Q&A: Head of Calgary Economic Development defends Blue Sky City

How do you feel about Calgary's new marketing brand of Blue Sky City?

Love it? Hate it? Don't care?

To hear the president and CEO of Calgary Economic Development (CED) tell it, the buy-in from key tourist attractions and the corporate sector has been strong.

But Brad Parry acknowledges there are critics. Some don't like the brand while other detractors are angry about the $5.8 million in public money that will be spent.

CED and Tourism Calgary worked together on the brand project. CED received $1.8 million from the City of Calgary while Tourism Calgary will get$4 million for its work over a four-year period.

Parry said six Calgary companies were involved in creating the brand and that cost $750,000. The rest of the money will be spent on funding promotional campaigns, activations for the new brand and initiatives that build brand awareness about Calgary.

The local companies thathelped create Blue Sky City are Daughter Creative, ZGM, Stone-Olafson, Stormy Lake Consulting, Ask Auntie Consulting and Joe Media.

Following the recent rollout of the logos for Blue Sky City, Parry sat down with CBC News to talk about the new brand. Theinterview has beenedited for length and clarity.

CBC News: What's your assessment of how the launch of Blue Sky City has gone so far?

BradParry: Obviously, there'sbeen some comments on both sides of the fence. But I think, overarching, it's been very positive, especially from our community partners, to be honest with you. I've had so many people come up to me and, literally, we have some merchandise that we wear and people are asking to take those pins off of my person because they wanted to have it. But more importantly, I think what people start to understand is the strategy that went in behind it. I was at an event the other last week when I first got back (from a recent CED trip to Japan) and I was sitting between two people. One person said, I absolutely hate it. The other person said I absolutely love it. And I wentperfect. Because you know what? It's not beige, right? It's not in the middle. People either love or hate it. And then once you start explaining where it is, people go, yeah, I can see that. So yeah, I'm very bullish and pretty happy with the way things have been received.

CBC: For the development of Blue Sky City, the companies involved actually weren't paid much of the total budget on a percentage basis. Yet many critics believe all of the money went to those who created the three-word brand. Is that misconception disappointing to you or does it matter?

Parry:People tend to go to the top line right away. At Calgary Economic Development, we're stewards of public funds and we take that responsibility incredibly seriously. And so it's our job to make sure we get the best ROI[return on investment] for all the dollars that we spend. And I can tell you between Stormy Lake, ZGM, Daughter, Stone, Ask Auntieand Joe Media, we made sure we worked with them for them to understand how important this was for the community and how they have to do their part. We made sure we worked with our local creative team because I believe we have amazing creative talent in our city. We have amazing strategic talent in our city. We don't have to go to New York or Boston or Toronto to find somebody to help unearth what our brand was about. And so we were very intentional to make sure we worked and got to use the talent that we have in our community. But I've got to stress most of the money in the budget is going to be used for campaign, for rollout, for asset development. And I think that's one thing that when we first announced this, we didn't get into the details. We probably should have been a little bit more clear on that.

CBC: Some people remain unhappy with this new brand. How do you respond to criticism that this is a waste of money or that the brand is boring?

Parry:I would argue that if you actually go back and look at what happened the last few times, whether it's the Heart of the New West or Be Part of the Energy, you would see the same reaction. There was always going to be a group of people who weren't happy with it, that thought it was wrong, that it was a waste of money. This [new brand]wasn't something that just came out of the blue. You know, when I first came here, it'll be five years in September, one of the things for me was to come in and start to look at our brand as a city. What do we need to do? How do we change? How do we start taking control of our narrative? Because again, too many people were telling Calgary's story without that sense of understanding. Obviously, that got put on hold with the pandemic and going through COVID. And so that work started to pick up again. And so this was something that's been thought of for a while. It wasn't sort of a last-second thing. I get what people are saying and I respect the opinions, but it's the long play for us here.

CBC: Apart from personal opinions, how is the success or failure of a brand actually measured?

Parry:I think it's a combination of things. It's a combination of adoption, people wanting to buy it, but it's also a combination of perception. How are people's perceptions? Do they see it? What does that resonate with them? So we do that research all the time, but I've got tostress, perception doesn't happen overnight. Changing perceptions is a tough game. But again, consistency of message all the way through for us is what's really, really important. And for us, it's about that consistency. At the end of the day, it always comes back, that underpinning of Blue Sky City and unexpected possibilities. So as a marketer, yeah, I hope it has legs for the next 10 to 15 years. Absolutely. Do I believe it can? Yes, I do.