebranding Calgary using Citizen Values: A problem of design

Jared Andres, Kevin Chaney, Nicole Pinto, Cheryl Robinson, Joleen Toner

Image courtesy of Google Maps (Google, 2021)

A City of Energy

What comes to mind when you think of ‘Calgary’? When our group asked this question, we unanimously settled on two key tropes: cowboys and oil. Despite being Calgarians ourselves (some born and raised, other recent additions), we were acutely aware of these images associated with our city both nationally, and internationally.

Calgary’s tagline in particular captured our attention. Be Part of the Energy was initially launched in 2011 to attract talent in the midst of boom-related labour shortages, but was later incorporated into the overall promotional brand of the city (Klingbeil, 2016). While the reference to energy was originally intended to refer to the energy of workers and businesses, it also alluded to the strength of Calgary’s prominent oil and gas sector (Tucker, 2015).

The nod to the energy industry in Calgary’s promotional brand presents risk. For decades we have known about the link between burning fossil fuels and its effects on climate change (Understanding Global Climate Change, n.d.). This source of energy has often been vilified for being not only unsustainable (Science in the News, 2015), but also socially and environmentally irresponsible. At this year’s F1 Grand Prix in Montreal (which had over 1.7 million viewers globally (Chauhan, 2022)), German World Champion Sebastien Vettel made headlines for his helmet art, which called out Canadian oil sands as being a “climate crime” (Cooper, 2022). Needless to say, Calgary’s image as a hub for oil and gas has received some pretty bad press.

As Calgarians, we know that there is so much more to the city. Of course, the Calgary Stampede is an international spectacle that boasts being “the greatest outdoor show on Earth” (Calgary Stampede, 2022), but take a walk down 17 Ave and you’ll be captivated by a vibrant culinary scene. Graffiti art murals, music festivals in Prince’s Island Park, and candle-lit concerts make up a fraction of Calgary’s bustling art scene. Even the city’s cultural diversity and efforts to put indigenous culture and heritage front and centre is inspiring.

With all of these ‘other’ (ie. non-oil and gas sector) activities in the city, in addition to the fact that our team members do not work in oil and gas, made us realize that there is a significant disconnect between the city’s representation of Calgary, and how the community actually experiences it.

In order to identify our problem, we needed to take stock of the social, historical, and economic contexts leading to this disconnect. We started by completing the What’s your problem worksheet (Hans, 2020).

What’s Your Problem worksheet by Kris Hans, 2020.

From this exercise, we noted that Calgary is a changing city with a diverse demographic. Not only does the city’s image affect the people who live here–cue eye rolls for relatives who ask us about living in the ‘wild west’ — but it also impacts decisions of prospective visitors, industries and investors, as well as newcomers. With this in mind, we initially discussed the problem: The current city tagline isn’t a good representation of what Calgary is and where it’s going.

This disconnect can have future impacts, as not having a unifying motto or mission statement can affect how the city shapes its identity, drums up civic pride, and influences long term investments and commitments (Friedman, 2014). After a quick discussion about what a city tagline should do and why Calgary’s is missing the mark, we simplified the problem: Slogans are meant to inspire people and be a community’s mission statement. The current city tagline isn’t a good match for Calgary and it needs to be modernized.

Next, we considered how we might reframe this problem. We looked at the potential impact of success and failure in addressing it, and considered possibilities and how we might approach it.

Reframe Your Problem worksheet by Kris Hans, 2020.

The Reframe Your Problem (Hans, 2020) exercise helped to confirm that the problem could be framed in terms of engaging, attracting, modernizing, and diversifying. Our initial analysis suggested that there was more than one target audience for the tagline.

Clarifying the Problem with Empathy: A tagline with human-centred design

At this point we asked ourselves: How can we restructure the relationship between citizens, investors, and professionals on one hand, and the tagline on the other? Focusing on the connection between the end-users and the product (in this case, the tagline) is key so the problem can be more intuitive (Kolko, 2015). In other words, how might we go about treating the impact of the tagline as a design problem?

