What is Neepawa? We’ll find out soon enough
- Details
- Published on Sunday, February 25, 2018
Eoin Devereux
Neepawa Banner & Press
The effort to launch Neepawa’s new brand is a step closer to becoming a reality. A task force, consisting of local municipal and business leaders, received a creative brief from Travel Manitoba on Tuesday, Feb. 13. The brief focused on ideas for generating new opportunities in tourism and launching a coordinated branding effort for the area. While the specific details of the Travel Manitoba creative brief will not be released until the final brand strategy is officially unveiled, the early draft of the campaign does appear to place emphasis on targeting cultural explorers attracted to niche tourism.
Specific mention was given to heritage, horticulture, literary/canadiana and craft/micro brew enthusiasts. Neepawa’s proximity to Brandon, Minnedosa and Clear Lake, could also be leveraged to draw in highway travellers, if not for overnight stays, at least to spend a half-day. These examples are all just suggestions from Travel Manitoba as to where the focus could be placed. The task force discussed the results of the brief and a reply was sent back to Travel Manitoba, informing them on how to proceed.
Neepawa economic development officer Marilyn Crewe said the initial brief was assembled by Travel Manitoba and McKim Communications Group, the company directly involved in shaping the brand. Crewe said their initial assessment of the community’s strengths was interesting.
“We knew that bringing someone in from outside of Neepawa was going to give us a little bit of a different perspective, which is what we wanted. A group of us [from Neepawa] have certain ideas about Neepawa and what’s great about it and we get a little attached to that. This outside perspective was what we needed to provide a foundation to develop a brand that speaks to people outside of Neepawa. That’s who we want to attract,” stated Crewe. “McKim has this type of expertise. They’ve done this in other communities and the feedback seems to suggest, that it’s working in those communities.”
Crewe did add, however, that once the brand is created, Neepawa must understand that it must continue to evolve.
“We must be careful. We can’t just look at it as though we have a brand and now we’re done. We need to have a good plan in place for the future. How can it evolve a year from now? Two years? Five years from now, in order to leverage the assets we have here in Neepawa, both big and small. How do we continue to build a strong tourism product?”
As for the process of creating the initial plan, McKim is currently finalizing the first draft of the tourism brand, which will include a logo. It’ll come back to the task force for review and edit and then a final product will be ready to be unveiled. An official brand and tourism launch will then be scheduled, with the hope that it will be ready to go for the early summer.
