City invests in branding again

The City of Port Alberni will be spending half-a-million dollars on a rebranding campaign over the next 10 years.

20 years ago the city invested in a rebranding campaign that resulted in “Bear Tracks and Lumberjacks”, a line Councillor Cindy Solda remembers well.

“I hope we don’t bring back bear tracks or anything like that,” she said. “I didn’t have much faith in it when it came to council back in the day. I realize how important it is, but it has to be the right one and ‘bear tracks and lumberjacks’ just wasn’t the right one for our community.”

Mayor Sharie Minions says lessons were learned and she’s hoping for better results this time.

 “We’ve learned a lot through a number of initiatives that we’ve done around branding and we’ll make sure that if we are going to move forward with a full rebranding that there is community buy-in, and council approval first and foremost in place,” she said.

A company called WILL in Vancouver will be leading the project.