Given the influence that taglines have in galvanizing the support of citizens and investors toward civic commitments (Friedman, 2014), we saw the opportunity to apply the principles of human-centred design to ensure that the tagline speaks to the needs and concerns of the user. In this sense, we are taking an inclusive approach to defining technology across the social dimension, and considering the tagline as the cultural artifact or product (Baber, 2010).

To better understand our “end user” we used an empathy map. We decided to break this up into three categories using different colour sticky notes: Calgary residents (white), Tourists (yellow), and Industry (teal). If we were to create an empathy map outside of the context of this class, we would use focus groups and real life observation to inform this exercise. For this exercise we used assumptions, our own thoughts and feelings, as well as things we’ve heard from people in our own social circles to inform our empathy map.

Empathy map template from miro.com

Re-framing the problem, again!

The extensive time we spent on problem definition served to maximize our consideration of the problem and opportunities from various levels of abstraction (Koutstaal, 2015). After reviewing the empathy map and our steps so far, we came to recognize that the original problem we identified is not the actual problem. Our focus on just the tagline may have been too narrow, as the city’s overall branding may be driving tagline messaging. To put it another way, as cities exist to serve their citizens, it makes sense that a city’s tagline should inspire both citizens and potential citizens regarding the city’s overall brand (Burns, 2018). Therefore we asked: How do we ensure more Calgarians feel included in city branding?

As mentioned earlier, Be Part of the Energy was introduced by Calgary Economic Development in 2011 (Klingbeil, 2016). This not-for-profit corporation’s mandate involves working with “business, government and community partners to position Calgary as the location of choice for the purpose of attracting business investment, fostering trade and growing Calgary’s workforce” (Calgary Economic Development, n.d.). With this focus on the economy, it makes sense that the word ‘energy’ was included in the tagline.

We agreed that the economy was not the only factor that defined Calgary as a great city. It seemed that other things are worth highlighting: the West, the mountains, the events… all the things you can do that aren’t work-related. In fact, most recently, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Calgary as the most livable city in North America, on account of its high-rankings concerning culture, environment and education (Calgary Economic Development, 2022). We wanted to have a better look at this emphasis on the economy, so we employed the Five Whys technique. This led us to rethink the problem: It’s not that the tagline isn’t inspiring, it’s that it doesn’t align with how Calgarians see or experience Calgary.

Five Whys template from miro.com

Calgary is much more than a site for hosting the head and regional offices for energy companies. It has been a logistics hub for ranching and agricultural industries. Beyond industry, Calgary has been a place for connecting people. It has connected people from around the world to the mountains, the prairies, and points beyond.

Seeing this, we considered how we might expand the perspectives included in amending the current slogan:

How might we garner more perspectives from Calgarians for a better slogan?

How might we better align the slogan with how Calgarians think of Calgary?

How might we pivot messaging to focus on non-work elements of Calgary?

In evaluating these ideas, we are able to re-frame the problem statement:

How might we better align the slogan with how Calgarians think of Calgary?

Ideation

Similar to the method used by IDEO’s Toy Lab team (IDEO U, 2017), we set a condensed time period for ourselves to come up with as many ideas as possible. We devised both novel and abstract ideas, and built on them to form more concrete ones (Walsh, 2020). Afterwards, we looked for similar themes and pulled out our favourite ideas.

We noticed that the three ideas we chose could potentially work together in the same exercise for civic engagement (i.e. our prototype). If we truly want to engage a diverse group of Calgarians in the process of developing a new city slogan, we could start with a cross-section survey of different demographics, then hold focus groups, and afterwards consult with various local organizations (Calgary Economic Development, Calgary Arts Development, Tourism Calgary, etc.) to better understand shared values.

From Idea to Prototype: Engaging citizens with the brand

Our next step was to figure out how to take these ideas to our users.

We noticed some commonalities in the ideas that came out of our brainstorming session: interviews, town halls, surveys, online forums. They all involve asking the public. This led us to think that the most appropriate item to prototype first would be a survey. We also noticed that the other two ideas that we identified could be combined with the survey into one process.

