Reaching out: How Canadian cultural organizations succeed through better branding.

Balle Balle Balle!

It’s been a fruitful year at Armada and we’ve been fortunate enough to work with a number of companies and non-profit organizations on some rather comprehensive branding programs. Among them the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration (VIBC) has been one of our most notable. They are a Vancouver based non-profit organization dedicated to “elevating and promoting the Indian dance form of Bhangra, while strengthening the community we live in”.

Our scope of work with VIBC was significant and naturally there were many lessons and insights learnt along the way. What better excuse to share our experiences than through a brand-new article on our blog?

We’ve selected a few of the most relevant lessons we feel are translatable to other non-profit and culturally focused organizations. Enjoy!

Decide what’s most important

Although its unlikely profit is your only motivating factor, the cultural space in Canada has become fiercely competitive in recent years – now more than ever as more organizations compete for shrinking grants and less public sector funding. On his CBC show “Q”, Jian Ghomeshi recently pointed out that none of the major federal parties had made cultural funding a priority in recent elections. “The arts and culture sector employs as many people as the combined sectors of agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil, gas, and utilities” Jian notes, “yet the levels of public money, industrial incentives and support [and] tax breaks that go into culture are disproportionately low.”

With such obstacles the obvious question is: how to stand out? This is where established businesses with healthy marketing budgets and shoe-string non-profits share a common need: knowing what to say and how to say it clearly and with purpose.

Of all the traps non-profits and cultural organizations fall into, this is perhaps the most common and least realized: saying too many things to too many people. Understandably you’d like to communicate all of the amazing work that you’re involved in, whether you’re hosting a large cultural festival or assisting in grassroots community work. Consider the priority of those messages, though. Is it vitally important for people to hear about a specific initiative you’re working on, or is your mission more crucial as a first impression? Is there perhaps a simpler and more succinct way of encompassing all of your various communications into one message?

Similar challenges emerged as we worked with the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration on their City of Bhangra festival.  Their mandate extended not just to promoting the festival but more broadly to elevating the art form of Bhangra and firmly establishing Vancouver as a world hub for innovative Bhangra music and dance. To this end the messaging for the festival had to address a number of objectives: promote the events and performances, introduce Bhangra to newcomers, provide information on VIBC, and engage audiences outside Vancouver and throughout the lower mainland. Our challenge centered on finding a way to bridge these objectives through a key message. After a rather lengthy deliberation, “We Are Bhangra” was born.

Developing a key message (or ‘positioning statement’) such as “We Are Bhangra” helped VIBC in a number of ways:

• It piqued interest in Bhangra among people who had little or no exposure to it, inviting discussion and discovery
• The message is inclusive, tying well into the organization’s multicultural character and relationship to Vancouver’s cultural diversity. Similarly it was important to speak not just to Vancouverties but to all citizens in the lower mainland; particularly in municipalities such as Surrey with larger South Asian populations.
• It became a strong starting point for the festival’s marketing campaign and presentation of key event content
• It also became a rallying point for the organization internally, instilling pride among volunteers and board members

‘We Are Bhangra’ clarified what VIBC had been attempting to communicate in different ways, from their desire to create a more diverse Bhangra scene in Vancouver to their attempts to spark more dialogue and debate on crucial issues within their community. The difference is that these messages are now contained in a more “digestable” key-message and coherent hierarchy.

Unique vs. Universal

For rather obvious reasons your focus is likely on those things that are distinct and specific to your cultural community. Indeed it’s precisely that diversity that helps sustain such a rich cultural landscape in Canada.

Depending on your specific aims though, there’s a good chance you’d like to expand your reach to other communities. From our experience an effective way to achieve this is through identifying themes that have relevance to other audiences and threading them into your branding or marketing campaign. Finding common points of interest can give prospective audiences outside your immediate community a more comfortable and inviting introduction to what you do and ultimately more incentive to be engaged.

In the case of VIBC, the need to reach out was engrained in the organization’s mandate. As with the other benefits mentioned, the intent of ‘We Are Bhangra’ is ultimately to invite diverse communities to feel part of a larger movement. The “we” is deliberately ambiguous: it’s an invitation to these communities to discover why Bhangra is so engaging to so many who experience it for the first time.  As with all good branding, it accurately reflects what VIBC consistently delivers on through their programming, from free downtown concerts to multicultural, collaborative percussion events and intercultural dialogue sessions.

Your marketing campaign is NOT the same thing as your brand

This is perhaps the most confusing issue to explain to cultural organization’s that host large events and festivals. There’s no avoiding the need to ensure each year’s marketing campaign is fresh, relevant, and inspiring interest among prospective audiences. However this shouldn’t be mistaken for a brand, and usually the result isn’t positive.

Marketing campaigns (perhaps with the exception of Telus) are time sensitive in nature. They serve the needs of specific objectives, such as promoting a new product or in this case an annual festival. Conversely brands are longer-term in nature. They’re consistent and reflect the broader aspirations and vision of an organization. The take-away point is that without consistent brand recognition and a sound strategy, yearly marketing campaigns can confuse rather than clarify.

In the case of VIBC, the City of Bhangra brand had been effectively non-existent. Although it’s not uncommon for festivals to reinvent their identities year to year, it had become confusing if VIBC WAS City of Bhangra, and what their relationship to one another really was. Ultimately it was preventing the festival from growing their long-term recognition among new audiences.

Establishing an ownable identity and the “We Are Bhangra” positioning statement made the brand relationship clear, encouraging recognition and brand equity for the festival, independent of VIBC’s other (and equally important ) endeavours.

Sustaining Momentum

You’ve developed your new brand, your marketing campaign worked and the event was a success. Now what? Once a signature event has passed it’s not uncommon to experience a lull in an organization. Making more effective and strategic use of an online presence is a practical and achievable way to sustain your momentum.

In VIBC’s situation the need was several fold: promote the festival on a yearly basis, market their other ongoing initiatives, keep abreast of news in the local Bhangra scene, and shore up financial support and volunteer interest year round.

The present site had become bland, lacked engagement and was hindered by an unintuitive content management system. Beyond providing essential event information, few – if any – of their organizational objectives were being served.

The new site addressed these issues through an entirely new site architecture – bold imagery utilizing their largely ignored professional photographic assets, better use of their blogging and news content, engagement points for volunteer sign-up and donations, and integration with their various social media activities. We ported the new site over to the WordPress content management system, greatly simplifying the maintenance process and allowing their in-house team to expand on the site structure as needed through WordPress’ numerous plug-ins.

The VIBC website has now become a year-round destination point and a crucial tool to the organization’s fundraising strategy.

The Take Away

If you’re involved in a cultural organization hopefully we’ve got you thinking about a few of the common issues we’ve encountered over the years. If you like what you see be sure to check out the entire case study here, and if we’ve piqued your interest you can always contact us directly.

Until next time,

S.