Envision Saint John: The Regional Growth Agency has a mandate to promote the Saint John Region as the ideal place to live, do business, visit and invest. The agency represents seven municipalities in the Saint John Region including a major port city, residential communities and nature-hoods.
Our challenge was to take our diverse communities, in very different stages of their own place brand, and find a cohesive brand identity that they could all see themselves in. Not only did the brand need to work for the region as a whole – we needed each municipality to get behind it and begin to adapt their own tools to reflect this new cohesive place brand.
With a vision to be a growing, vibrant, and dynamic region – we got to work. We conducted an online survey of 407 participants, and our CEO went on a regional listening tour.
The value proposition built on the entrepreneurial spirit of the region coupled with its extensive resume of “firsts” including the first …. was validated and Always Moving Forward became our place brand promise, along with a comprehensive set of brand guidelines that were developed in April 2022 and an inaugural place brand campaign was launched that Fall.
With aggressive 10-year growth outcomes for the region, including growing the population by 25,000, we recognized that a barrier to sustainable population growth is labour force vacancies. In 2023, there were 3,040 vacancies across multiple sectors throughout the region. Through consultation with the ecosystem, a comprehensive talent strategy was developed to identify gaps and it was acknowledged that we have a labour force emergency. .
We leaned into this challenge by leveraging our new regional place brand for a talent retention and attraction campaign that was executed in 2023 to share Saint John Region talent story.
Our objectives were clear:
When determining our target audience, we had three areas of focus. We knew we wanted to connect with youth in the region, we wanted to attract new talent via a targeted campaign in Ontario for relocation of the working age population, and we wanted to retain our local workforce.
We engaged with local post-secondary institutions, employers ranging from global headquarters to start-ups, and we shared the story of the possibilities that are available for career growth and a strong quality of life. Engaging on platforms like TikTok and connecting with young professionals to send targeted LinkedIn InMail – we broke through the noise to connect with the Gen Z demographic in a meaningful and impactful way.
From a digital standpoint, our youth talent campaign saw strong engagement with our personalized LinkedIn InMail tactic coming in at a 54% click through rate (CTR). These messages came from local young professionals and focused on three streams – opportunities, work/life balance, and building a future close to home.
Meta brought in 1.2 million impressions, TikTok saw 120,000 impressions – and our Cost per click (CPR) was strong on Google (.60 cents) and via Programmatic ads (.88 cents). We also strategically partnered with youth centric events to showcase the campaign video to live audiences.
It is because of a strong, authentic and adaptable place brand that we are able to successfully apply that brand to the talent campaign, which we continue to adjust and evolve through our work today.
Videos:
Attraction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGgGokVe6EQ
Retention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1NoJ-gsubo
Youth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2kxQiQllyo