And our new brand is …

The soon-to-be-launched new marketing brand is still too generic and does not pinpoint the area or promote the Alpine Shire's greatest tourism asset and its most recognisable attraction - i.e. the town of Bright.

 The ‘Secret’ is out – and so is Bright by the look of it

The Alpine Council and its tourism committee, Alpine Region Tourism Board (ARTB), has secretly decided on a new marketing brand for the Alpine Shire area – without consulting and/or obtaining the consent of the wider local industry and the special ratepayers who fund this operation. The decision was made at ARTB’s August 13 meeting and ratified at the September council meeting, although the actual brand name is not mentioned in the minutes of either meeting.  ARTB’s chair John Kroeger is quoted in this week’s Bright Observer as saying they’re “keeping it under wraps until the launch” (at a yet-to-be-announced paid dinner function),  however, I am 99.9% sure that the new brand they are about to impose on us is “Great Alpine Valleys” followed by the tag line, “Victoria’s Great Escape”. I base this on the minutes from ARTB’s 29 July meeting, which they have finally put up on the council’s website:  

8.2 Branding
Marketing solutions has provided a report following the focus groups in Melbourne. The report favoured – Great Alpine Valleys and the tag line Victoria’s Great Escape. They are now working on the style guide. The logo has gone back to the drawing board to make the small adjustments as per the board’s requests. Marketing Solutions will organize a launch once the board is happy. An exit strategy for the current brand will have to be drafted.

And also on this excerpt from the August 13 ARTB meeting, which rather bizarrely refers to the brand by a secret code name of “Concept 01″ !! (It doesn’t take much imagination to work out that “Concept 01″ would most likely be the brand “favoured” at the previous meeting!):

6.3 Branding

…. A branding project was undertaken earlier this year, with much community consultation (*)

…. The board viewed the final concepts for logos – the board prefer concept 01, with the curved strap line. The logo will be trademarked and URL will be registered.

The launch will be late September with key speakers Roger Grant, from Otways Tourism

… The event will be held at the Red Stag Restaurant.

So we are supposed to pay for and attend a special dinner function to find out what the new brand is? Well, not now ! 

As for the (*) ”much community consultation” referred to above, I find that rather puzzling. I don’t recall any general invitation being issued to me or any other local tourist operator to participate in the branding workshops that were apparently conducted earlier this year as part of the branding project. 

I suppose that’s because I wasn’t one of the chosen few “invited individuals” who were asked to participate in this secret process, as per the ARTB minutes from May 29 . : 

8.3 Alpine Shire Branding

…. workshops with Total Marketing Solutions and invited individuals are in place for the next two weeks in Mount Beauty, Myrtleford, Harrietville and Bright. An ARTB member will attend each of the workshops

…. On 23 June there will be a meeting for all (of the) region at the Ovens Valley Motor Inn 10am-2pm.

Yes, a secret meeting for “all” who were “invited” to attend! Obviously they didn’t want anyone there who might think the word “BRIGHT” should be part of the new brand.

Comment:

There are two key issues here – the merits or otherwise of the new brand, and the process that was used to develop and approve it. 

I’ll start with my opinion on the brand. I’ll try to be as succinct as possible in summing up why I think the Great Alpine Valleys is the wrong choice and why I believe it simply won’t work - and what we should have instead:

There is nothing in the words “Great Alpine Valleys” that would lead consumers seeing it advertised to associate it with the Alpine Shire and its main valley towns of Bright, Myrtleford & Mt Beauty. Consumers don’t travel to “shires”, they travel to specific destinations and they recognise those key destinations, especially one as well known and as popular as Bright.

Sure, there is some relevance in the words “Great Alpine”, as the Great Alpine Road runs through the shire. But it also runs through Wangaratta & East Gippsland shires, all the way from Wang to Lakes Entrance in fact. Furthermore, the name of the road is NOT well known in the market place and I seriously doubt that consumers will pick up on the connection.

But the real test of any brand is market awareness. And I would suggest that if you asked 1,000 average consumers in Melbourne, “Where are the Great Alpine Valleys?”, not one of them would know. They would probably “guess” it’s somewhere in the mountains -  and they might even think it’s in the French or Swiss Alps! – but there is no way that this brand connects with and identifies the valleys in this shire any more than the valleys in quite a few other regions.

