Get A Life in Canada’s Most Notorious City – Advertising Campaign

In 2021, Moose Jaw City Council identified a priority for the Economic Development team: market our quality-of-life advantages.

We started with two questions:

• When someone lives in Moose Jaw, what do they get?
• What message can we create that is consistent with our ‘Notorious’ brand?

The answer? In Moose Jaw you get all the things that add up to a #NotoriouslyTerrific quality of life. In short, you can Get A Life.

Campaign goals:

• Tell our story to those who live outside of Moose Jaw through social media advertising.
• Tell a story that resonates with Moose Jaw residents, by using Moose Jaw residents in the story. Our residents are our best ambassadors and can be influential in selling our city to others.
• Convert campaign viewers into potential residents.

EFFECTIVENESS

On July 28, 2022, the “Get A Life” campaign was launched at the Regina International Airport, bolstered by two Get A Life videos reinforcing the key messages. A social media campaign with the videos was launched across Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba and ran from August 1-December 31, 2022.

In April 2023, we began a social media campaign featuring 15-second Get A Life videos, and have focused our efforts in the Regina area. (Campaign stats are attached.) As of July 31, the MooseJaw.ca/GetALife URL had received 5,167 page views.

ENGAGEMENT

Get A Life has engaged multiple community stakeholders:

• Residents/business owners/Mayor featured in the campaign videos.
• Over 20 Moose Javians attended our campaign launch, including reps from the MJ & District Chamber of Commerce, Tourism Moose Jaw, Downtown Moose Jaw Association, Moose Jaw Multicultural, Moose Jaw MLAs and members of City Council.
• We were able to strengthen our relationship with the Regina Airport Authority and to this day, there is a Get A Life banner (with QR code to the GAL web page) in the Departures area of the YQR Airport.
• The new URL, moosejaw.ca/GetALife was created with significant input from the Moose Jaw Multicultural Council.
• The creation of an Applied Research project from Saskatchewan Polytechnic. From an email written by Megan Patterson, Business Instructor at Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Moose Jaw campus:

“After our discussion about the campaign the city is running to attract more residents, it occurred to me that the easiest way to grow the city would be to retain a higher % of the international students graduating from SaskPolytech. The research would be to find out from international students what they need to experience/see in a smaller community to choose it as a place of residence post graduation.”

They received the funding, and the project is near completion.

The campaign has also proven useful to recruiters. HumanEdge Executive Search was contracted by the City of Moose Jaw in 2022 to target a new City Manager.

“When recruiting, it’s not just about promoting a job – it’s about promoting a community. We find that the entire family has a say in the decision to move for opportunity. The Get A Life campaign is a fun, creative, and valuable tool that effectively showcases Moose Jaw’s quality of life advantages to potential new residents.” – Todd Sharpe, Managing Director at The Municipal Services (TMS) Group, Partner at HumanEdge Executive Search, President at TMS Sports Strategies.

Sustainable Practices:
Get A Life can easily be applied to any aspect of Economic Development promotion, and we have continued to expand our usage. Two recent examples include:

• The City is creating a new Official Community Plan. We are marketing the engagement process as “Get A Plan For Life”.
• We will begin placing “for sale” signs on all available City land – the signs will have the City logo and the phrase “Get A Life Realty”.

VIDEO LINKS:

Campaign Launch at FlyYQR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4sehrJDM2o

Testimonial Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjmbqQ97_sA

Launch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RyoI0D_04Y