Therefore for this project, the most appropriate prototypes to use will be surveys, collaboration meetings and brainstorming sessions with local groups (economic, artistic, tourism, etc), and focus groups. In this sense, our prototype would not be the end product, but a means to the end. The survey questions are the prototype by which the user engages with aspects of Calgary’s brand and shares how it resonates with them. The various steps work together as a process to elicit feedback and requirements for the eventual slogan or tagline.

Since this project will affect people from all walks of life in the city, we will need to pay special attention to making sure that diverse stakeholder groups are included. The survey will need to go out to a wide cross-section of Calgarians and will need to include people from different ethnic groups, socio-economic backgrounds, age groups, gender identifications, neighbourhoods, and occupations. The focus groups will need to be similarly diverse.

What we are hoping to learn from the survey includes:

• How people feel about the city
• How they want the city to be recognized at the local, national, and global levels
• Some of the best things about Calgary
• Specific words that local residents use to talk about Calgary

Our prototype for civic engagement includes the following steps:

Step 1: Use a survey to garner ideas from the public.

Step 2: Work with partner organizations (Calgary Economic Development, CADA, tourism Alberta, etc.) to come up with new slogan ideas.

Step 3: Get feedback on a short list of slogans from focus groups.

Suggested survey questions:

1. What words come to mind when you think of Calgary?
2. What is your favourite thing about Calgary?
3. What do you like to do in Calgary?
4. How do you feel about living in Calgary?
5. What do you want people to know about Calgary?
6. What makes Calgary a great place to live?
7. What makes Calgary a great place to work?
8. What makes Calgary a great place to play?
9. What is your favourite cultural event in Calgary?
10. What is your favourite arts event in Calgary (music, theatre, dance, etc.)?

One outcome of the survey could be to create word clouds for each question. Using the word clouds, the team can identify common themes and use those to guide ideation when coming up with ideas for the new slogan.

What we are hoping to learn from the collaboration with partners includes:

• Alignment between key stakeholders
• Input from industry, arts, tourism, and others
• Expertise from local organizations

During the focus group sessions, we will present a short list (3–5) of possible new slogans. These slogans will be built from what we learned from the survey and collaborative sessions with key stakeholders. Similar to the survey, we will be paying special attention to make sure that the people that make up the focus groups come from a variety backgrounds in order to ensure that we are capturing as much diversity of thought and opinions as possible.

Some potential questions to ask during the focus group sessions:

• Please rank the proposed slogans in order of preference.
• Does one proposed slogan stand out to you as better than the others?
• Why?
• Do any of the proposed slogans not align with your perception of Calgary?
• Why?
• What would you change about it/them?
• How do the slogans make you feel?
• Do you feel that your top ranked slogan is a good slogan for Calgary?
• If yes, what do you like about it?
• If no, what would you change about it?

By using these prototypes, we get to uncover non-starters before investing too heavily in the solution. The success of the prototype lies in its effectiveness in helping us learn about what works for the users (Hans, n.d.). In this sense, it refers to knowing what Calgarians value about their city, and how they want to see that represented.

Harnessing Energy to Create Something New

In 2014–2015, on the cusp of a major economic downturn, Calgary updated its economic strategy to give greater prominence to entrepreneurship, innovation, talent, and community (Calgary Economic Development, 2014). The updated strategy, called Building on our Energy, leveraged the old tagline while acknowledging the changing business environment.

Since that time, the need for an energy transition has been more broadly recognized, to reduce the carbon intensity of industry, and scale up adoption of low-carbon innovations and alternatives (Fletcher, 2020). Fortunately, investment in Calgary has been increasing in recent years in a variety of non-traditional industries (Mitchell, 2022). The process we’ve outlined here is intended to harness and facilitate this broader pivot.

Our prototypes provide the means to test out new emerging ideas from Calgary’s greatest stakeholders — its citizens. We would use the outcomes of the survey to inform additional iterations of consultations with focus groups (and additional surveys). Suggestions may have to be re-visited to ensure that the problem isn’t rushed into conscripted solutions that end up re-designing an old solution for a world that is moving on (Girling & Palaveeva, 2017). Rather, design thinking offers a way to support the emergence of a better brand and tagline for Calgary with a process that is inclusive and engaging to ultimately deliver an inspiring solution.

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