In fact, when Tourism Victoria was looking to re-brand the wider region stretching from Mansfield through this area and up to the Murray River that was known as “Legend Wines & High Country” a few years ago, their surveys revealed that the market did not associate the word “Alpine” as being in Australia, and regarded it as more referring to Europe. Consequently (unlike our council) they chose to leave the word out of their new brand.

If the idea is to eventually build brand awareness so that the market does (eventually) connect it to this area, I would suggest that would be a long time coming and take a very concerted and costly campaign to get the message across. Why put ourselves behind the eight-ball by starting out with a brand that has no real identity attached to it? Why push our barrows uphill when we already have a brand (Bright) that is instantly recognisable in the market place? It doesn’t make any sense to invent a new brand to describe this area when the customer you are aiming it at has never heard of the area being described that way before.

ARTB’s new brand is just as generic as the one it will replace, “Victoria’s Alpine High Country”. And, as the key marketing brand that will be promoted in the hope of attracting more tourists to the shire, it is just as useless. 

So why not simply add ”Bright and” to this new brand creating “Bright & the Great Alpine Valleys” ? 

This would create instant recognition in the market place and pinpoint the area. Tourism Victoria studies have revealed that Bright is one of the most recognised destinations in the State and, while I realise that brands are about creating a wider image of the general area and are not about promoting specific township destinations, the fact is that consumers associate ”Bright” with those very same images, particularly the image of spectacular and beautiful scenery.

Bright is a very powerful and iconic “brand” in its own right and to incorporate it into the brand name for the shire not only widens the brand’s appeal, it also identifies the area that we are trying to promote. While operators from the other towns might resent this suggestion and see it as putting too much focus on Bright, let’s be realistic here:

(1) The fact is that 80% or more of the shire’s tourist industry exists in and around the town of Bright so of course it should get a lot of the focus.

(2) When tourists visit Bright they ALSO visit (and spend money in) other parts of the shire. 

(3) Successful tourist regions are built by focusing on the key destination first and then building the brand as the region grows. That is how “The Gold Coast” started – by first concentrating its marketing entirely on Surfers Paradise. The wider generic brand of “The Gold Coast” only came about following the great success that the “Surfers Paradise” brand had created for the whole region.

Bright is such a long established and renowned tourist town that it clearly warrants being promoted as a region, not just as a town. The Alpine council is indeed fortunate to have a town that is so well known and well regarded in the market place, and they should have no hesitation in using the name of Bright to promote the whole shire. And it’s NOT about being ‘Bright-centric’, it’s about piggy-backing on Bright’s good name and taking advantage of it for the benefit of the whole shire.

Anyway, here are my preferred brands. I think we could substitute “North East Valleys” for “Great Alpine”, as that would help to identify the area even further. I also think we should take advantage of the word “Beautiful”, which is what the vast majority of consumers associate with this area and particularly with Bright.

Whatever the ‘mix’ of words, it simply MUST have Bright in it – and we simply MUST be consulted before this goes any further:

Bright & the Great Alpine Valleys

Beautiful Bright & the Great Alpine Valleys

Bright & the North East Valleys

Beautiful Bright & the North East Valleys

 

The secret process & decision

As for the process that ARTB and the council have engaged in to come up with this new brand, I’m going to speak frankly here. After all, it looks like this decision is non-negotiable and we are just going to be saddled with their ridiculous choice:

I find it truly bizarre – and downright disgraceful - that ARTB and the Alpine Council would conduct its re-branding exercise under such a veil of secrecy and only include certain “invited individuals” in the procedure.

Just who the hell do these people – Council, council tourism staff, the CEO and ARTB – think they are? What makes them think they ‘own’ the local tourist industry? And by what God-given right do they dare to impose a new marketing brand on us without first obtaining widespread local operator consensus?

I fully realise that not all operators are ‘expert’ when it comes to the finer details of what makes a good marketing brand and what doesn’t but, for Christ’s sake, it is OUR industry, not yours, and we are the ones that you are supposed to be working for. We pay you a special rate, remember? 

Do you get it? You work for us and therefore you must consult with us before you go branding our industry and our livelihood with something we’re likely to be stuck with for years and years to come.

So I suggest that you call some more forums – open to ALL operators, not just “invited individuals” – and get the reactions of the operators BEFORE a decision is made … and before you go ahead and waste more of our money under yet another useless tourism brand.